My mind is a swirling confusion of thoughts at the moment, as I trudge through a tricky time on many many counts. My ASD is firing on all cylinders right now and my PTSD is doing overtime.
The house
We are, dare I say, precariously close to actually achieving a start date for building works to commence. This has been a 4 year uphill battle with ACC. I am not even sure why it should be.
My wheelchair doesn’t fit in through the doors so I have never been able to use it inside. My bathroom is not accessible for me as an amputee so I have been showering in a portaloo type building for 3 years.
My house was built around 1900. It’s wooden in structure and still has some of the original scrim walls. Tightly surrounded by native trees makes in an accessible nightmare at best.
I have lived in this house equally as long as I have ever lived in any house anywhere ever in my life. I love my house.
So watching someone deliberately tear it apart is going to be incredibly hard for me to see.
I / we will have to move out, for 3+ months for the work to be completed.
The practicalities of it is that the entire house is packed up and shipped into storage. That is how major this work is.
Sky high anxiety levels
- How much warning will I get?
- Where will ACC put me up?
- What extra costs will I have during this time – cooking, laundry, etc etc
- Will the temp relocation affect my business? Will the customers stay with me?
- What if I need something I didn’t think of after my belongings are all packed up?
- Will the cats be ok? They have never had to go in a cattery before.
- Will I remember everything I need for 3 months of being homeless?
- Will the building works run to schedule?
- What if they don’t?
I could go on and on with the things I am worrying about. Even the fact that it completely bulldozes all my routines, which as an autistic is NOT GOOD AT ALL.
I know that it needs to be done. I know it will be better afterwards. But going through it is something I am dreading, to say the least. I don’t do flexibility, I don’t do change. I am autistic for goodness sake.
Pain levels and exercise
I won’t lie, pain levels these last 3-4 months have been challenging to deal with. I have not had a correctly fitting leg since May. My Lymphedema compression garment for my right leg is 7 months overdue and the rep / ordering company just keep repeatedly cocking things up.
All this means I have pain all the time, either in the left or the right leg. I can’t walk without a limp, I am even more restricted than I already was.
Cycling
I am running out of ideas.
I peeled back the training right to basics. I am making slow progress. My power stats are increasing over those shorter distances. but, I am not without pain. Claudication pain that is.
What is claudication pain?
This is pain caused by the fact that I have limited arterial flow in my left leg. So the muscles do not receive enough oxygenated blood fast enough to work properly causing me crucifying debilitating pain that stops me dead in my tracks. All I can do is sit and wait for it to pass.
Over short periods I can just about cope with this. But even with cycle battery assist on the road, as soon as I try to push the pace, I still get this same pain.
It is not fun at all. It is ruining my joy for cycling actually. I literally do not know what to do.
Here are my options as I see them:
- Give up traditional cycling
- Switch to just shorter rides, recreational rides, forget the fitness / speed / racing of any kind.
- Use the hand bike instead (I do not see this as a safe or feasible option to replace road cycling though)
Frankly I see those as all pretty shit options. So I am feeling pretty miserable about it right now.
The hand bike…. Now I really love the piece of equipment. I felt exhilarated when I was using it in parkrun. I am getting back towards the sorts of time splits I was achieving at the end of my triathlon career, on two legs. I was able to work at threshold pace while using it which I struggle to do with my legs. The aim generally stops me before then.
But, where is its place? I would not feel safe on the road (even though technically it is a legitimately roadworthy thing being a hand bike). That limits me to relatively flat trails. Does it have a place in racing? If so what? And Where?
I struggle more and more to see where my future is in triathlon. This truly is breaking my heart (all over again) I am classified as PTS4. That means
- I am not allowed to use a wheelchair OR a hand bike
- I am expected to be able to ride a regular bike
- I am expected to be able to run on two feet
- I am competing in the same class as athletes with a partial arm amputation.
The truth is, I can’t even walk more than 800m, never mind run 5km, 10km or however far is required. This classification seems grossly unfair and I have always argued this. But, they refuse to change it.
Swimming
I suspended my swim membership in June. When I am struggling to even motivate myself out the door in the morning actually getting all the way to the pool just felt like a step too far.
I really do not think I am in any better a headspace right now to even consider picking this up again.
And, I live too far away from lakes to be able to swim outside regularly. Plus outdoors I usually need someone with me to help me in and out of the water.
Where do I go from here?
reading thru all of that, I get the impression you are trapped somewhat. Time for a change?