Back and forth

My story over the past few weeks can best be summed up in one phrase: Back and forth. While the overall story has been good—great, in fact—there are nevertheless a few details that I find very annoying. This week gave me more examples.

Last Friday, when I wrote about my progress “Four weeks later”, I talked specifically about the gout that began, really five weeks ago today, and really kicked in the next day. Last week I said:

The gout attack that began, in earnest, four weeks ago today is finally ending. There’s now merely soreness where once there was real pain, and it's less than what I felt at the beginning of all this. A few more days and I should be ready to start walking again.

Well, not exactly.

Over the next few days, things were fairly stable, then yesterday morning I woke up in the morning with a severe pain, one that made walking quite difficult. That continued all day, even though I stayed off my foot, and into the night. It was so bad that I cancelled a meeting I had today because I just couldn’t walk.

This morning, that pain had eased back, and while walking still hurts, it’s way better than yesterday. It’s just that it’s not as good as it had been even one day earlier.

This has happened before, where the gout was getting better, only to have another flare-up. I’ve thought, and even said, that the attack was ending a few times now, only to have it flare up again. I think I’ve finally learned to avoid my optimism (well, wishful thinking…): It’ll end when it ends. I hope.

The other thing that’s happened a couple times is that I’ve pushed too hard and worn myself out, and that's because I was unable to do much of anything physical for so very long, so my stamina is gone. I’ve known that all along of course, yet I keep forgetting it and trying to do too much.

On Friday I went to the doctor, then the grocery story, then came home to clean the house because we were having family come to stay with us for the weekend. None of that is unusual, but for someone with my lack of stamina, it was a lot. The next day, I realised that I’d pushed myself a little too far because I was exhausted.

On Sunday, I went to a supporters get-together for my friend Richard Hills, who is running for Auckland Council and also for Kaipātiki Local Board (something I blogged about last month). I parked some distance away and walked up to the venue, stood around for a couple hours, then walked back to my car and drove home.

All of this was more physical than I’ve been in ages, really, and being on my feet for so long was not, in retrospect, the brightest thing I’ve ever done (although, I did sit down for part of it). It was bound to affect me.

So, entering the weekend worn out, then adding to it on Sunday left me even more tired on Monday. And, being on my feet so long on Sunday probably set the stage for the gout flare-up.

The thing is, I should have known all that would happen, because there’s nothing new in any of it. The problem—which is a weird name for it—is that I feel so well now that I simply forget my limits. And then I’m reminded of them.

So, over the past five weeks I’ve had a real back and forth with how things are going. While I now realise that much of that has been my own fault, I’ll probably forget again before things really are back to normal.

Back and forth is really part of normal life, after all.