Convalescent trek

It was the First of March and I was in hospital. I had wanted the operation to be on a Wednesday morning and that is exactly what happened. Wednesday morning 10 AM is the best time of the week for any job to be done well, people are at their peak. Mondays are a disaster, Fridays everyone is tired and the weekend pending. So there I was. Should I consider this an adventure?

The HOLeP Operation is major surgery and would take a couple of hours. Once done, I was sent home, with this huge catheter and bag on my leg, feeling extremely strange. It would be removed 6 days later and was, on a Tuesday morning. All I did was leak big time. The nurse put a pad (read adult diaper) on me and gave me a set of Pelvic floor exercises to do. I had already done some the preceding days, but now there was no catheter to catch the liguid, which poured out of me every time I moved. The operation was two weeks ago.

One step at a time

It was the 15th of March and things had improved to the point where I could go on a small trek in the nature park. It does involve a short train trip, I stood instead of sitting down. When I sit now there can be minor leaks, it's kind of like potty training, I have to learn all over again.

The lake is very high this year.

Leaving the station, I was prepared for muddy ground, due to the small amounts of rain we've had recently. My plan was to walk the main trails, slowly, and do a circular route of about a mile and half. People walk their dogs here and many are regulars. I ran across one who does this for pocket money and takes care of other peoples dogs while they are at work. We stopped for a short chat.

Continuing around, I passed some flooded ground, which had been that way since December, due to heavy rain. The water had receded a little since then, but not a lot. I was within about 5 minutes of the station at this point and carried on.

There are two ways into the station the route I was taking. One involves me passing through a very narrow gap in the fence, the other follows the remainder of the trail into upper end of the car park—I chose the first way. I knew that trains were running about 5-10 minutes late that day, so meandered slowly toward the station entrance.

A ballaster unit was sitting here, not seen one before.

Both ways the late trains meant I was on the first one within two minutes and the return train was about 4 minutes wait. Once at my station, I went into a local supermarket, bought a couple of items, stuffed them in my pocket and returned home. The entire time out was a little over 80 minutes.

I feel I have come a long way since the operation, though sleeping through the night is impossible due to having to drink 2 extra litres of water a day. It's going well enough now that I am going to cut back to my normal liquid intake and see what happens. One thing which has been noticed is that my body tells me how it is doing, so in some ways I am ahead of what the paperwork (usually declaring disasters which can happen) says.

The next day (16th), Another trek was done. A 2 hour one and I had a longer wander round. At one point, I noticed a fox and managed to grab a decent shot as it went under some bicycle stands.

Rare to see one in daylight.

Wrapping it up, I can say virtually everything has been a success and normality should happen faster than I originally thought. At the time of writing this it is 3 weeks since the operation. I reckon continuing like I am, longer trips could begin in April. By summer I hope I can save enough money and fly to Israel spending a month or so there.

. . . . . . .

Very satisfying, plus I got a foto of a fox.

Social media update

I've never liked social media, this has put it in the grave for me. Had 3 tries on Twitter. First two all I got was spam. Third time I could not log off/sign out and had to do a lot of wiping stuff on my system for security's sake. That was it—Twitter can shove it.

Mar 31, 2023