Measuring the unmeasurable

Time stands still when you're recovering. Life is put on hold while you take stock, get sleep, eat well. You walk to the end of the house and back, walk to the end of the road and back, walk to the town centre and back. Everything moves slowly around you and the rush of everyday life dissipates. No one will tell you how long it takes to recover from a burn or where you should be on the recovery timeline. It's not like breaking a leg and being told you have 2 weeks in plaster and six weeks for the bone to heal. It's a never-ending, slow drag of time.

Yet you are aware things are changing, improving. It's just happening so slowly it's barely noticeable. And that's the big problem. How do you measure progress?

For me, the first time I recognised any significant progress was when I read one of my blog posts from early in November, 'how to make each day feel successful and productive.' I couldn't believe my day to day regime. I was unable to wake up before 9am and often didn't manage to get out of bed until 11am. I could only do one thing a day, perhaps go to the supermarket or walk to the High Street. I obviously had very little stamina and had to take it easy.

Yet...I thought that I had very little stamina now but I can definitely do more than I spoke about in that post. So I have obviously come a long way. Reading this post motivated me to think more about how I can measure my progress and perhaps suggest some ideas for other people. Seeing your progress not only makes you feel good, it can give you goals to help landmark your recovery.

1. Building up stamina

This is still my main focus everyday. I hate feeling weak and tired and am following my Physio's advice. She said you can't underestimate the power of walking and told me to become aware of my posture and bring my shoulder blades into a neutral position. This helps me walk as if I have a string being pulled out the top of my head. The suggestion was to walk half an hour a day. As my Mum has a dog this is very easy for me. Walking a dog is much more enjoyable than meandering aimlessly around the town and so I have borrowed him most days.

I bought a fantastic 'well-being' journal from Paperchase and am filling it out everyday. At the beginning of the week I fill out all the exercise pages with what I want to do each day and then I tick it off each evening, once it's done. It also has space for a food diary which I've been keeping. I've chosen a sensible aim, to eat 5 fruit and veg a day as I noticed I had become really terrible at eating well. This book really motivates me, it sounds really silly but seeing your week's exercise on paper makes you realise just how much you've done.
I've also started going to Zumba again once a week and this week am trying to go to the gym again. Each minute of exercise I can do helps build up my stamina!

2. Going back to work

I decided one of the things making me depressed was that I was getting restless now I felt more well. Having all this time off might sound like a dream to all the over-worked, highly-stressed employed out there but on-going time off loses it's novelty! I decided to choose a day to go back to work. For many people, this might not be possible yet but for me it is definitely time to have something to aim towards. Previously my aim was September (I was up to my eyeballs on drugs and pretty disillusioned initially!) and it was obvious this wasn't going to happen by the time the Summer Holidays drew to a close. Then I focused on January, New Year New Start and all of that. When it materialised that I needed further rehab and was tired from the festive period, it moved to my new date, after the February half term.

This is probably my most realistic date yet and so I have informed work and am going to visit Occupational Health soon. The most important thing to remember though is planning my return sensibly i.e. staggered and to be aware that if there is a setback, it might change again.

Taking control and putting this date in place has made me feel much better.

3. Draw a timeline

Timelines are a great idea because you can plot all your achievements on them so far and what you want to achieve in the future. If you do it on a Spreadsheet it's easy to change too, it needs to be flexible! Long term goals might seem far away...because they are...but they will be achieved when the time is right. You can put as much or as little detail on it as you wish, first glass of wine, first cinema trip, first dinner out, first time you drove your car again...all these things are little steps in the right direction, small achievements to be noted. After a big accident every thing you do feels like you've never done it before.

4. Photos/diary/blog

I keep all of these. One day I'd love to sequence all my photos together like they do on nature programmes, speed them up and watch the years be compressed into seconds!

Even a diary where you do a small update on the same day each month might capture your progress.

It's far easier to be disheartened than inspired when you're recovering and trying to measure the unmeasurable can be depressing. Still, you should try. It's a journey worth documenting.