Today I managed something huge, I could say the negatives like how anxious I way and the symptoms flare and payback but I want to focus on the victory.
My allocated nurse this morning asked me what I wanted to do today in my 1:1 time so I said I'd like to get off the ward and go outside. Normally it would just be a wonder round such as the nearby little Mandela Garden. But then I thought about giving my venture outside a purse, a mission and to challenge myself. I I looked up to see if Leeds had a Flying Tiger store which sadly they didn't but they did have a Paperchase (I'd like to shop locally but that would be too much research to find somewhere and I know that Paperchase has things I like). If I'd probably looked up going shopping yesterday anxiety would have gotten the better of me, but doing it spontaneously didn't give me much time to be anxious and I felt excited to go as back at home the range of shops is severely depleted.
So after seeing where Paperchase was I asked my nurse if there was time and staffing for us to go and there was and she thought it would be really positive.
So I got ready and off we went. To make things easier I went in the ward's electric wheelchair (which is controlled by my nurse instead of usually whereby I'd have the controller).
I did get quite anxious but my nurse just said to try and focus of things that I could see so or example a nice rucksack someone had on, or a person's sparkly jumper or the nice pattern on someone's skirt. Once we got into Paperchase I was so focused on looking at things and trying to find what I was after that everything else sort of zoned out.
I got some mini rainbow notecards, a colourful writing set and some postcards and I treated myself to a nice pen.
On the way back my anxiety had started to come down. Being in a wheelchair can be difficult, people don't hear you when you ask if you could please get past or when they walk in front of you as they don't register that you're there and then glare at you for catching their ankles. In one part of the city's shopping there was a snow machine and a boy was so busy looking at it that he full on walked into me (and it did hurt a bit), I try to look at in humorously but I was miffed that neither the nor the adults with him apologised.
We got back to the hospital but at weekends the wing where the ward is you can't get into at weekends. Both me and my nurse tried calling the ward but the phone was engaged. Thankfully the ward was on the ground floor and my nurse managed to get to attention of another staff member who let us in.
It was a huge challenge for me and a little 'well done me' moment. I'm now utterly exhausted but I'm trying to focus on the positives of today.
