How to actively manage recovery: things I’ve learnt through being ill
Recovery it seems, is a process that you have to participate in — it doesn’t just happen.
Almost three months after a major diagnosis and subsequent operation, with two additional hospital admissions thanks to complications + COVID, and about three weeks hospital time to my name, I thought I should write this down.
I have mixed feelings about this time. While I hope dearly that I won’t have to be this envulnerabled (yes, this is a word I didn’t know about in November 2021) again any time soon, I also feel strongly that I want to hold onto these lessons for the rest of my life, which hopefully will be long and healthy. I’m also hugely grateful for the outcome, the realisations it’s allowed me to make, and the greater appreciation for how precious life is.
I like to think I can take succour, and refine this list, many, many decades from now.
Here goes:
It will take longer than you think
It will be easier if you are honest about this, and give yourself permission to rest
This is way easier said than done
A sympathetic medical professional can help. You maybe able to draw them into putting a specific length of time til you are ‘better’.
Even if this bares little relation to reality, or is a constantly moving feast, the anchoring can be psychologically useful and help give yourself this crucial permission.
Gavin Davies talks about this in his great little book ‘Recovery’. Buy the hard copy, it is short, and has a jolly, colourful cover
Once you are ‘better’, chances are it will be a ‘new normal’. Back to normal is illusory. Things change. That’s ok.
There may not be ‘better’, but there can always be progress, in body, mind or spirit. Thankfully, I got this one from Gavin Davies book.
Lean on others. You may have to get over your wish to be wholly independent. You aren’t and you probably never were
Pace yourself
Learning to stop before you get tired will help you immeasurably. It takes time and skill to gauge this. And it may constantly move around.
What is happening to you may - and probably does - suck immeasurably. No point pretending otherwise.
It can also be a gift.
You may find yourself having to rethink things you once held dear, rewrite scripts you once thought immutable, get out of situations that in retrospect were bad for you, your health and your sprit, and you may find new aspects of your character you never knew existed.
This can be great
Fare well. You are stronger than you think.
And remember: being a good patient means being patient. Be a good patient.