I had such a good day yesterday…I can say with a degree of certainty that any residual pain  would barely qualify as a stiff neck, and even my legs worked okay…pity I couldn’t make the same claim on Monday, holy crap I was stiff after Saturday’s ten mile hike. More so on Monday than Sunday for some weird reason, it’s like they lulled me into a false sense of security before they pulled a big fat ouch out of the bag.

That worries me a bit, to be honest…its only nine weeks and three days until we depart for Cuba, and I’ve got to walk further than I did on Saturday, for five days on the bounce. With the added buggeration factor of heat and bugs…the Asshole voice keeps chipping away in the background as part of his business-as-usual campaign to undermine my confidence and make me doubt myself but he’s not really getting anywhere with it. Most of the time anyway. I’m throwing everything I’ve got at this, and I’m as determined as ever. I can do this.

Anyway, I mentioned that I’d spent a few hours at the hospital last weekend didn’t I..? I’d rocked up after taking advice from the NHS helpline with a serious pain in my neck and no ability to move my head at all, and in order to diagnose the problem they had to check me from head to toe, including all the usual observations.

They tried to take some blood, and I had to pre-warn them that my veins don’t like to give up so much as a drop without a fight. Apparently it’s because I’m fat. So sayeth the doctors anyway. That doctor. He was actually very nice, along with the medical student who was with him. And let’s be honest, he wasn’t wrong, I mean I am fat. If further proof was needed, they then attempted to take my blood pressure, and the cuff was too small…it kept pinging open. They had to go get the fat-girl cuff.

Cringe…I sat there trying to decide whether I had enough energy left to be offended/pissed off/mortified at the indignity of it all, but for once there was no voice in my head encouraging me down the road of self-pity. I suspect I was too focused on getting through the consultation, you know? They’d already told me that I wouldn’t get meds to wipe the pain until they’d ruled out non-muscular related issues, so I was very compliant in the hope that they’d just hurry the fuck up.

I couldn’t help thinking that this time last year I’d have been devastated when the young doctor stepped back into the cubicle with the fat-girl blood pressure cuff…it’s the ER equivalent of an airplane seatbelt extension, offered up to the fat lady by a young version of Doctor McDreamy. This time, I didn’t much care, to be honest – I even joked with my boy about it as I sat huddled in the cubicle trying to see the funny side of anything in order to take my mind off all the hurting.

What struck me was the change that washed over the young Doctor as he took my medical history.  As he went through his list of questions, I started talking to him about how I might have hurt myself – the day before I’d done two exercise classes, and I told him all about trying to get fit…about the circuit training, and the boxing, and the walking and about the trek and the reasons why I was doing it.

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment he stopped looking at me as a fat old woman with a face screwed up in pain, and saw instead a strong determined woman who was turning her life inside out to achieve a goal, not to mention risking life and limb in the process. But there was a definite shift in his perception…it was tangible.

As I shuffled in, he probably thought I’d strained myself reaching for the hob-nobs but by the time we left, diagnosed and drugged up to the eyeballs, I felt like I’d earned his respect. He’d clocked the grit and the determination and suddenly it felt like I was forgiven for being fat.

I can’t really call him on it, right? It wasn’t until it dawned on me that I was really going to see this this through that I started to feel respect for myself…I’ve got to tell you though, when you’re used to folk looking at you with anything on a sliding scale from pity to contempt, seeing respect in someone’s eyes when they look at you is very powerful.

I quite like it 🙂

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