Coping with Pain During Covid19 Lockdown Day 19
It’s been an unusual week for me this week! My emotions have been up and down and in turn so has my pain! My wife Karen & I spent 4 days delivering leaflets for our local Covid19 emergency response team.
We were mindful of all the precautions and wore gloves the whole time and although it was stressful, we had a purpose and that helped enormously! We have embarked upon a new challenge from The Ramblers called #RoamSweetHome, you pick a challenge from their website, ours is Mont Blanc, and you endeavour to complete the challenge of doing a long distance track or a mountain within your home and garden and/or on your local daily walk for exercise!
The leafleting saw us walk almost 20 miles (locally) and achieve 84,541 steps and 135 flights towards our goal! Great excuse to be out walking for longer.
The whole time we were out walking and delivering leaflets I wasn’t aware of my pain, but the minute we stopped my knee started to stiffen and the pain began to increase. This reinforces the power of distraction in pain management; find something you enjoy doing that will take your mind off the pain or at least shift the focus from dead center to the side.
I imagine we are all going through a range of emotions during this uncertain time in all our lives and that has an impact on how we are experiencing pain!
While I am busy it’s easy to forget that we are in the midst of a global pandemic, but turn on the news and the shocking truth is right there. I’ve been quite upset at times this week, I doubt I’m alone in that! One minute I’m quite happy in the garden or on a local walk, the next I’m missing my grandchildren and have an overwhelming urge to cuddle them close, then I feel guilty for those thoughts because I know I am a lot luckier than some, people who are living in high rise blocks or in total isolation. I have shed tears about the massive loss of life too and I know that all these emotions are perfectly normal even if some of them are unwelcome and unwanted.
I think it’s very important that during Covid19 we try to be kind to ourselves, recognise that we are on a bit of an emotional roller coaster and that it will affect our pain but that it WILL pass, and until it does we need to find pleasure in the things we can enjoy at home, or on a local walk if that is an option for us and the more often we can do this the better our pain will be controlled.
There is a wealth of online resources available to keep us active during Covid19 and there is a list of some of them on this website, be sure to check them out, there will be something for you amongst it all.
Have a good week, stay safe and be kind to yourself!
