Moonshuffling to the end

Where was I? Ahh yes temporarily I had buoyed my spirits with freeze spray, painkillers and tunes! Thus making miles 13 - 17 my fastest to date.  During this time the sun also came up, glistening over the water and twas a lovely site to behold. I was seriously tempted to run into the sea and drown myself stick my toes in the water, but decided that would be a bad idea. So I used my camera phone to snap a few shots and plodded on.
Well I should say it was lovely at first, then it started to get bloody warm! Where was the rain? the clouds? a bloody breeze? Hot, lovely sunshine is all well and good for larking about in the park, but not when one is shuffling power walking like they have never power walked before! Thank goodness I have a sunny disposition, otherwise it would appear that I was a total miserable sod. Sunny disposition in my case was plenty of water, fresh orange slices at mile markers and happy smiling faces (not mine). On approaching mile marker 19, I met up with some girls that I know from the walk the walk forum, so plodded on with them. They were decidedly in better shape than I and were excited to be approaching mile marker 20.

 Supposedly at Mile Marker Twenty a sense of uber calmness and elatedness descends upon you like a thousand angel wings providing a cool breeze. I may of ever so slightly exagerated the wonderment that is mile marker twenty, but it was definitely a woop woop moment for a lot of people. Why not for me? The pain and tiredness due to severe lack of training was screaming in my ear. My nasty inner voice was whispering "You still have 6.2 miles to go! still not just! you lazy sod!", my nasty inner voice is a right sod. Luckily for me,from deep within my being a competitive streak was sparked just ever so slightly at the prospect of keeping up with people.
The last 6.2 miles seem to take an age, heading back into the city of Edinburgh with the sun blazing and seeing all the sights that had been shrouded in darkness hours before. Edinburgh is truly a lovely city surrounded by greeness and beautiful architecture. Of course I was not really paying attention at the time because I was concentraing on putting one foot in front of the other. The cheeriness and enthusiam of the volunteers that are spreadout throughout the course is really a nice boost when you are flagging, even though they lie about how close you are to the next mile marker (cheeky buggers). They might not of actually been lying but boy did one mile feel like ten towrds the end! Oh and the curbs! Stepping up and down curbs is like torture towards the end.
Not sure when it dawned on me that I was actually going to finish the challenge, I think it was only as I recieved my medal, sat on the floor and took off my trainers!

As I sat on the grass with my medal and bare hobbit like feet, I felt like shedding a tear or two but was not sure why. I felt emotional because I had finsihed it , but also because I hadn't had enough faith in myself that I would finish it. My fears were not unfounded, because I had been so poorly prepared for it, with excuses abound from the mumborg to college work.  So after a moment of melancholy I popped my blisters, squirted blister juice in my face (yuck), used the glorious freeze spray and felt at one with the world. Then I tried to stand up.......

Start Moonwalking...

Here I am talking about a different type of moonwalking, whilst the moonwalking maestro has shuffled off this mortal coil. Anyhow back to talking about me, me and some more about me.
I arrived in Edinburgh on Friday afternoon and headed up to the hostel I was staying in during my visit. The Castle Rock Hostel was literally across the road from Edinburgh Castle and a hop, skip and jump away from the Royal Mile. It was an ideal location to base myself for the weekend.
As I was on my own I arranged to meet up some of the others that were doing the MoonWalk on their lonesome for a bite to eat. It was nice being on my own, but also good to meet up and have some company too. Too be honest the last few weeks had been so stressful that it was a miracle I even made it to Edinburgh, let alone plan anything. I was still absolutely crapping myself at the thought of the impending 26.2 miles of hell that I had voluntarily signed up for, but for the time being forgot about that and enjoyed good food and company.
Saturday arrived after a disturbed night of sleep, mainly thanks to chatty drunk Irish girls sharing my room, they were fun though. After a lazy morning I met up with one of the girls from the night before (Debs) and we had a lovely lazy lunch. Then it was back to my room to rest and prepare for long long night ahead! Still not believing what I was getting myself into.

Around 8pm it was time to head to the Pink City in Inverleith Park, Edinburgh and meet up with some of the girls from the walk the walk forum for food and a chat before walk time. As I walked through the park entrance I could hear drums and then a huge pink city arose before me. The atmosphere is absolutely amazing as you walk through the entrance, surrounded by a haze of pinkness.
Panic began to kick in as everyone was excitedly talking about the walk and all the training they had done. I didn't think now was the time to confess that the most I had walked was 8 miles of late and that I was going to be sick! So as everyone got more and more excited, I got scared!
In the great big pink city we gathered for pasta, talks from the sponsors and then the dreaded warm up. I can't grapevine to save my life, my brain says left, my leg goes right! so I shuffled further and further away from the warm up zone and felt lost in the crowd. At this point, more than any other, I felt very alone and sorry myself.
I was in the Pink group, so that was the last group to be called to the gate and the excitement was all around as we were herded to the gate ready for the off. The Pink group was about 30-40 minutes behind the lead group and it was slow going through the gate.  Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle and then I was free from the crowd, well a bit free anyways. Whoops, claps and cheers abound, so much so that you couldn't help but feel part of something special.

I think that atmosphere carries you through the first few miles, as you look around the beautiful city of Edinburgh, absorb the excited chatter and forget your worries. It is when things get quiet and the atmosphere becomes more serious as people get their heads down and pick up the pace. The pace! Bloody hell! It is nothing like the pace of hiking or normal walking. Upping the gear from 2.5 miles an hour to 3.5/4 miles an hour is a serious wake up call to your muscles (or lack of them). I thought I was a good judge of distance, but holy moly were those mile markers slow in coming! I nearly cried when it felt like an age to just pass 3 miles. I didn't even want to update anyone via my phone as I was in serious doubt of finishing even half way. At mile marker 11 the half moon walkers branch off and do their last two miles to complete the 13 miles of their challenge. How I wanted to go with them! Especially as it dawned on me painfully and slowly that I wasn't even halfway <--------------- Insert whingeing here!

Just past Mile marker 11 it was toilet stop time and although it was freezing and the queues were massive, I needed to stop. During the queue I gave myself a pep talk, sprayed my knees with half a can of freeze spray and  popped some pain killers. The combination of pep talk, text off the mumborg, painkillers and freeze spray did the trick and I began to pick up the pace. After reaching mile marker 13 and the disco bus, I plugged myself into my mp3 player, turned up the volume to ear bleeding level and kicked myself up the arse.

The adventure continues tomorrow (ish)

Moonwalking and Mumborg

Firstly thanks for all the lovely comments, tweets and emails that I have received about mumborg and my wavering over whether to continue blogging. It really meant a lot to me and quite honestly I got a bit choked up. Anyhow enough of that mushy stuff, you want to know where the heck I have been I suppose and of course how the mumborg is.

The mumborg is still not doing well, which I had hoped by now was something I would not have to write, but thems the breaks. The leg is just not playing ball and the surgeons are a feared to touch it. So for now she is constantly losing blood from the leg and getting replenished through the arm (thanks donors!). Also because during previous surgeries the leg was dislocated, this has led to being very painful for the mumborg, so now the leg is in traction. The next decision in regards to the leg will now be made on Monday.

This past weekend I have been in Edinburgh Moonwalking my pants off and have doodled the adventures for you. These following doodles are just the start of the adventure, with more doodles, photographs and ramblings tomorrow (ish).

Option A, B or C ?

 The mumborg was shipped back to the reconditioning unit two weeks ago for a supposed quick patch job. Basically her leg had still not healed well at all from previous surgery and was looking decidedly infected. So the district nurses assumed that a clean out and new vacuum pump would do the trick.

 Well things are just not that simple when it comes to the mumborg, it seems she just can’t adjust to the bionic parts of her. Is it that she is just too human, fighting against assimilation? Or that I have watched Star Trek far too many times? The head doctor like person was not impressed at all with the healing process and his previous handy work, so declared it open season on the leg. After consulting with his surgeons and various bone specialists, they came up with these options:

Option A: Removal of all metal work and bone fragments from hip to knee. Leaving a floppy boneless leg above the knee. Leaving leg like this for 3 - 6 months, blasting away all infections and then see about reconstructing it.

Option B: A thorough clean out and removal of all bone fragments, new shiny metal bits and an antibiotic implant. 

Option C: Lopping the leg off, otherwise known as amputation. In this case it would be a hind quarter amputation. I think it is that anyway, I did sort of tune out when I found out this was a definite possibility.

Not quite the news I wanted to hear, especially after thinking this was just going to be a quick hose down and patch job. How do you get your head round news like that?

 Well the surgery happened on Friday and unfortunately they couldn't do exactly what they wanted, so a compromise between A -B was made. Apparently the previous handiwork could not be easily removed and bone fragments were splintering causing problems. So after an exhaustive 6-7 hours, a rest break with showers and using enough instruments to kit out a butcher, they called it quits. The mumborg was awake throughout this procedure so the surgeon continually popped his head around the curtain to keep her updated. How aware the mumborg was is debatable as she was heavily medicated for the obvious pain. She was told that if they didn't quit at this point it would have to be option C and they were not ready to go down that avenue at this point.

 On visiting the mumborg that night after the surgery, I did not know what option they had gone for, so guess what I was looking for? Yep after checking that she was okay I checked for two legs, actually I checked for the two legs first. The mumborg was her usual cheerful self, albeit slightly pissed off after being vented. Never mind the fact that she nearly lost her leg, don’t put the mumborg on a ventilator, she hates it.

 What is next for the mumborg and the malfunctioning limb? Well option C is not off the cards and it is something I am trying to get use to. The mumborg is okay with Option C, as she is bloody fed up with all this hospital time. I have struggled with the thought of the mumborg being an amputee, sobbed at some times and been punch the wall kind of angry. Then I reached the conclusion that if she is okay with it, then so shall I. The mumborg and her attitude has allowed me to reach this conclusion, if she had reacted differently to it, then I would be in bits.

 Yesterday was World Donor Day and I had every intention of doing a post on it, but life got in the way. So I will just mention the fact that during surgery the mumborg needed 2 units of blood and today the wound erupted which meant more blood loss. This led to her needing some blood and she will need more blood throughout the night to replace what she has lost. It is only in times like this do I really recognise why giving blood is truly important. Would I be so concerned about people giving blood if my loved ones or I had never needed a single drop? I can't truthfully say that I would. 

 Standing at a blogging crossroads, as this will be the last entry that will go towards my final piece of college work. After that is done and dusted will I bother to blog? I know I would like to continue, but not sure what to do at the moment.

Sad Willi

I have a new addition to the Willy Family, a strange collection that I somehow happened upon. I have added the link to all things Willy further down this post, as I am sure some folks don't know the Willy story.

This latest addition is 'Sad Willi' from Austria, who in fact has had the opposite affect and cheered me right up.Thanks to Alison for encouraging my madness and thinking of me in my moments of studying stress.

All things Willy.

It was the last night ever in college last night and I feel all adrift, still shit loads of college work to do though. So I better get back to it.

Some poetry via assignment whatever

Shhhh I am not actually here, I am hard at work! It was my last actual learning session in college last night and after a wee party on Monday that will be it. I have some extra time to hand in outstanding work, but the vast majority has to be in by Thursday (gulp).

Here are the handouts I produced for a presentation I did on Body Dysmorphic Disorder, I found poetry that some BDD sufferer's had written that I thought was very powerful and wanted to share it on here. 

Assignment Ten Handout

View more PowerPoint presentation from Claire Pitt.