Titanic 800

Get Muscular, Stronger, Unbeaten

TITANIC 800

200 LBS. RESISTANCE

OVER 200 KILLER EXERCISES

Just 11 Minutes Every time ...

Well that's what it says on the box.  Spike picked up the exercise kit from the post office in the large box sent by the good people  at Zazz (one bargain-price item ... and only one item on sale ... each day).  It's a pulley system (with three differently weighted cords) that hangs on the back of a door.  After Spike set up the gizmo on the door to our spare bedroom I started my first session: 15 minutes of pulling weights (which probably took closer to 25 minutes by the time I stopped faffing about) trying 4 quite distinct exercises.  I had to work hard (for me) on two of them.  I think this new arrangement is going to work.  I'm very glad.

I am definitely weaker now than I've been for years.  I must get stronger and fitter if I am to regain and retain functional independece. So I now have no excuse. I need to put in at least fifteen minutes every day to start with and build up.  If I don't report real improvements within a couple of months I'm a fraud.

Discretion is the better part of valour

My skin is a bit delicate.  Less than two weeks out from our flight to Scotland I've stayed off it most of the day.  I borrowed Spike's Kobo e.reader (a Christmas gift from her parents) and started to read Anna Karinina.  My jury is out on both (the Kobo and the Tolstoy).

Buttock report

Progress.  There's no hole in my right buttock any more.  This evening's visit by a nurse is (I hope) the last one.  I tried to sit on my cushion afterwards but the sweating returned almost immediately.  Progress then but not as fast as I'd like.  I try to look at it this way: no hole is better than the alternative.
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Like the hole in the ozone layer ...

But still the dominant feature of one's life!!  I can't transfer, can't drive, can't dress or undress.  Patience may be a virtue but I am over this, truly had enough of it and it's no consolation that this is the first such incident in 26 years of being in the 'chair.
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Inflamed, infected, in trouble

Bruce is back.  And I'm in bed again.
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The long and winding road to Geelong

It turns out that my speculation on the 11^th of this month was about right. It wasn’t an overactive bowel that was causing my sweating. It was damaged skin on my right buttock. I spent the next four days in bed while the superficial damage healed. I stayed away from work for two further days, sitting on my wheelchair on an inflatable rubber ring that Spike bought. I had to work today though, having committed to speak at a staff gathering of employees of a Victoria open employment support NGO. I just couldn’t tell them I couldn’t attend, not at 24 hours notice. So Spike accompanied me, which was fun for me.

We drove to the airport at 5:30 a.m. then flew to Melbourne. We caught the Skybus into the CBD, which really did take no more than the timetabled 20 minutes (much to my amazement). We caught the V-Line train for Geelong in plenty of time. Thanks to two infuriating delays at a place called Werribee (maybe because of a level crossing boom-gate, maybe because of signal failure, maybe because of alienated youths train-surfing, maybe because of all three) our 56 minute trip took 2 hours and 20 minutes. Our hosts re-arranged the agenda, brought forward lunch and slotted me in shortly after we arrived by taxi from the train station. I spoke well but, as usual, for too long.

After saying our farewells, leaving them to some outdoor team-building exercises, Spike and I wiled away the late afternoon at the twee waterfront. It must have been a working port at one point, now gentrified in a not-unpleasant way. Our hosts insisted we take a taxi back to the airport. Even at $125 for the trip (which they too insisted on paying) we didn’t say no. We were NOT risking the train again. We caught the 8:30 p.m. flight back to Sydney then I drove home.

All accomplished sitting on a bright red inflatable rubber rung. I can be a ridiculous old twit. I am glad I made the effort, though; not that I could have done it without Spike. Fortunately it did no damage to my buttock (didn’t improve it but did no damage).