Flaming Hell

Today of course was my pal Mae's tea party. Got up early, put on our blue outfits (We were supposed to to wear something blue or yellow - the Marie Curie Cancer Care colours), then I went to pee. The ankle was twinging something rotten.
"Maybe we should go and get it checked out honey," said d. "Should have time before the party..."
Bless.

Went to our local hospital and encountered the NHS. Layer after layer of delightful free British bureaucracy, fresh from the tap. Time ticked. Then time got tired of ticking and poured. We watched a surprising number of Saturday-morning hobblers go in, get processed, move on, get processed again, move forward, get x-rayed, move on and sod finally off back into their lives. And I hobbled with them. Answered the questions, sat and waited, shuffled to another part of the hopsital, answered the questions, sat and waited, shuffled back, answered some more questions, finally got x-rayed.

Thankfully, and as I'd pretty much assumed, nothing was broken. But apparently, my ligaments were enflamed to buggery.

"You know why this has happened?" asked the doc.
"Well, I was crossing Mile End and-"
"Nono, I mean because of your weight," said the doc. "You've got to lose the weight."

Really? Well, no shit, Sherlock...
"But you're doing all this exercise and your ligaments aren't strong enough to take it," he explained.
"Ohhhkay."
"Shoes," he said. "Get better shoes. Arch support, you know. I suffer from that myself. Till then, Ibuprofen for the inflammation, and you can do the walking and the cycling - but ONLY within the limits of the pain, you understand: Don't go mad with it..."

Well, whoop-de-doo.

On the one hand, hoorah, cos that means I can get back on the bike today. On the other, bugger - special shoes, late in the monthly pay cycle. Humph. And also, humph, lost all this time in a week when I was hoping to push  down into 17 stone. Did the stupid thing when I got home - did a mid-day weigh-in, which was always gonna be Hell, and I knew it. So sticking fingers in my ears right now going 'lalalalala stupid mid-day weigh-ins', and gonna get on the bike in a bit. Clearly, not gonna reach the 17 stone mark this week, and am feeling surprisingly well-balanced and mature about the whole thing - given the week, it'll be entirely understandable, not only if I don't make progress, but if I put back on some of last week's progress-weight. Xen breath of acceptance time again, I reckon.

In the meantime, am a bit miffed to have missed Mae's party. Will of course be doing my surrogate bit by donating via the Justgiving page - http://www.justgiving.com/Karen-Thomas33 - and encourage you to do the same, a) cos it's a fantastically worthy cause, and b) cos it'll stop me feeling quite so guilty that my hopalong arsery made me miss the thing.

Meant to mention - blood result yesterday morning was 4.7. Now - a little dinner, a chunk of cycling, and on with some writing for fun.