A year with tiny steps.

(Just a note, I've been writing this since about the 4th of July so it's quite some out of sync now)
A year is a funny thing - it feels long but passes super quickly at the same time. There's a lot that changes in a year.

This time last year I had been in hospital for five days already into what would be a three week stay. I had no use of my right hand (which was stuck in a fist) and my body was pulling itself into peculiar positions that were so contortionistic that they were dubbed "gymspastics" within our house. My whole body (or near enough) cramped/spasmed for up to two hours at a time between two and five times a day. This was not fun.

 To be honest I was on such a huge amount of medication that I cannot remember most of this, just a haze with a few extremely vivid snapshots. All sorts of things were investigated as I spasmed away in my bed - mostly the doctors just scratched their heads and increased muscle relaxants while nurses an my family watched on concerned. A few members of staff stand out from this time some for the loveliest of reasons - some not so much - but I'm sure I've aired my gripes about them plenty.

There was a nurse on the AMU (named Leanne I think), my first ward - one of the ones who had treated me on a previous admission who gave the doctors what for when they did not give me chance to speak or did not even try to understand CRPS. She listened when I explained and sat with me through spasms and tears. I'm sure other nurses on that ward did likewise but she stands out.

There was a student nurse, on the second ward, (Seb- whose sister I know) who sat with me an hour and a half past the end of her shift when I was having difficulty breathing which sparked a panic attack. She cooled my head with wet towelly things and helped calm my mind with soft hands and calm patience.
And then there's my pain doctor - The lovely man who educated the ward staff about CRPS and chronic pain, who kept dropping in on me and thinking up ideas despite my technically not being in his care and his working hours being full to the brim already.

This year during the same span as I was in hospital last year I sat exams, baked, read and pottered about in the garden rather than lay in bed in huge pain. I was at a high physically rather than an extreme low. I had next to no panic attacks rather than at least one a day. And I was happy.

A year can bring huge changes, a comparison between now and then shows that the little tiny steps towards health made every day are really really worth it despite the difficulty in doing them.