Saturday, March 26, 2016

Sick note

No runners this week and no runners next, and that's not a bad thing as we're not very well.  Trips to the races do not hold much appeal at present; it's hard enough to get the ones in full training exercised while giving the ones in light work a few days off.  I don't like to sound too pathetic, but I think that I've been the illest of all of us.  But I'm certainly not the only ill one.  There are four full-time people here - Hannah, Jana, Abbie and myself - and a couple of days ago Hannah and Abbie were both off sick, Jana was here and functioning normally, and I was here but not up to doing much.  I've not ridden out the last three days, and I think that it would previously have been 10 years since I'd not ridden because of being unwell, bar sitting February 2014 out after my hernia operation.

I'm not as ill as I was towards the end of winter in 2006 when I was really low for a few weeks and lost a stone, but I've been low enough.  I hope that I'm on the way back to normality now, but it's been quite depressing because it's taken so long.  This is the third week now.  Three Wednesdays ago it was a cold, very wet morning.  I was getting through it alright, but rode Roy last lot, and have rarely gone from healthy to unwell so quickly.  He's not an easy ride and is very headstrong, and can be very hard work.  I found myself stuck behind some of Roger Varian's horses coming home down the Bury Road and Roy was really pulling me around - and, having felt fine at the far end of the road, I was not only soaked but also exhausted by the time I got back to the stable.

Within 24 hours I was feeling terrible with a chest infection.  That seemed to run what you'd regard as its usual course, and by the start of this week I was feeling semi-fine, and I thought that the end was in sight.  But midweek I took a turn for the worse, and have been very low for the past three days.  Still, while I haven't been eating, I've been drinking plenty of Lucozade and sleeping a lot, so I seem to be getting stronger again, I hope that I'll be back in the saddle on Monday or Tuesday.  In the interim, I should be OK to go over to Milton Keynes tomorrow morning for a Sunday Forum show on ATR.  I'm getting better.  I should now be able to get through the show without coughing.  And it's not physically demanding at all.  I'll just need the brain, and the voice, to function adequately.

At least the weather was kind to us yesterday.  That helped.

1 comment:

bigalp said...

Sorry to hear that you are ill John, get well soon the heath is not the same without you in the saddle. Take good care.
Alec & Jayne