Category Archives: My Engineer

My 5 weeks counting down to Christmas

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It’s been long…

It’s nearing x5 weeks since KK left for a business trip to Perth. Five weeks is the longest we’ve been apart.

It’s happened only once before when he worked on a project up in Tanzania. When he returned, I scored a pair of tanzanite earrings and decided we needed a dog, which explains how Annie came into our lives.

But this round has been tough.

The pool pump gave in on Sunday night. After weeks of nursing the clear blue water, fishing out leaves with the net, brushing the walls, keeping the water levels up, emptying the little basket (which at first I couldn’t find), the pump suddenly broke.

Water streamed into the neighbours yard and down my cheeks. It was the Christmas cherry on the top.

I’ve been bravely tackling issues on my own.

  • Opening up a business bank account and reading all the small print. KK is good at this.
  • Ensuring the washing is done each week and taking out the rubbish bin on Mondays. These are KK’s chores which I kept forgetting to do. Washing piles up quicker than I thought.
  • Taking Emma to the Vet and finding out that she has a heart murmur.
  • Putting up all the Christmas decorations around the house. It sounded like a good idea when I started.
  • Seeing new clients for my new business and not having him to sense check my sales pitch beforehand.

While the above list may sound petty, I realised just how much KK does around the house. How much I rely on him.

I take him for granted.

Lying on the couch. I’ve done a lot of this. Crochet, movies, books. It was fun the first few weeks.

Then there are other little things that I’ve noticed:

  • I didn’t know where KK keeps all our important documents, such as my green ID book which I needed to open up the bank account.
  • I don’t have a side gate key so couldn’t take the dustbin out on dustbin day.
  • I thought the store was going to swallow me up. There is so much crap in there! What the hell are we keeping?
  • I’ve never done a backwash of the swimming pool. Ever! In fact, one thing I’ve learnt is that I know very little about pool maintenance.
  • When we had load shedding, I discovered (in the dark) that the little camping light next to my bed doesn’t work.
  • If I go for an afternoon run, there isn’t anyone checking to make sure I get back safely. (I do message my mom but I think it freaks her out waiting for my return).

He couldn’t come home soon enough, especially since I haven’t had a good nights sleep in weeks.

The whole “cooking for one” is a constant reminder that I’m alone. I’ve developed nasty cabin fever. And it’s actually not fun suntanning next to the pool by myself.

burnt pizza

I’ve been eating way too many pizzas. Damn Woolies has these on special. I added the bacon in case you’re wondering. And yes, I burnt it.

I have a greater sense of gratitude for all he does and how he looks after me at home. I also have new found respect for people who live on their own. I talk to myself now. Do you?

Christmas decorations on a dog

I did have some help putting up the decorations. Thanks Emma!

I miss the company. I miss the routine. I miss KK. I want things back to normal.

But it’s been a good five weeks to teach me that things will go wrong, but I can handle it. It’s taught me to pick up the phone (actually WhatsApp) and ask for help. And most of all, I’ve learnt to be a little independent and trust myself for a change.

The biggest Christmas present will be fetching him from the airport on the weekend! I cannot wait!

Treading lightly

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The RAC 10km race is one of my favorite road races on the running calendar. It’s well organized, you can enter on the morning and the best part is the 8am start which means you still get to sleep in and enjoy your Sunday long run (bonus)!

Having taken a break since last year for his stress fracture in his femur, KK decided to run with me. We never run together. He’s too competitive and runs almost double the pace faster than what I can run. Which usually means we fight. And besides, I was worried about his leg. Would he manage 10kms?

But 2kms into the race, my worries turned to my own pain. My foot!

When I had X-rays taken in November last year for my sprained ankle, what surprised me most was finally seeing what had caused months of heel pain. The plantar fasciitis was in actual fact a heel spur!

I had not felt the stabbing hot poker to my heel since I started running again in January but boy did it rear it’s nasty head at this race.

I was disappointed. Was it ever going to go away? Most probably not.

Did it ruin my race? Definitely not!

Watching KK’s body language, the glee written all over his face at the fact that he was running: priceless! We stuck together for the entire distance.

And when he pushed me up that last 500m into the RAC field, I didn’t hate him. I would’ve run another 10kms if he asked me to.

Running through the Jo’burg streets engulfed in the most beautiful autumn colors. Just beautiful!

There are a few more winter races coming up soon and we’re both looking forward to them.

Will we run them together? Judging from his motivation to regain his running strength and fitness, most probably not. As I blog this post, KK keeps moaning about the DOMS from his training. There’s no such thing as baby steps in his life! Dude’s on a mission!

Behind the Dassie lens

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As we headed back to work after a thrilling weekend down in Nature’s Valley, I was swiping through a couple of photographs on my iPhone that KK had taken from the Otter Trail Dassie 10km trail run.

The mixture of pics show me as a bag of nerves before the race, my daring efforts during the middle of the race (just after I ran into a tree), followed by hilarious pics of me gripped with fear as I crossed the balance beam over shark & piranha infested water.

We had made the decision to go down to Knysna even though KK had pulled out of the Otter Challenge race due to injury. We had already booked flights, accommodation etc. and we thought we’d go down to support friends running the race and just enjoy a weekend away.

It’s not what KK had originally planned for his Otter 2017 trip. But his injury had forced him to drop out. Not being able to run, missing out of the hype, the registration, race number collection and then the race itself wasn’t fun. Playing the supporter role is not what he signed up for.

But when I see the photos, I realize that throughout the entire time, not once did he make others feel bad or guilty. He didn’t sulk or get irritated by our excitement.

But his weekend revolved around me. He helped pick out my new hydration pack, thank goodness, as there was no water point on the Dassie. He nudged me every morning to go for my morning runs and there would always be cups of hot tea when I returned.

And on race day, he was there. He gave me his usual prep talk when I got my nervous running cough attack, he made sure I had all my kit and he popped up at every possible moment to take photos of me during the race, cheering me on, at the start, during the middle of the race when I wanted to quit, and at the finish line. KK was present.

His happiness for me finishing my race shines through in the pics. I can still hear his cheers from the side of the road and he was genuinely interested in my over-analysis of every step of the race.

Sometimes it’s how you show up to a race, more than crossing the finish line that shows what kind of athlete you are.

I know you’ll be back to run your Otter, but this ones for you babes!

It’s bad news.

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It’s bad news…

These were the words that KK Whatsapped me three weeks ago after seeing the sports doctor. He had been in agony since July with a gnawing pain in his thigh which would not go away.

Needling and massaging by the physiotherapist, to more massaging and prodding by a chiropractor, and then more elbowing from yet another physiotherapist but the pain lingered on. He followed a strict regime of icing, heating and foam rolling daily. Nothing helped.

It was only after a final recommendation of X-rays and MRI scans that he found the answer.

It was bad news. A fractured femur.

Don’t even ask how because he doesn’t know. It just happened. Similar to how his pelvis cracked two years ago. It’s no wonder the pain didn’t go away.

The really bad news? No running. No jogging. No walking. No swimming. No gym. Not even a parkrun. He has been instructed to rest. It was only 5 months ago that he ran Comrades and had already set his sights on next year’s race.

Right now, it’s uncertain how long recovery will take but he knows that he won’t be running Otter, Kaapsehoop, Dischem, Pick ‘n Pay (his favourite marathon), or even Two Oceans. Will he be out for Comrades?

The smile I’m used to seeing on his face has disappeared…

In trying to find answers to why this happened, we consulted with an endocrinologist. Maybe there is a deficiency somewhere? Maybe things aren’t ‘gelling’ inside his body? Could be an over-active or under-active something…

The good news (?) is that there’s a possibility that the medication he was talking for the low bone density / pelvis fracture issue actually caused him to fracture his femur. One main precaution of taking Fosavance is … wait for it… fractures of the femur! The endocrinologist dismissed Fosavance as a ‘drug from the dark ages’. Google it and the first page of search results are all lawsuits against the manufacturers of Fosavance for femur fractures! Crazy!

So now we wait for the results of the blood tests and in the meantime, KK’s focused on other hobbies to keep his mind busy. And by other hobbies I mean Cookie Jam because let’s face it, runners don’t have any other hobbies! There’s a lesson in here somewhere, I know.

Running makes KK happy. So what do you say to a runner who can’t run?