On Surgery and Slowing Down

I’m realising that I’m not good at slowing down. Of all the things I’m bad at, slowing down might be the worst of them.

I went in for surgery this week, a fun experience that involved punching a hole in my groin and running a tube through my kidneys. It was actually the second round of surgery. I went in last week for the same procedure and they couldn’t find the vein they were looking for, so I went home with a limp and track marks down my arms. I had to get a CT scan where they inject iodine dye in to your veins. The nurse in charge told me I’d feel warm, have a metallic taste in my mouth, and then have the sensation of wetting myself. Accurate. I had just barely recovered when they brought me back in for surgery round two, which was thankfully a success.

As part of the surgery I’m meant to be spend the next two weeks chilling. Not bed rest for two weeks, thank goodness, but a couple of days of not doing anything at all, followed by ten days of not lifting anything, no hectic exercise, just generally lazing around the house.

I hate it.

I managed to get through the day of surgery – mainly because they hopped me up on some sedative drugs that made me super woozy and I slept through most of the afternoon.

I woke up the next day feeling totally normal, except for a big old ache in my groin, an odd hunched back that I can’t fix and a general feeling of tiredness.

I’d set myself up to chill and after about 2 hours of it I couldn’t handle it any more. I’m so used to a pretty strong exercise routine. I ride my bike to work 4 days a week, I run 3 or 4 times a week, I spend my weekends either carrying drums up and down stairs or riding my bike to the pub to see other people carry drums up and downstairs. Not doing anything is torture.

I realise I’ve forgotten how to watch TV. I get ten minutes into an episode and I’ve forgotten what I’m watching, what its about, what the show is called, why I’ve started watching it. It’s kind of absurd.

I’m also not doing music this week – playing drums is off the table because of the hole in my groin, and my banjo hilariously weighs about 4 kg (not even kidding), so I worry that just lifting it off the rack to put it over my neck will pop something and we’ll be back to square one.

I’m still good at reading. I’ve careened through six books in a seven book sci-fi series over the last month. It’s trashy but I’m so close to the end that I don’t want to stop. If anyone has suggestions for what I tackle next, shoot them through. Something a little more high-brow would be nice.

I’m still sending emails like nobody’s business – trying to organise a Gusto summer tour to NZ plus a handful of festival dates for next year that’ll have us flying around the country. Someone suggested Glastonbury round 2, but i don’t know if I have it in me organisation-wise…

Side note – we’re launching our album in Melbourne on October 18^th. Still looooots of tickets available, it’d be very good to pre-sell some, particularly in the current economic climate.

All the things that usually occupy my time are on the backburner. And it’s an odd thing to grapple with. Who am I if I’m not a runner, if I’m not a drummer, if I’m not out at a gig? What does downtime look like for me?

It’s particularly egregious because I’m on school holidays right now which means all of my friends are out and about and doing things. There’s a million gigs. There’s dinner dates. There’s birthday parties. And I’m lying at home in bed playing Mario Kart.

I just need to keep reminding myself that this is what slowing down looks like. It’s ok to not be out and about. It’s ok to not be progressing. I can let life wander past for a week without the need to feel like i’m conquering all. It’s such a hard mindset to cultivate, but this is the reminder that i’ve fallen pretty hard into the same patterns I was in pre-COVID. Is it just human to need a big bold physical intervention to break us out of established patterns?