Armed and ready.

I haven't been hospitalised very much in my career - professionally speaking.  I am one of the few members of British equity who've yet to step into the environs of the city of Holby. On a visit to Letherbridge  to see the "Doctors" at lunchtime, I had a father with pigeon fancier's lung whose antics resulted in me sawing through my hand, and on a second visit I had acute angina (no really!). A third visit as an international handbag designer of dubious sexuality lasted for two weeks, and mercifully involved no kind of treatment at all. Unless of course you call my first screen kiss at the age of 53, a course of treatment!

Real-life has, for once, mirrored work. I have not been hospitalised since I had chronic pneumonia at the age of 18 months, something for which I'm very grateful. I have had visits to A&E, and two minor procedures on my eyes, but nothing really serious.

This year  I have found an increasing amount of pain in my right shoulder. Something I was beginning to put down to age, but nevertheless,  considered uncomfortable. Eventually the doctor thought I should be referred to a specialist, and the specialist had a scan of my shoulder performed and told me I needed an operation. That's the sort of thing that would normally make me nervous, but given that we've just moved house and in the nervous stakes, that took the biscuit, the operation hardly merited a thought. I'm lucky enough that I was able to have it done privately about 10 days ago, and I returned home with my arm strapped up in a sling, and relatively pain free.

What I  had not planned for was the sheer frustration  that having only one arm has given me for the last 10 days.  I  planned no work, but thought I'd be able to plod around  in our rather gorgeous new abode, but our flat has boxes that have not been unpacked and I can't lift anything. I can only dictate emails and blogs such as this, and cack handedly manage the corrections with the index finger of my left hand. There are all sorts of things that I use my right hand for. It's so easy with ones left-hand to take a chunk out of your face while shaving. Indeed doing it with your left hand feels like you're being shaved by somebody else.  I can't cook, and I can't drive. After a while this begins to wear you down. I've been out on a couple of occasions, but I felt a little unsteady as I walked down the street. I was never aware before of just how many people bump into you on a journey into central London.  At an awards dinner last Thursday evening, I had to ask my companion to cut up my food, and as for sleeping...... don't even go there.

So just because of one arm, which is feeling perfectly well, but resting in a sling, the whole of me feels under par. Displaced and disjointed. There are three 10 minute periods each day when I take the arm out of the sling in order to do my physiotherapy exercises, and just for that short time, I feel better.  The arm is doing something and I feel good.

 It all feels a little like not having any work. No sense of purpose. No sense of control. No sense of usefulness. Just because one bit of you isn't functioning how it should, it can affect all the rest. Yes, of course it shouldn't. I have two legs working perfectly fine, so I can walk. Two  eyes for watching films with, and yet all I can focus on is my lack of an arm. Just like when the lack of acting takes over your whole life. There may be so many other positive things going on. You may have a job which is earning you money, and day-to-day life may be full of love and friendship, but with no acting, something feels missing. At that point it's important to make sure that you have those  three 10 minute periods each day when you take your arm out of the sling; when you do exercise your acting. It doesn't need to be a workshop, although there are an excellent selection at The Actors Centre which are guaranteed to lift your professional spirits, but it just needs to be doing something that uses your skill. Open a newspaper and read out an article at sight.  Pick up a script from your bookcase and read one character's contribution to the scene out loud. Put on a CD, or play your favourite show tune and sing along with it loud and lungful. and then get your arm back in the sling,  smile and carry on.

Time for my exercises I feel.