I HURT

 Mostly we try to put a happy face on our public-facing sharing.  Sure, me too.  Highlight reel stuff.  But in this blog I've also tried to be vulnerable and revealing about things I'm guessing most of us have experienced in some shape or another.  I'm told that I often put words to others' feelings and experiences.  High praise.

So here goes....Is this you too?

My hip hurts (substitute your own hurting body part).   This started some months ago, an occasional thing.  I took a couple of Tylenol and mostly ignored it.  But then, over time, it got more common that after a walk, or a yoga class, or too long in our reading chair that hip pain became more than an annoyance and downright painful.  I took a couple of Ibuprofen instead of Tylenol. I ignored it.  Mostly.

Over the past month or so, there is no more ignoring it.  One night after a 3 mile treadmill session with various incline settings, I could barely walk. I mean stooped, hobbling, hurting barely walking not able.  I took Ibuprofen AND Tylenol and started to worry.

After that I noticed that upon every rise from the chair, my first few weight bearing steps were a hobbling limp with a little "ouch".  I realized I'd been ignoring the occasional sore knee that throbbed out of the blue for no reason while just sitting there watching TV.  And every morning I woke up with a sore, stiff neck. Is it possible to "sleep wrong" every night?!  One morning it was so bad that for the rest of that day and the next, I couldn't turn my head.   What was going on???

I am married to a retired Rheumatologist.  This joint pain thing is right in his wheelhouse!  He did an exam that resulted in sort of a shoulder shrug since I didn't scream upon examination, but there was perhaps a wee bit of "maybe?" around the possibility of osteoarthritis in the hip.  I called his colleague, a still-working Rheumatologist, and scheduled an appointment.  She did a full and thorough exam and ordered x-rays for neck, hip, and knee as well as lab tests requiring about a pint of blood.  Nothing.  Nadda.  Well, not totally nothing -- maybe a wee bit of arthritis in the neck, maybe a wee bit in the knee, maybe a little something-something in the hip, but none of it adding up to stiffness, soreness, and hobbling around in pain on a regular basis.

So...I left with a Physical Therapy referral since the whole thing might also be a mechanical structural response to my lifelong touch of scoliosis.  Back in the day, like 60 years ago when I was diagnosed, they didn't do anything about it.  Just "Oh, that's a thing; good luck!"  So I've spent my entire life being a bit crooked and compensating with musculature that crooked-ed in the  opposite direction.  I guess my body is now saying "enough!"  At least that's my understanding at the moment. 

Maybe PT will teach me how to sit and stand and walk so this annoying ouchiness will subside.  At least I hope so.  Because I am very humbled by this and would prefer to go back to feeling invincible.  

At least, that's the view from here...©

YOU GET WHAT YOU NEED

 "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need..."  Mick Jagger.

I decided to try to fit my neighborhood walk in before the predicted showers hit this later this morning.  I left at 10:00 a.m.  By 10:10 it was raining.  At first I thought, "Damn! I gotta get  home!"  But then I remembered I am actually not the Wicked Witch of West in danger of melting in the rain, nor did I have her troop of winged monkeys to carry me back up the steep hill I'd just descended.  So, I decided something uncharacteristic of me; I decided I'd carry on.

I'm a fair weather outdoors-woman.  I like to be warm, dry, and comfortable at all times.  I'm more of an indoors-woman during the cold, wet, gray NW fall/winter/spring.   I do not purposely go out in the rain, especially if it's accompanied by wind.  It wasn't windy today, so that likely played into my radical decision to keep to my walking route, even in the rain.

About the time I felt the first sprinkles, I stopped at a bench at the bottom of my hill to gather my thoughts.   I looked out at the slate gray sky merging with the slate gray water and regretted I had not gone on my usual Marina walk.  It's got postcard perfect views. But I decided to stop wishing for something other than what was right in front of me.  

Here, at the bottom of my hill, is the urban, industrial water view.  The working waterfront, the unpretty one, the one that challenges and frustrates. I saw the Navy base, the shipping piers, the big cranes.  And out beyond, the islands and cloud-obscured Olympic Mountain range.  This has a certain beauty too, often harder to see.  I also heard the sea lions barking, even if I couldn't see them.  I knew they'd thrown their big bodies, so unwieldy on land and so sleek and sure in water, up onto a buoy or pier calling out to each other in their distinctive deep-throated "harrh-harrh-harrh".  We were so charmed to hear this sound from our house when we moved here long ago.  It seems so strange and wild.  I heard  the gulls overhead cawing, the Pileated Woodpecker going to town on the nearby wooden utility pole.  I watched robins pecking at the wet soil and noticed three crows keeping watch lined up on an overhead wire.  I closed my eyes and heard the patter of rain against my quilted jacket as it came down more insistently.  I was grateful I'd chosen the winter coat and not the lighter windbreaker I almost grabbed.  

I got up and started walking again, my usual neighborhood route, deciding not to hurry, but to keep a moderate, steady pace no matter the weather.  When I got to the intersection of my street where I would normally turn back home, I kept going up, up, up the gradual incline I'd already been climbing for two blocks.  My hair was wet. My fingers were cold in spite of my gloves.  I don't know why I decided to do another part of the route that I only do occasionally, a few blocks further on to a pocket subdivision near our home with its meandering, cul-de-sac streets lined with well-kept homes and generally not a soul in sight.  

It was quiet today too.  I noticed the rain dripping down my forehead, the wet fabric of my pants against my thighs, a little twinge in my left knee, the way my right foot seems to swell if I walk a long ways, as if the top of my foot rises up to hit the laces inside.  A slight pain shot down my low back to my butt and I reminded myself to do some yoga for sciatica when I got home.  I was aware of my body.  Aware of being wet, but not cold, not miserable -- just persevering.  

When I came out of the subdivision I turned right instead of left leading me to a footbridge over the roadway to access a huge forested park near us.  I went to the bridge, then turned back toward home, but again did not take the most direct route, but a longer one, one that put me two blocks further away and would require a short but steep uphill climb to my street.  All of this seemed like the most logical thing in the world to do.  (Plus my Fitbit registered 4.3 miles and 10,128 steps!)

I realized I was challenging my comfort zone.  I was building resilience muscles in my body.  I have tackled enormous emotional challenges lately, but this felt different and good.   I was learning lessons with my body that I've been trying to learn only in my mind.  

It's not like I was running a marathon or scaling Mt. Everest, but it was practice in allowing for discomfort, for accepting the "is-ness" of the moment, for realizing what we want and what we get are often very different things.  It was a lesson in perseverance and acceptance.  It was a lesson in no matter how much I wanted the sun to shine, what I was going to get was rain.  So, I decided to be in the rain, with all my awareness, and find my life there, alone, making my way.   It's what I need.

At least that's the view from here...©

TREADMILLS AND TV

I just got home from yoga class.  It's Saturday and I hadn't gone all week.   I almost didn't go again today.  I stared at the kitchen clock, as I sipped my coffee, until the last possible minute before I had to leave to get there on time, trying to  convince myself it was fine to just be "in the moment",  "just breathe", overcome the "worthless energy expended on feeling guilty"...

Then I got my butt in gear and went.  Glad I did, of course.  Lovely, slow asana today with lots of attention to stretching for the low back and sciatic nerve.

I guess the reason I was feeling I could take a "pass" on class today was because I'd already done an early morning 50 minute stint on the treadmill  -- enough time to watch 2 episodes of the recently released Season 2 of "Catastrophe" on Amazon Prime -- a raucously irreverent Amazon Original comedy series about a couple who hook up, get pregnant, get married, have a kid... Now in Season 2 it's like 2-1/2 years later... I won't go on in case you check it out, but I was home alone walking the treadmill with earbuds in, laughing out loud...often!  You may hate the show and judge me for my twisted sense of humor (lots of sex -- sometimes a little too much and over the top even for me -- and swearing and life situations that are hilarious), but so be it.  I am looking for things that make me laugh out loud these days.  Politics isn't doing it for me.

But anyway, the treadmill thing is yet another attempt to discipline myself to get more aerobic movement (I won't say the "E" word) in my day.  My Fitbit dutifully records my steps, but really doesn't care if I'm running up hill or shuffling around the house in my slippers.  Hub got up this morning declaring that he needs to be more physically active (this as he was hustling about to go snowboarding) and has set himself the ungodly goal of a 5-mile brisk walk every day.    I know that is not completely realistic, but I know him too, and if he says it he will to it every day, I know he'll do it most days.

I added up the time it would take me to walk 5 miles.  I walk at a less than "brisk" 20 minutes per mile pace; I could push it, but then I'd hate every minute of it and that would defeat me in short order.  So, we are looking at an hour and 40 minutes to get my 5 miles in.  On yoga days, I'm already committed to a 90 minute yoga class with a 40 minute round trip drive to get there and back.  Pad that with another few minutes on either end for parking, set up, clean up, etc. and Yoga is a 2-1/2 hour commitment that I make most weeks at least twice, ideally three times.  Yoga and a 5 mile walk = almost 4 hours.  I read I'm also supposed to lift weights for 30 minutes three times a week, which I have whittled down to 10 minutes about every three months, but I could kick that up a notch, I suppose.  So if I added in some weight lifting I'm up to 4-1/2 hours, plus meditation of course, for brain and spirit health (let's say 30 minutes) and that's 5+ hours just for exercise and meditation in a day.  (You can check my math on that; I am deficient in that area and had to actually draw little clock faces and pretend my pencil was the hour hand -- I blame 1950's public education system for my woeful arithmetic skills and the humiliation of making me solve problems at the blackboard as part of a competitive team for which I was always the last chosen and the sole reason for many teams losing.  I digress.)

Now subtract 3 days a week care for  a one year old who is not on board with ANY of this personal improvement stuff,  meaning it would have to happen after 5:30 in the evening after a full day of childcare.  Also there is that twice/month volunteer commitment to my old social service agency.   Plus I have an active social life (instrumental for mental health, all the articles say) which gets me out to various breakfast, lunch, and/or coffee dates each week with my gal-pals.   And Hub and I are currently undertaking a big kitchen update project with requires meeting with contractors and shopping for granite and sinks and faucets and appliances, etc, etc. on the days we don't have the grandbaby.

The point is, it's very hard to do all this walking, lifting, yoga-ing, meditating, teeth flossing, bill paying, vacuuming, shopping, cooking, gardening, reading, talking, socializing, traveling, Facebooking, blogging, and sleeping in a time frame that makes any sense at all.  No wonder I get overwhelmed and occasionally (often) just grab a book or a magazine and read about what I should be doing instead of actually doing it.  Oh, and I'm also a sedentary person by nature.

Hub really will go for his long walks because he actually enjoys it.  I enjoy the occasional long walk outdoors, but I'm more content on the treadmill where I can read or watch TV to distract me from the effort of what I am doing.  I do fret occasionally that the incline feature on my treadmill is broken, so I can only walk on "flat ground", but then I remind myself that I have a skewed vision of altitude challenges.  People who don't live in Western Washington have flat-land as their natural terrain.  I should know; I grew up in Northern Illinois where a big hill was a topographical anomaly.  At my house now there is nowhere I can venture outside my front door that is flat.  It's all up and down -- either hard on the knees or or the calves and takes me to an anaerobic state just to get gratefully home again.  But if I don't struggle, I feel like I'm cheating.  May need to work on that with my therapist.

I know I need to step up my game to ensure a healthy longer life and I've been meaning to do that for about 30 years.  It's starting to be (ok, past) time to get serious.   So I'm beginning (again) with baby steps into this thing.  I will never, ever be able to keep up with Hub.  It takes most of my energy just to get my ugly walking shoes on, so 5 miles is out of my range and beyond my attention span.

I'm gonna do it by TV episodes.  Starting out with two episodes of Catastrophe most days of the week until I get through Season 2.  Then on to Transparent, which I only managed to see for half of the first season.  I also have Mozart in the Jungle on my "to watch" list. (UPDATE:  Its' GREAT!).  Outlander, Season 2 starts tonight and I will do a bit of weight lifting, sort of like a drinking game, every time Jamie says "aye" in that sexy Scottish brogue.  See?  All of these TV shows actually make me want to get moving!

Whatever works.

At least, that's the view from here...©