What a Fortnight!

Sis had the flu and now she has pneumonia.  It's been a rough two weeks for her and, while she is on oral meds at home, she is still coughing and exhausted.  We have reassurances from school that she'll catch up--they'll adjust her assignments and excuse the absences with a doctor's note.  Right now, she's too tired even to contemplate work.  She's not even going to see her horse often, so you know she doesn't feel well.

And right in the middle of that, Bud started throwing up and missed a few days of school himself.  We thought he might be getting the flu, too, but we were all tested and are negative.  It just must have been some virus that thankfully we didn't all catch.  Now he's just jealous that his sister doesn't have to go to school, even if she's sick.

What else?  I think I have a whole list of things to mention (pardon the repeat from my email in some bullet points, Lambeth!)

• Did I ever even talk about Halloween?  Sis was Dean, from the tv show "Supernatural," one of the demon-and-monster fighting brothers in a show that crosses "X-Files" and "Buffy."  Bud was Dipper, from the animated show "Gravity Falls;" he's a code-breaking sleuth.  We went to the office Halloween party and then, night of, they had friends over for pizza and trick or treating and a huge candy swap at the end.  I love that they still want to trick or treat as teenagers AND that are neighbors don't seem to care about their age.
• About the same time, I had my own party:  a hygge party, based on the Scandinavian idea of coziness.  I had a few close friends over for a casual night of comfy clothes, Frito chili pie, hot buttered rum, almond cake, candles, fairy lights, and conversation.  And we all thoroughly enjoyed it.  I didn't rush around preparing, nor did my friends expect any sophisticated entertaining--we actually curled up on the couches under various afghans! I even gave them all fluffy socks and little candles.  Delightful!
• Our cat Hermione has developed arthritis.  She moves awkwardly and slowly, preferring little cat stairs to get on the bed or couch.  And she is always looking for warmth and so sleeps behind my knees in the bend in my legs, sits next to anyone on the couch, follows the sun patches around the house through the day, or curls up in her special heat-generating "poofs" (which have a layer of that silver-ish, heat-reflecting material they give to marathoners and people in crisis.)  Though, she can still "high tail" it for food or to chase the other female cat, Eris. To help Hermione out a bit, we're now giving her CBD oil, the non-hallucinogenic substance in marijuana (as opposed to TCH.)  They say it has a physical effect sort of like a warm bath; she does seem a bit more physically relaxed.  She has definitely relaxed a bit about Eris, so that Eris can now sleep on the big master bed during the day and was even curled up not too far from Hermione the other day (though definitely not touching.)  And our new Romeo is settling in, spending his days with Sis, who curls up in a big, soft, pink, fluffy blanket.  He even sleeps with her (which is good because Hermione won't let him on the bed in our room.)  he'll miss her when she's well, though at least he will have the blanket.
• We have a new street!  After a few years of widening pot holes and deteriorating asphalt, the street has been re-paved.  It's lovely, though we still don't have curbs.  I've got my fingers crossed for curbs so that the water doesn't erode my yard where it meets the road as it has for a few years now, creating a wider and deeper ditch that I have to specially mark so people don't trip (especially on Halloween!)  Good thing people don't walk around much, I suppose.  Because we won't ever get sidewalks!
• I am taking two classes at seminary (though, online) come springtime as I begin work on my MA of Religious Studies in order to become a board-certified chaplain.  One class is the history of Christianity, which will look at the different iterations (Ethiopian cave churches, Roman catacombs, evangelical tent revivals) from the early church to present.  I think it will have a lot of archaeology, which I especially like.  Second is "There's Something about Mary," which examines the different Marys of the Bible in a socio-historical and also (oh, the lingo) a "womanist biblical hermeneutics"!!!!!  The final project is to examine a contemporary representation of a Mary--I'm thinking Andrew Lloyd Webber's hippy Magdalene or the almost-Booker prize winner Colm Toibin's Testament of Mary, which depicts the Virgin as a depressed, isolated, and bitter older woman resenting her son's disciples.   I love school.  And I'm really excited to become a "real" chaplain.  Somebody needs to be there at hospice for people who aren't mainstream Christians (the Catholics have hospice covered!)--who are members of other religions, no religions, a mixture, unchurched, spiritual but not religious, atheists.  And I think I'm that somebody to offer solace and comfort (but not answers.)
• In preparation for our Thailand trip, I'm reading a book on the Buddha which answers a question I've often wondered:  why is there no single Buddhists sacred text the way there is the Bible or Koran?  Apparently, stories of Buddha were preserved orally and only written down later (hundreds of years later), but by competing sects who slightly altered the narrative, so that they don't really agree on a particular canon.  Add to that, even those manuscripts don't survive well--I think I read that the oldest extant Pali canon manuscript is only a few hundred years old.  Nothing like Dead Sea Scrolls.  And Buddhists don't quite see the texts as "in the beginning was the Word;" textual exegesis just isn't as central to the religion.  
• I watched the funeral of Bush 41 yesterday.  Solemn rituals and big, dramatic occasions always get to me, even if I wasn't quite mourning the late president.  The eulogies were informative--and entertaining in the way they lectured  #45 on character and charity and bi-partisanship.  I slightly remember Bush 41--I paid much less attention to politics then, but it was also less emotional, polarized, us vs them, angry.  I remember first getting riled about politics when Republicans kept trashing and attacking the Clintons, though if I think hard on it, I remember people not liking Reagan (though, much of that grew up afterwards.)  It's been downhill, civility-wise, since then.  Though I think it has also gotten dirtier--just look at Wisconsin GOP stripping the governor's office of power now that a Dem has defeated Republican governor Scott Walker--they didn't feel like he needed his power stripped when he was in office!  It's just ugly and there are few political remedies.  

• 

  Tulip stitch

  Even in the midst of all that, I have had time for my favorite hobbies.  I've crocheted blankets for a friend and a local fun-run raffle, even learning a new stitch, the tulip stitch.  I've been tangling as part of several online challenges, including Gratitangles 2018 and now 12 Days of Zentangle.  I love my meditative drawing practice.  I've also been reading more and have a book for downstairs, a book for upstairs before bed, and a book for the bathtub.  I've recently read a mystery featuring Fidelma, Irish nun-detective in 7th-century Ireland; the fifth and sixth Outlander books; a page or two of The Case for God, which is slow reading; the Buddha biography by the same author; and others I can't quite recall.  
• We've also been watching a lot of tv, with two sick kids.  They are working their way through a dozen or more seasons of Supernatural.  We enjoyed British comedian Sue Perkins's exploration of the Mekong River and especially love her on the Great British Bake Off (I think we are currently watching the newly-released season 3.)  Sis has started Outlander, though without the abusive sex parts.  Bud has a few animated series he's following, including Hilda-something.  I caught up with Grantchester, the Arrow, and can't wait to watch the second season of Mrs. Maisel.  We only have one tv plugged in right now and also use it for video games--they are all playing the new Pokemon game.
• I will delve into this at a later time:  I found proof that my ancestors on two branches of my family tree owned slaves. I have two partial names and the reference to four others. I always suspected as much, with many family members serving in the Confederacy and relatives having been in the south a century or more before the war, but learning it for fact has me overwhelmed and sad. I'm not quite sure what to do with this knowledge now....but I will do something. And acknowledging it has to be the first step.  I've joined a FB group, Coming to the Table, which connects descendants of both slave owners and enslaved peoples.  It's been informative, especially the resources page about reparations, financial and otherwise.  
• Sadness:  on our drive to the doctor's office on Tuesday, I hit an owl which flew up in front of my car. I never saw it coming, though I was going the speed limit; we just felt the thump and then I saw the round-faced, speckle-winged bird above my left headlight, flapping backwards. We pulled over but couldn't find it.  So it didn't die right there but somehow managed to leave.  My friends think this is a good sign; I'm a bit more pessimistic.  What chance does a bird, even a big one, have against a car?  Why did it have to be a beautiful bird of prey? I'm so sad.  (And no, I'm not ready to debate why it's sadder that something I like and is beautiful died vs. something ugly or not liked, like a snake. I know it's subjective and hypocritical.)
• Illusionists:  On Saturday, leaving Sis at home with what we then thought was the flu, we went to see a magic show on Broadway for Bud's Christmas present.  What a great show!  We especially liked the card tricks of Shin Lim, the mind-reading of Colin Cloud, and the sleight-of-hand of Darcy Oake.  In fact, Bud and I were both picked for separate tricks.  Colin Cloud read my mind!  He had me flip through a book and choose the top word on the left-hand page and remember it; he asked the same of two other audience members.  And then he "read" the word from my mind, "professional."  It really was astounding; and while I know there's a trick, I don't know what it is.  During his turn (we were seated very close to the stage in the second row), Bud was given an empty bottle in a box-inside-a-box to hold and then he chose a card out of a deck; later, of course, the card was in a corked glass bottle in the box-inside-a-box!  Now, the main "tell" that this was sleight of hand is that Oake did the same trick on Penn and Teller using the SAME CARD (5 of hearts) that Bud "chose."  I'm guessing it's a force of some kind but honestly neither Bud nor I saw it.  After the show and lunch at a nearby ramen place (Zen Ramen, not Sapporo because that dear old place has closed, forced out by raised rents), we went to Tannen's, the premiere NYC magic shop down by Macy's.  Bud had a great time conversing with the different magicians and seeing some of their tricks.  He bought a trick, a book, a beautiful Momento Mori deck, and a special card trick mat.  
• Thanksgiving:  did I mention Thanksgiving at all? We watched the parade in our jammies that morning, particularly liking that there were two female hosts (bye, Matt Lauer!!!)  And we liked the performance by the Prom cast, complete with kissing lesbian leads (it's about a girl who can't take her girlfriend to the prom so she enlists help!)  We bought tickets on the spot, to support the show and NBC for fairing the no-doubt controversial scene.  In the afternoon, we had Mama Teacher and her son over for muffalettas, snacks, conversation, and video games, since they were celebrating on a different day, just like we were. We all played MarioKart--and had a great time.  (Sis actually came down with a fever on that Thursday night but the clinic said on Friday that it was NOT the flu.  Harrumphf.)  We went to Goo's on Saturday, because he had been working at the hospital the other days.  I made Chex mix, the sweet potatoes, the green bean casserole, the cranberry-horseradish relish, and a lemon pie.  Goo did everything else, including a lovely charcuterie.  And Mama and her parents spent the day arranging and rearranging post-its in order to organize our trip.  In the evening after dinner, the kids and Goo played video games, including this fast one where you drum to the rhythm prescribed by the game, while making little characters dance to the music.  Very Japanese.
• BTS--Bud and I are still very much enamored of Kpop band BTS.  He practices their dance moves and I enjoy listening to the music in the car.  And we watch videos together sometimes.  When we were in NYC, for the magic show, we even went to the Line store, which sells BT21, a line of animated characters drawn by the members of BTS.  Bud got a few items, like J-Hope's horse character pillow and a key chain, and I even got a Koya (Koala, by RM) headband.  Yes, it's a cult.
• Reiki--and no, I didn't think of Reiki next because it is a cult (ahem)--I had my second Reiki  on Sunday, with the same teacher and students as last time.  This section added some words and hand signs, which really did make it seem more like an occult thing than the hands-on meditation did.  But there was also more references to Buddhism--"the light in me sees the light in you," connecting to your higher Self or buddhahood, and forget what else.  The next session has crystals and angels, but I think I'll stop here; crystals and angels and the Reiki grid which can create continuous Reiki without your participation just takes it all a few steps too far for me.  Hands on meditation that contributes to relaxation and peace, I can handle (though, true practitioners would see it more as aligning the chakra energy wheels than simple meditation.)  And I'm looking forward to using it with hospice patients, as just another modality for care and comfort.  I did try it on the kids when they were sick (mainly because they didn't want me to tell my teacher that they had said no!) and both were relaxed afterwards, as you would be lying still with your mom's hand on your head or shoulders or chest.  I did it on myself a few days later, when my neck was stiff from too much driving, and it did release the tension, just like mindfulness meditation releases tension in my mind.  It's all from the same place, I think.  
• In fact, I'll be going back to my PT soon to have her use her own therapy techniques (a unique combo of Western medicine and less scientific treatments) on the almost softball-sized scar tissue that has grown up in my lower abdomen and pelvic region from all the scars.  After consulting both my GI doctor and GYN and going through their tests, as well as talking at length with my caring and supportive GP, I decided that surgery isn't the answer for scar tissue which is pulling and pushing and causing regular discomfort; it'll just make more scar tissue.  I'm trying PT to try to break down some of the adhesions and meditation (particularly self-compassion from Kristin Neff) to assist my anxiety about the discomfort when it arises.  I hope it helps.

Whew, I think that's it for now.  I've blown through 30% of my laptop battery and a full hour of quiet between Mama's departure for work, Bud's departure for school, and now Sis's late arising.  Time to get up and get to the rest of my list . . . . 

Back in the Swing of Things

I started physical therapy last week.  And even my beloved, favorite therapist was impressed, though perhaps that's not the right word (stunned, maybe), with how things have not recovered.  I can't even suck in my stomach.  While daily pain has pretty much gone away (right around week 12 or 13), there is still such incredible weakness that is, in turn, knotting up my back, glutes, SI, and even hip muscles; they're in a constant state of stressed.  Which is why, after exertion or just in the evenings, I don my brace--I quite literally can't hold myself up anymore.  I was starting to think I was just being wimpy or that it was all in my head.  But it's not.

She spent the whole time working her knuckle into my SI area and I was sure I'd be bruised.  So tight.    She says to put on my brace when I need it because otherwise I'll hurt something.  No wonder neither my surgeon nor physiatrist want me to lift more than 10-15 lbs ever again (risk of incisional hernia) and delayed allowing me to start physical therapy.   For now, I'm doing 2--that's 2--pelvic tilts and just a few attempts at tummy sucking (while breathing out--because I had been using my diaphragm to move my abdomen!)  And I'm walking 7-15 minutes, as able, a few times a day.

Recently, someone said they couldn't believe how limited I still was.  Ouch.  Major surgery will do that.  It's not called "major" for nothing.   And I've been told by more than one doctor that I make a lot of scar tissue, have healing issues, and low muscle tone.  It could take a year for me to get back to my old normal.   Am I surprised?  Sometimes.  So no wonder someone else might be.

Still, I see it as progress.  I only take pain pills occasionally and then only the Tylenol with codeine, which is on the low end of my pain pill scale.  And I'm doing more than ever since the surgery--under optimal circumstances, this includes short driving, eating in restaurants, pushing a grocery cart, unloading the bottom rack of the dishwasher, doing laundry, playing piano for 15+ minutes, extended sitting (like a movie),  walking around stores, hour-long car rides.  Mama and the kids do or help me do everything else; after all this time, especially since they're older, we have a good system in place.   It makes things easier during this next phase of post-surgery recovery.  What's that cliche about a marathon not a spring?  Not that a running metaphor really works for me, but still. . . . slow and steady . . . maybe next week I can do 4 pelvic tilts!

Summer Fun: My Pool Time

I started aqua therapy a couple of weeks ago in an effort to improve my comfort level in the pool and strengthen my core.  And it's kicking my butt.  Even just hanging from the pool noodles is a work out.  Who would have thought lifting my arms up and down could make my shoulders hurt for hours?  All of which tells me how much I need this.  And the kids enjoy swimming around while I exercise.

I work out with an interesting bunch, all post-surgery--knees and backs.  It makes me feel a).  fortunate that I've never needed surgery and b). grateful that I don't hurt as much as they do.  And it also shows me what a small world Connecticut can be:  one of my pool partners is a lesbian who is getting married in August (out of 5 people, the 2 women are both lesbians??) and my other pool partner, I discovered this morning, is the older brother of the wife (another lesbian!) of my dear first PT--he even stood up at their wedding!    So you can just imagine the conversations!  Wives, weddings, and of course back pain.

We also like to watch the aqua zumba class down the lane from us.  We enjoy the music and the moves and also laugh about how the men in the zumba group hang back like they're not really part of it.  Of course, we can laugh, but we also know that we aren't even nearly capable of zumba.  We talk about joining the class when we "graduate" from therapy.

It's not a bad way to spend two mornings a week or to exercise.  And I like it much better than the treadmill.

Summer Fun: Wet Behind the Ears

I started aqua therapy today in an attempt to become more comfortable in the water.  Not comfortable as in "able to swim" but actually physically comfortable.  I swam before I walked, apparently, even being pictured, I think, in the local YMCA brochure in the baby class.  I loved to swim at the neighborhood pool and was even on the swim team for awhile (during which I collected one of each color of ribbon--Mom and Dad tell how excited I was to get a fourth place, completing my set!  I never was sports competitive.)  But swimming has been painful--I feel like all of my joints come undone and just float around, due to the lack of muscle strength but more to the hyperflexibility.  And then my joints don't always go back right.  Now, this is more of my experience of swimming than an actual diagnosis, of course; I just know it is uncomfortable.

So the goal is to learn some movements in the pool to minimize the discomfort and strengthen my muscles so that I can actually swim again.  Today, this involved walking forward and backwards and merely hanging from a floating noodle, which was much harder than it sounds for me.  At this rate, it will be MONTHS before I'm actually swimming again.  That's okay.  I'm happy even to be working on it.

Bud swam while I had my appointment . . . and then swam again at his lesson not long after.  His swim teacher said he has a great freestyle stroke for a nine-year-old and that she expects he'd be good on a swim team by high school.  She even told him he should try to be a life guard.  He didn't really pay much attention to her, enjoying trying to do the splits on the bottom of the pool!  It was nice to hear (and a relief) that both Bud and Sis (who is at day camp this week) have strong muscles.  Maybe they'll be spared aqua therapy in thirty years.

Yay, Crochet!!

My wonderful PT has approved testing out my right arm (with compressed radial nerve) with some crochet!!!  I have missed it so much and was so glad to pick up my hook and yarn again.  I did half a row on an existing prayer shawl, just to see.  And it was exactly what I'd missed.  My arm is a tad sore today, to be expected, and I'll keep trying a bit until I can do more (or the PT says stop for a bit.)  Yay!

A New Theory

Twice this week medical professionals have questioned my accepted narrative about my back injury, which we've always thought, and doctors have concurred, was primarily a herniated disc, L5-SI1.  But on Tuesday, the pain doctor said that the herniated disc was resolved and the pain was a secondary injury in my coccyx, though he doesn't know how the two are related.  Last night, my new physical therapist said she even wondered if the second incident, in April, when I ceased entirely being able to sit, wasn't a disc herniating that I felt, but my SI joint popping out somehow.  I know they've done studies where something like 20% of a random sample of people have herniated discs but are asymptomatic, i.e. without back pain.  Is it possible that the pain wasn't originally or always the disc?  Hard to say now, but apparently it isn't my current trouble.  And, I must say, that is quite a paradigm shift for me.  Just thinking about another kind of injury, though it's 9 months past, gives me the heebie-jeebies.  I mean, who wants to think of their pelvis getting out of joint?  I had gotten comfortable, so to speak, with having a herniated disc, even if it didn't always make sense experientially.  Now I have something else to wrap my mind around.

But I'm trying not to think on it too much, since it doesn't actually change what I'm going through.  In fact, the notion that it is something else gives us a new path to follow after 18 or so months chasing the disc.  And this new physical therapist has some ideas how to help.  And all without the painful internal tailbone manipulation of the last therapist (whom she used to work with)!  Anyway, she practices, if I have this right, Integrative Manipulative Therapy, with techniques derived from the French osteopath Jean-Pierre Barral.  Plus a sprinkling of cranio-sacral, energy healing, biofeedback, and chakra work.  I know, it sounds like magic.  But, she watched me walk with pain in my c-section scar and tightness in my back, laid me down, popped my sacrum painlessly, and had me walk again . . . with none of the symptoms of a few minutes earlier (though, she said for awhile it would pop back . . and that's just the beginning of the work to get me to sit, but she thinks I will be able to).  I told her that 400 years ago, they would have burned her at the stake!  It was amazing.  Then she did some soft tissue, visceral work (something about fascial envelopes connecting parts of our bodies) that was so gentle but released energies, she said, that clearly made my legs shake.  She even touched my head and tailbone alternately and said I had no spinal blockages and that she wouldn't have known I had a herniated disc.  All I have to say is that if it works, I'm a believer.

Which might take me further along in my project to understand the idea of  prayer and  spiritual energies, for sure.

Tug O'War

So, the medical journey continues this week, but it feels more like a tug o'war.  After my doctor's rejection of my PT's diagnosis, the PT today rejected more forcefully his theory of discogenic pain.  She had more than one good point, but my favorite was that I should choose the path that actually had some options, somewhere to go (which, really, my doctor doesn't).  But she also admitted that my case is more complicated and that medical back-up is necessary, in the form of some specialists in, of course, NYC.  This time a gynecologist, perhaps the rheumatologist, and, if I wanted, a pain psychologist.  Beyond the muscle/ligament issue, she wondered about underlying causes of systemic inflammation and hormonal fluctuation (if that's what I have!)--virus?  disease?  hormone imblance?  Yep.  More things to consider and worry about.  And all the while, an insistence on continuing the therapy techniques she's using which are, well, painful (TMI: internal manipulation of my coccyx.  'Nuff said).  


After the appointment, which was both reassuring (because I think she's partially on the right track with the causes of pain) and disconcerting (because it hurts), I finally got in touch with my much-beloved previous physical therapist, who's been out of the country for the last six plus weeks.  And she had even more good points:  therapy shouldn't hurt like that and there should have been some improvement in four visits.  But best of all, she observed that my new PT is trying very hard to release muscles that don't want to release without addressing the underlying cause.  Which encapsulates my fear in a nutshell:  I'm afraid these visits are going to cause more harm, in addition to the pain and discomfort that follow each visit.  So my old PT suggested her own therapist, who is magical and, in her words, fifty times more intuitive than she is.  Wow.  


Sure, it's more appointments and evaluations, and new decisions about whether to see PT #1 and her specialists or PT#2 who comes highly recommended.  Or meet the second while continuing with the first?  More confusion.  More decisions.  But at least it's something.


Though, it's not much of the break I'd hoped for.

Back In It

(Yep, you guessed from the word "back" what this is inevitably about.)

I don't know when it started--a few months ago? around Christmas when a playgroup mom who is also a massage therapist noticed how tight my middle back was?--that I wake up sometimes in the morning with a stitch or spasm in my left side, mid-back (it mainly hurts when I bend towards, or compress, that side. But it's not constant or predictable). It almost always disappears by midday, but sometimes it can be quite constraining in the morning as I try not to twist (like to unload the dishwasher) or bend or reach much. I figured it's because I'm sleeping on it funny. Or something.

So today, after a really awful morning that almost had me in tears as I tried to get in the car to drive the kids to school, I talked to my PT when I went for my workout. Because there is no current doctor's order, she couldn't really examine me, but after watching me move she said it was probably some kind of "locked up" joint (her words, not mine) and probably not the muscle at all. It's lower thoracic, so not my previous muscle-related lumbar pain. Yippee.

I'm looking for yet another ortho, since my last two have been dismal, in hopes of getting some answers . . . and back to PT, I'm guessing.

Wasn't it a year ago, just about right now, that I went back into PT? Do I get out of whack over the more sedentary winter and hurt as things warm up and I move around more?

At least I'm feeling better this afternoon . . . . but it doesn't really make me want to go to bed.

My New Lexus

I've been playing on the Lexus of treadmills at my workout place these last few days, the Gait Trainer 2 by Biodex, which is intended to help rehabilitate people but can also be used as a plain old treadmill. Except there is nothing plain about it: my favorite part is the heart rate monitor---through the handles!!! I love to watch my heart rate change. In fact, the whole screen, with it's faux track to indicate my "laps," other measurements such as calories burned, distance traveled, and miles per hour, all in neat-to-read digital format, makes it fun to "play." In fact, just being on it has me doubling my workout time without really noticing, mainly because I get so bored on the regular treadmill, even with my music headset. But this thing is great. Almost makes me want to go back to the gym everyday!

On My Back

Well, it's official: the holidays laid me flat on my back.

I didn't exactly throw it out again, just could feel it tightening quickly today under the lack of PT, lots of floor and little chair sitting, and stress (not your visit, Gommie, just your departure).

And so I spent most of this afternoon on my back on the couch and then doing all my stretches.

I think I'll come out of it just fine--it is already less tight than it was--but it's a timely reminder, here at the New Year, to get back to PT. And to stay off the floor and little chairs!

Oh, Orthotics

My new orthotics are in, black inserts (somewhat resembling dark marbled paper) in both shoes, plus a lift in the right one. And they are so unsteadying/unbalancing (what is the word?), as if I were suddenly a sailor long at sea walking on land again. Because I roll my feet in, the orthotics now push my feet out so that I feel like I'm walking on the outer edge of my feet, when in actuality, I'm walking "normally." It could take up to 3 weeks to get used to them, with some moderate discomfort as the orthotics put to use muscles not used in my previous gait--I could tell in one lap of the clinic that my muscles were surprised. I'm supposed to increase wear each day by an hour, decreasing it to 30 minutes if it is unbearable. Let's hope not. But it's worth it--I believe they will help with my waddle-y walk as well as all my structural issues (from uneven legs to mild scoliosis to diastasis recti), if only because they'll keep everything in proper alignment and correct form.

24 Hours and Counting

I have been brace-free for more than 24 hours, for the first time since October 2007. I have even played outside, driven the car, gone on errands, and dropped the kids off at school. All without that darned, old back brace. And I feel pretty good. Of course, I'm thinking about it a lot so that I move and sit correctly. But nothing hurts. I had been working up to it for months now--loosening the brace, removing its metal stays, not wearing it a few hours off and on when I was home alone. And there were aches and pains, especially when I first started going long stretches without it, as my body adjusted again, but that was to be expected. I'm glad to be almost rid of the crutch that has been physically unnecessary for awhile (my diastasis recti has shrunk as far as it can and my core is so much stronger). But as my PT said when I told her last week that I was really making progress with weaning myself from it, fear of pain, not just pain, can be very difficult to overcome. I still worry about hurting my back again, which is a constant motivation for going to my workout. But I don't want the fear made real in the form of that backbrace anymore.

5K Mania

No, not $5K mania, though in this day and age, I imagine $5000 could create some excitement for almost anyone. But I can understand your confusion. I never talk about exercise.

Yep, I'm talking the walk-run kind.

I don't even know how it started. And I was there. It was playgroup, moms were chatting, and the next thing I knew, it was like we were in a huddle getting ready to break. Everyone was gung-ho about getting in shape and training to run a 5K this May. I listened, not being one of those standing around swearing she used to love to exercise, to work out, even to run; I'm just not one of those people.

That afternoon, I laughingly, jokingly mentioned the hubbub among my friends about running a 5K to my physical therapist. She forbade me, laughing at the prospect along with me. But then she did qualify that by saying she would be in full support of my walking one. Uh-oh. I should have seen that coming.

And so, I'm thinking about it. I've half-heartedly googled "how to train to walk a 5K" and come up with these bizarre-looking calendar charts of WU, Rx2 (5), CD and other incoherent abbreviations. But I wrote my PT a note asking how she would do it, if she were me. And, here now, I'll ask Lambeth how he trained to walk the Thames (loving those pics, Lambeth!). And I've even looked up which 5Ks in the area I can walk. See, I'm a joiner, like being with my friends, so even though it's exercise we're talking about, I'm thinking about it.

Actually, cynical me gives it 3 weeks. I think we'll all realize we don't have a ton of spare, non-child time to actually do any real training for a 5K. I mean, I don't have a few hours daily to practice walking 3.2 miles. But then, novice that I am, I don't even know if that's how you do it. But I'm looking into it. Mama was so shocked when I mentioned it--not in an unsupportive way, just in a you've-never-mentioned-exercise-voluntarily-before way--it might be nice to do something completely outside of my little sedentary box.

I'm Back

It was about a year ago that I started physical therapy for my abdominal and back issues. After almost 8 months of twice-weekly therapy, I graduated to the wellness program where I work out and get advice from the PTs there. But I missed my workouts for most of the summer because of childcare issues. With school and my regular babysitting schedule, I'm back to going 3 times a week. I can "chop" 40 lbs, having started at 10. I can hold all the positions I couldn't a year ago. I'm faster and can go longer on the treadmill and the elliptical, without my usual limp. And even though I still wear my abdominal brace, I've removed the outer bands and am adjusting to not wearing it at all. Hopefully, by Christmas! A big thank you to my PTs (who don't read this blog, but deserve gratitude and some more cookies!), one of whom some of you met at Applepalooza.

But I am still very cautious about picking up the kids, who just keep getting bigger. They know I can't pick them up but still ask occasionally. And sometimes, depending on the starting point, I can, like if I'm picking them up out of the car. And I do seem to find the strength and balance when there is an emergency (adrenaline is a wonderful thing). I just can't do it if we're both standing on the floor. Which still makes us all sad, especially when Sis or Bud says, "But Mommy, you can pick me up, you did your excercises." It's true, I do, every morning before even going to get them and I am getting stronger, but it's not enough yet.

I just hope I catch up before they are too big to pick up.

Pomp and Circumstance

I graduated from PT today. I feel better than I have in the 10 weeks since the flare-ups began, though not quite as strong as before that. But I'm getting there and it was a good time to transition to "wellness," which allows me to use the PT place as a gym, with the therapists there to answer questions or suggest other stretches and exercises.

In truth, my reactions to this last day of therapy was very mixed. I was excited to pick-up my wellness enrollment forms, but then cried in the car from relief. And fear. It's been a long road since I threw out my back last summer and started therapy for that and my diastasis (torn abdominal muscles) in the fall. The last 10 weeks--after 5 weeks of constant reinjury--have been the hardest. I've learned so much about myself and my body, some discouraging, some enlightening, most revelatory, like why the hems of my skirts are never straight, why I can't do certain yoga moves involving balance, why I've always limped. But also that I'm a good starter and a lazy finisher.

Which is why it's amazing that I'm finished with therapy. In fact, after the last "road to wellness," I didn't do anything to celebrate today, not sure it would actually happen (I'm going to get cupcakes to take to my first wellness visit on Monday). For awhile, it felt like I would be in it forever (I'm sure my friends thought so, with the way I'd mention it constantly). It was comfortable, which is probably exactly why it's good that I'm done. But I'm scared--what if I hurt again? Is this the best I will be? It's really coming face-to-face with a chronic problem, one that promises (possibly) arthritis in my hips, orthotics, and who knows what else. What I do know is that I need to keep strengthening my core and that will help all manner of things. I can't fix the dysplasia or diastasis but I can lessen their impact.

So, in the end, it's been a great six months. I've learned so much, gotten stronger, and made some great friends.

And I guess, I hope, with those three things, I am ready to move onto the next phase.

"Wellness" sounds good.

PT Update

So as I've mentioned, I was supposed to graduate from physical therapy recently. For 6 months, I've stretched and strengthened and things have improved. And I've learned much about myself along the way.

And then I pulled my back out. Twice. Once picking up DS after shoveling some snow (I like shoveling snow). And then about a week later, turning around in the car to do something. And now I'm back to limping again. I can't really pick up the kids. And my PT has advised me not to do any extraneous walking.

See, as I've mentioned, my pelvis is uneven. So uneven, that apparently my left leg is longer than my right. Which means there is all this stress on the muscles on my left side. And I'm having trouble healing from the back pulls, which were probably helped along by the constant strain on my muscles despite all the exercises. Now, my PT knew that I was unbalanced but I think she hadn't taken into account all the effects. So now I have a lift in my right shoe, to make the legs match, as we consider if and what kind of orthotics to buy.

It makes sense, though. I threw out my back in May after taking up walking a mile in the morning for new exercise--I probably put everything under too much strain, thinking I was making myself healthier. And even this week, when things were tight and uncomfortable, I tried to walk it off and only ended up making it worse (this happened at Target last Friday and then again on the way to Chinese class yesterday).

And so, for now, I'm not supposed to do any recreational walking.

And DP is at the grocery store . . . but at least we're on the right track.

A Family that Exercises Together . . .

What is it about a mommy on the floor that is an irresistible draw to toddlers and cats?

I've been trying to do the new exercises my PT gave me yesterday and everytime I start a clamshell or the like, I find an extra 27 lbs on my legs and fur in my face. While resistance training (is that even a concept?) is great for tip-top shape athletes, I'm sure, it isn't quite what my therapist ordered. Besides, it's not like I never sit cross-legged on the floor playing trains or animal farm, or throwing foily balls and catnip mice, but there is something about the supine position that is just too much fun.

You should see how excited everyone gets when I pull out my stretchy band!

At least they're getting excited about exercising, right?

The Body Electric

(I think the title of this post dates me. Who out there is singing Irene Cara now? And, yes, I know, it's really Whitman.)

I had a revelation about my body today. Several, actually. It was my first physical therapy appointment. Ever. Since the babes, I've had abdominal and back aches, no doubt due to the various surgeries (2 hernia repairs, c-section with ovarectomy) and, well, carrying and carying for babes. It's been worse since Memorial Day, when I threw out my back while, get this, sitting down.

And today I found out why.

I had thought it was a weight problem. And of course it is, but I've lost more than 50 lbs (if you count from the moment before the babes were born), more like 35 of non-baby weight and I've felt worse than I did at my highest (even my highest pregnant) weight.

Turns out that losing some weight complicated all the muscles issues I'm having. In fact, losing the weight meant losing some of the support that was keeping my muscles from hurting. I have a diastasis, which means my abdominal wall is split down the middle at the linea alba. Mine is three fingers in width! Wow. This of course can cause more hernias. But it also adds to the weakness of all the other abdominal muscles. And my back.

But it also turns out that I am what you call hyper-flexible. Which means I can, with no warm up stretches or anything, lay my hands flat on the floor from a standing position, and other various loose muscle tricks. This is great for gymnasts and such, but not good when your muscles are weak and you have other issues. So, I'm a loose rubber band, with no real muscles to hold everything together.

Also my hips are not aligned properly. One is higher than the other, and not just in the way everyone is uneven. So, all that waddling that I've always done (so much for corrective shoes and walking around the backyard "heel-toe") that people think is a sore foot or a limp, is just the uneveness of it all. Which in turn leads to back trouble.

All in all, I need help and my PT can help me. And it doesn't sound like it will take too long to see some results. Though, I must say, even doing the two pretty minor exercises she gave me today has made me stiff and sore.

But I'm thrilled. It's like realizing I was a lesbian way back when and then watching all the disjointed pieces of my earlier life fall into place. Suddenly, body issues that go back decades suddenly make sense, have an explanation. And, in many ways, it is not my fault. Which is a huge relief. I don't waddle because I'm lazy but because I'm crooked. Fine. Great, even! No wonder I suck at P.E. No wonder I had so much ligament pain on my left side during my pregnancy. And how cool is it to be hyperflexible?! When I get this whole thing straightened out, I'm going to do more yoga!

And in the end, it's wonderful just knowing why.

"I sing the body electric. I celebrate the me yet to come."