As of this moment, I have lost seven pounds since Dec. 1. My goal through the holidays was to lose not gain. Even one pound would have been a victory. And it was FIVE, then another TWO in the past week (since I started lifting/cardio regularly). There were ups and downs but never up to or over the starting point.
I call this an unqualified success. Go, ME! I am also around pain levels of 2-3, with occasional 5s. But nothing over a 5 in the past week.
One way to approach everything, that I sometimes over use, is the modeling method. I "model" success and then try to recreate it. This comes from years of reading self-help crap as well as business plan advice. For the most part, it works. But there are times when you don't want to analyze the miracle - you just want to move ahead, be grateful, enjoy it, and keep the benefits coming. So for now, I am not going to analyze why this has happened. There is also the idea that analysis will be a jinx. Or perhaps hubris, that I can somehow advise or prescribe success. I am successful right here and now, but there's always tomorrow and that little thing of buttercream in the freezer.
But what I can safely say is that all of the information I've gathered about pain, exercise, my body, losing weight, nutrition and the random nature of the universe has finally come around to help me. Maybe I just got out of my own way. I don't know.
In many ways, I seem to live my life "in bulk" - aka always as much of a good thing as I can stand until I overindulge. Books, food, dogs, booze, yarn, fabric, dates, activities, plans.... and then I spend a good deal of time washed up and burned out. Not a good thing. So, as vanilla and bland as it sounds, I am working on living in moderation. Skimming along the surface on a sailboard instead of madly thrashing about in the water doing the butterfly.
Metaphorically, of course. My sailboard days are probably over (never say never!), and the butterfly stroke timing has always escaped me. Kick, kick, whut?, drown, arms, whut?, kick... flail.... switch to breaststroke.
Lost in my own metaphor, I will close this entry for now. A final word: Tiberius! (shout-out to some new readers, perhaps?)
Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts
February 11, 2011
August 14, 2010
From my Pain Diary
8-14-10:
This morning, woke at 7am (7 hrs sleep). Usual back stiffness that improves with upright and mobility.
Sitting ok.
Drank iced tea instead of coffee.
Watered the back yard, scooped poop. Wore sandals.
Sat at my desk for a bit.
Put hose on trickle to water front trees. Barefoot.
Sat on the couch for a bit, ate a bowl of cereal. Knitting a dish cloth.
Started hanging up clothes in bedroom, walking back and forth to hamper.
Sat at computer again for a bit.
Hip joint pain started twinging.
Now feet and ankles swelling, and achy.
Back is starting to spasm.
WHY?!?! What is so maddening about all this is that it makes no sense at all? Moving a lot makes me hurt (afterward); moving a little makes me hurt (immediately after); sleeping too little makes me hurt; sleeping too much, ditto.
ARGH!!!!
This morning, woke at 7am (7 hrs sleep). Usual back stiffness that improves with upright and mobility.
Sitting ok.
Drank iced tea instead of coffee.
Watered the back yard, scooped poop. Wore sandals.
Sat at my desk for a bit.
Put hose on trickle to water front trees. Barefoot.
Sat on the couch for a bit, ate a bowl of cereal. Knitting a dish cloth.
Started hanging up clothes in bedroom, walking back and forth to hamper.
Sat at computer again for a bit.
Hip joint pain started twinging.
Now feet and ankles swelling, and achy.
Back is starting to spasm.
WHY?!?! What is so maddening about all this is that it makes no sense at all? Moving a lot makes me hurt (afterward); moving a little makes me hurt (immediately after); sleeping too little makes me hurt; sleeping too much, ditto.
ARGH!!!!
July 22, 2010
My New Constant Companion
Based on the title you probably thought this would be about my new dog. While I have a new dog, my new constant companion is not the dog.
It's pain.
Back pain usually from early in the morning, while still in bed, until about 30 min. after I get up and move around. The stiffness hits me in my sleep, and wakes me up between 5 and 7 hours after I fall asleep.
Hip pain from misalignment, from walking too much, from sitting too long, from standing too long, from crossing my legs at the ankles too much.
Muscular pain but only after fatigue, and accompanied by twitching.
Emotional pain, imagining that this will never get better and I have to live with this for the next 48 years (because I have always planned to be 100 at the very least before I die). Also because no doctor offers me relief anymore, because no one in my life really gets it or helps. Because all I want is to move, work, dance, and feel NORMAL. Or at least pain-free.
Also painful is admitting any of this, talking about it. It does NOT make it better. Helpful comments do NOT help, despite the intention of the commenter. Reading websites for support is NOT supportive. I haven't yet found a doctor who understands it in a professional way. (There was the one doctor a while back, but he's in another city now, probably retired. And he wasn't exactly encouraging.)
A final element of pain is the public opinion that I didn't have a "full case" of polio and therefore, I won't suffer as much. And hey, look at FDR! He was president four times, and moved mountains. Look at that poet guy! What determination! Such great examples! NOT helping, folks.
At this point, I'm looking for a guru or wizard to make sense of it all, someone who won't blame me. The tiny bit of hope I find is in two things: my dogs are oblivious but loving, and researchers have found fragments of the polio virus in the spinal fluid of post-polio syndrome patients. This might provide answers to the cause, but in the end, it's not cancer. It's very low-end research, not sexy at all, and therefore, no one really cares or will fund anything remotely near a "breakthrough."
Negativity, fatigue, depression and degeneration are also part of the syndrome. Yay! Non-prescription solutions for depression involve.... EXERCISE. Which I am told is not indicated. Screw that. Yesterday, I could hardly get off the couch, but when I was out watching my dogs run around like idiots, I was not in pain.
Not a lot of writing gets done when pain is present. If I could figure out a way to run my dogs and write at the same time, then I'd be golden. And I may have done just exactly that. Stay tuned.
And yes I do have a new dog. He's quite silly and waggy. He is over the top optimistic and unapologetic about it. I like that. I am unapologetic about starting sentences with And. We have that lack of apology in common.
It's pain.
Also painful is admitting any of this, talking about it. It does NOT make it better. Helpful comments do NOT help, despite the intention of the commenter. Reading websites for support is NOT supportive. I haven't yet found a doctor who understands it in a professional way. (There was the one doctor a while back, but he's in another city now, probably retired. And he wasn't exactly encouraging.)
A final element of pain is the public opinion that I didn't have a "full case" of polio and therefore, I won't suffer as much. And hey, look at FDR! He was president four times, and moved mountains. Look at that poet guy! What determination! Such great examples! NOT helping, folks.
At this point, I'm looking for a guru or wizard to make sense of it all, someone who won't blame me. The tiny bit of hope I find is in two things: my dogs are oblivious but loving, and researchers have found fragments of the polio virus in the spinal fluid of post-polio syndrome patients. This might provide answers to the cause, but in the end, it's not cancer. It's very low-end research, not sexy at all, and therefore, no one really cares or will fund anything remotely near a "breakthrough."
Negativity, fatigue, depression and degeneration are also part of the syndrome. Yay! Non-prescription solutions for depression involve.... EXERCISE. Which I am told is not indicated. Screw that. Yesterday, I could hardly get off the couch, but when I was out watching my dogs run around like idiots, I was not in pain.
Not a lot of writing gets done when pain is present. If I could figure out a way to run my dogs and write at the same time, then I'd be golden. And I may have done just exactly that. Stay tuned.
And yes I do have a new dog. He's quite silly and waggy. He is over the top optimistic and unapologetic about it. I like that. I am unapologetic about starting sentences with And. We have that lack of apology in common.
May 5, 2009
Just Here
I'm just here. Not writing. Exercising is hard, and makes my body hurt. Since I came up with the brilliant theory that I will hurt with or without exercise, I'm going with the "with"...
Lots of hot flashes at night, interrupting sleep.
Am reading Nicholas Sparks for tips on the craft of just getting on with the story, without all the business.
I expect that my period will start soon, and this is the pre-game show. When I am exercising, I feel strong and jockish... but things quickly deteriorate when I contemplate where my life has ended up.
I'm so far from home. So far from where I thought I'd be, or even imagined where I might be. So very far.
Lots of hot flashes at night, interrupting sleep.
Am reading Nicholas Sparks for tips on the craft of just getting on with the story, without all the business.
I expect that my period will start soon, and this is the pre-game show. When I am exercising, I feel strong and jockish... but things quickly deteriorate when I contemplate where my life has ended up.
I'm so far from home. So far from where I thought I'd be, or even imagined where I might be. So very far.
April 16, 2009
Follow-Up
After I wrote the entry yesterday, "Lamentations," I felt ill. It started with a mental malaise - moodiness, pissiness. I talked on the phone to a couple of people and found them to be completely idiotic and unhelpful. Then my son came home and I was pissy with him.
WAIT. Hold the phone.
I realized that he was blameless and therefore, this must be Something Going On With Me. I decided that indeed retreat was necessary. So I took a bath, put on PJs and got into bed. At 5pm. Sad but true. Lucy, my champion, laid down with me, curled up and altogether placid and deliciously sweet.
I got up about an hour later and ate some salmon and crackers. By this time, the malaise had become a physical one. I was achy, twitchy, twingy and altogether suffering from whatever it is that the post-polio presents.
I stayed in bed all evening, getting up just a couple of times, and went to sleep right around 11pm. I woke at 4, went back to sleep to crazy niteflix dreams and then woke at 7am. Nearly eight hours of sleep, and I have no body pain today.
So, it was somewhat useful to realize that moodiness and bitchiness precedes these physical symptoms. Maybe it's a signal of some kind?
I shall continue to monitor it.
Another follow-up, perhaps of something unspoken on this blog, but something in my heart: I am no longer in love with the person who did not love me back, though I miss him - the idea of him, the feel of him and the imagined future that will never be.
One more follow-up: The A-team called me from the gym. Not the B-team who answered the phone yesterday. They have new equipment, a new room for the yoga class, and they can downgrade my membership to save about $22 a month. So at least for another month, I'm in.
WAIT. Hold the phone.
I realized that he was blameless and therefore, this must be Something Going On With Me. I decided that indeed retreat was necessary. So I took a bath, put on PJs and got into bed. At 5pm. Sad but true. Lucy, my champion, laid down with me, curled up and altogether placid and deliciously sweet.
I got up about an hour later and ate some salmon and crackers. By this time, the malaise had become a physical one. I was achy, twitchy, twingy and altogether suffering from whatever it is that the post-polio presents.
I stayed in bed all evening, getting up just a couple of times, and went to sleep right around 11pm. I woke at 4, went back to sleep to crazy niteflix dreams and then woke at 7am. Nearly eight hours of sleep, and I have no body pain today.
So, it was somewhat useful to realize that moodiness and bitchiness precedes these physical symptoms. Maybe it's a signal of some kind?
I shall continue to monitor it.
Another follow-up, perhaps of something unspoken on this blog, but something in my heart: I am no longer in love with the person who did not love me back, though I miss him - the idea of him, the feel of him and the imagined future that will never be.
One more follow-up: The A-team called me from the gym. Not the B-team who answered the phone yesterday. They have new equipment, a new room for the yoga class, and they can downgrade my membership to save about $22 a month. So at least for another month, I'm in.
April 7, 2009
Weight Loss, For the Last Time
About a month ago, I started Weight Watchers again. Previously, I lost about 18 pounds, but gained it all back when my grief hit the big time (and I hit the Texas state line). I did my rounds of Popeye's, chicken fried steaks, Tex-Mex and cobbler. But then it became time to lose it. For good.
By counting the WW points, I write everything down and thus, I account for everything, including booze. I detach myself from any guilt or encouragement or feelings re: food because the last thing I need is to "celebrate" food victories with food. So no celebration when I weigh less... just progress reports.
My goals are to lose back to where I can fit into the summer pants I already own. I have other vain goals, but that's the practical one. I also know that I'll sleep better and feel better if I weigh less (ie, less body pain). My ultimate goal (one of the vain ones) is to look hot in jeans and a white dress shirt.
I also use my weekly points and if I'm running low, I either do some activity, or I just skip a meal. I'm working slowly back into yoga, walking and swimming, and hope to add dog agility into the mix when I get in better shape.
What works out for me over the years is to shop and keep foods that are healthy for me. I have eliminated certain entire classes of food. I don't have soda, cookies or snacks in the house. This makes me creative w/r/t snacking. But it takes more effort to eat a snack than it does to not eat, or grab an apple. If we are out, I go ahead and have the thing I'm craving because if I don't, I'll obsess on it and eat double when I finally do break down and eat it, but I write it down and count the points.
I weigh things, and I measure things. I don't eat fat free anything that is supposed to be a fat. I eat the real food. I put real sugar in my tea. I measured how much I use? and it's 16 calories. Except we have started eating "light" cream cheese.
I'm trying to LIVE, not diet. I stopped all the excuses and justifications. I've had all the Church's fried chicken I "deserve" in my life... I don't feel deprived if I don't get a dessert or a main dish. I still love food, and have found that if we indulge a bit on Monday and Tuesday, our week goes by much better. Last night, we had two kinds of ice cream and tater tots. That was my dinner.
Tonight, I plan something chaste like fish and asparagus. But it has to take totally delicious. I've discovered that if I'm not satisfied, I will continue to eat. That aspect of WW is new, and has been useful. They ask you to rate your hunger. Just adding that to my post-meal calculations brings awareness to the fact that I'm FULL and HUNGRY. Oh. That's a different non-food problem.
So, it goes. My reward system is a little odd: when I lose 10 lbs, I'm getting new underwear. When I lose 25, I'm getting a pony. Maybe.
By counting the WW points, I write everything down and thus, I account for everything, including booze. I detach myself from any guilt or encouragement or feelings re: food because the last thing I need is to "celebrate" food victories with food. So no celebration when I weigh less... just progress reports.
My goals are to lose back to where I can fit into the summer pants I already own. I have other vain goals, but that's the practical one. I also know that I'll sleep better and feel better if I weigh less (ie, less body pain). My ultimate goal (one of the vain ones) is to look hot in jeans and a white dress shirt.
I also use my weekly points and if I'm running low, I either do some activity, or I just skip a meal. I'm working slowly back into yoga, walking and swimming, and hope to add dog agility into the mix when I get in better shape.
What works out for me over the years is to shop and keep foods that are healthy for me. I have eliminated certain entire classes of food. I don't have soda, cookies or snacks in the house. This makes me creative w/r/t snacking. But it takes more effort to eat a snack than it does to not eat, or grab an apple. If we are out, I go ahead and have the thing I'm craving because if I don't, I'll obsess on it and eat double when I finally do break down and eat it, but I write it down and count the points.
I weigh things, and I measure things. I don't eat fat free anything that is supposed to be a fat. I eat the real food. I put real sugar in my tea. I measured how much I use? and it's 16 calories. Except we have started eating "light" cream cheese.
I'm trying to LIVE, not diet. I stopped all the excuses and justifications. I've had all the Church's fried chicken I "deserve" in my life... I don't feel deprived if I don't get a dessert or a main dish. I still love food, and have found that if we indulge a bit on Monday and Tuesday, our week goes by much better. Last night, we had two kinds of ice cream and tater tots. That was my dinner.
Tonight, I plan something chaste like fish and asparagus. But it has to take totally delicious. I've discovered that if I'm not satisfied, I will continue to eat. That aspect of WW is new, and has been useful. They ask you to rate your hunger. Just adding that to my post-meal calculations brings awareness to the fact that I'm FULL and HUNGRY. Oh. That's a different non-food problem.
So, it goes. My reward system is a little odd: when I lose 10 lbs, I'm getting new underwear. When I lose 25, I'm getting a pony. Maybe.
March 22, 2009
Exhausted
It's 1130 on Sunday night, and I'm tired but not sleepy. I'm in pain, and stewing over something minor. About 15 minor somethings. This is the time when it would be nice to have some anti-anxiety meds. But when you ask an MD to Rx them for you, they think you are drug-seeking. Well, duh. I am. But really? seriously? 10 last me for six months. TEN. And I split them in half.
I start a new PT job tomorrow and will have students for the first time in 7 years.
It was a good Sunday... we walked in the park with dogs and it was gorgeous and windy. No one was out because people in this town are either godly or too cool for a park where there's a tad of mud and wind. I say bring it on.
Had an awesome lunch and a beer. Had a good nap, but now? I'm a little antsy and so all the demons are right there, ready to plague me. I hope I can sleep soon, but the alarm will go off at 6am, and spring break is over.
So many bittersweet thoughts, so much sadness. I see on Facebook how people are having lives, chit-chatting, making plans with friends, reporting on events. I got nothing. I have work where no one really knows me or cares to know me. I have the new job where I'll be as foreign as my students, and I have .... not much else.
It's this untetheredness that bothers me most. It's not having someone who really cares where I am, what I'm doing, if I'm ok. I do have the compassion and friendship of some awesome online folks. I cherish that. But it's not a substitute for the RL connections. The phone calls, the plans, the events, the chit-chat, the nicknames.
This could all change, but how? I just don't know. It's been like this since we moved here. And it doesn't help that I get email from someone I used to love (and could again) that confuses me and makes me pine away. And ponder what went wrong. We are so right for each other
Time to hit the sack again, tame the aches and pains and see if sleep comes.
The lad is good... he told me that his spring break was awesome. That's solid gold.
I start a new PT job tomorrow and will have students for the first time in 7 years.
It was a good Sunday... we walked in the park with dogs and it was gorgeous and windy. No one was out because people in this town are either godly or too cool for a park where there's a tad of mud and wind. I say bring it on.
Had an awesome lunch and a beer. Had a good nap, but now? I'm a little antsy and so all the demons are right there, ready to plague me. I hope I can sleep soon, but the alarm will go off at 6am, and spring break is over.
So many bittersweet thoughts, so much sadness. I see on Facebook how people are having lives, chit-chatting, making plans with friends, reporting on events. I got nothing. I have work where no one really knows me or cares to know me. I have the new job where I'll be as foreign as my students, and I have .... not much else.
It's this untetheredness that bothers me most. It's not having someone who really cares where I am, what I'm doing, if I'm ok. I do have the compassion and friendship of some awesome online folks. I cherish that. But it's not a substitute for the RL connections. The phone calls, the plans, the events, the chit-chat, the nicknames.
This could all change, but how? I just don't know. It's been like this since we moved here. And it doesn't help that I get email from someone I used to love (and could again) that confuses me and makes me pine away. And ponder what went wrong. We are so right for each other
Time to hit the sack again, tame the aches and pains and see if sleep comes.
The lad is good... he told me that his spring break was awesome. That's solid gold.
March 21, 2009
Data Point
Here is a quick check-in after seven hours up and somewhat active: I have virtually no body pain. It's a good feeling. I did gobble 3 ibuprofen when I got up, and have moved around a bit cleaning the kitchen and sweeping.
Didn't go work out. Yet. If I intend to keep to my promise of not totally screwing up my Weight Watchers weekly point allowance, I need to do some serious activity today and tomorrow. Or all just tomorrow, which could be very bad, and overexerting.
But I scored myself as a 1 on the pain scale about an hour ago. Which is excellent for me. I rarely get 1s!!
I also ate pork on Wednesday, Thursday and today. I am trying to figure out if beef causes me body pain, which it has seemed to in the past, but here is a pork test and no direct results.
So. That was a lot of data points.
Didn't go work out. Yet. If I intend to keep to my promise of not totally screwing up my Weight Watchers weekly point allowance, I need to do some serious activity today and tomorrow. Or all just tomorrow, which could be very bad, and overexerting.
But I scored myself as a 1 on the pain scale about an hour ago. Which is excellent for me. I rarely get 1s!!
I also ate pork on Wednesday, Thursday and today. I am trying to figure out if beef causes me body pain, which it has seemed to in the past, but here is a pork test and no direct results.
So. That was a lot of data points.
Body Issues, Pt. 1
I used to think I was fortunate in that I didn't have major hang-ups about my body. I've always liked it, and it's served me well in the sex department. However, that's a good and functional coping mechanism for what happened when I was a kid, and now overall as I age.
From age 3, I was sick a lot. Various things, mostly "normal childhood diseases." But I did somehow get hepatitis when I was 3, and then I had strep about every three months for a number of years. I remember getting measles and mumps. Measles - "both kinds" I recall my mother saying. I did not die. People get vaccines for these things now. But still, I was sick a lot.
When the polio vaccine came out, there were two version of that. Live and killed. Polio had been killing people, and injuring them for some 30 years in this country, and it was believed to be a miracle from somewhere... so sure, line 'em up and vax 'em down! Except no one in the military (I'm a military brat) heeded the precaution that those with weakened immune systems might not be good candidates for the vaccine. No, it was soldier up and take the medicine.
So, I got vaccine-dogpiled. And got polio from the vaccine. I have no way of knowing if my parents were ever apprised of the risks v. benefits, or just what. Or if they were told that I got polio FROM the VACCINE. It is clear that is what happened. And they told me as a child that "we caught it just in time" and the case of polio I got was "mild" because of their timeliness. But when I brought up this new awareness to them in the early 90s, they were in complete and total denial. Get it from the vaccine? No way, that's not what they told us! They had even forgotten that I was sick for months, on antibiotics nearly every month for a solid year before the vaccine.
I used to have my medical records from early early on, because we "hand-carried" them out of military life into retirement. As a single mom with baby on hip, I took them with me to Australia where I had planned to use them to assist with the anit-vax efforts down there, but that didn't work out at all. Sheer oversight on my part, I left them on a shelf in the home where I was staying, and when I left, it was not on good terms. So not good that the homeowner never replied to my requests for these valuable documents. That loss is keen. Still today. Losing them is probably the deepest wound I got from the whole experience. (The rest of my trip was quite wonderful - Australia is a lovely and beautiful place and its people are awesome. Perhaps more on that in future entries?)
My point is this: without my medical records, I could now never prove anything to anyone about the vax injury. But also the aftermath. There were at least 90 pages of physical therapy notes (extensive testing, these days not documented in as much detail), surgical notes for three surgeries, and similar. It would be important to me, in further medical care, in writing about my illness, to have those records. It would be important to others, I feel. Yes, the loss of those records is keen.
However, I do have the body still. The records only describe what was done to it, and I have the original body. The paralysis I suffered from polio at age 6 went up my left leg entirely stopping at my hip. I could not walk for a good three or four months. I did not lose function, at the time, in my right leg. The growth in that leg was stunted, but more importantly, the protocol after polio was to "take it easy." That was the exact wrong advice. After all the PT, wherein I learned to walk again, further exercise should have been allowed to build muscles and functionality. I grew but the left leg didn't catch up. There was an unequal leg difference and my slight limp became more pronounced as I grew taller. Scoliosis developed and I was put in a Milwaukee brace - from neck to hips. Special shoes were entertained for a few months but they helped nothing and caused pain, so I abandoned them.
You can imagine the social implications of this. Yeah, playground kids LOVE someone who limps. Oh, and the fun of 7th and 8th grade. Yeah. Good times.
Anyway, I had a permanent PE excuse. Great, except I was a very athletic-minded person. I wanted to be running, doing, riding bikes and horses, playing kickball, etc. I did as much as I could without incurring the wrath of my mom, but she never took the hint. I could stay out all day, come home completely dirty, sweaty and happy, and then get up the next day and do it all over again. But still they kept me away from sports and organized activity. After school, once we'd moved to the country, I was out every day with my dog, exploring the woods, climbing trees, trying to catch the neighbor's horses.
Which is why it is so hard for me now to get off my lardass and get to the the gym, or ride my bike, or whatever. But I'm going to do that now, as an experiment, so I can write about it here. It is so difficult to overcome the mental obstacles every.single.time I want to be active. Plus, there's the physical ones - constant physical limitations due to weight gain and now the onset of post-polio syndrome, with constant moderate back pain.
So when it's time to exercise, I can find a million reasons not to, most of which relate to the avoidance of pain, but a sizeable and significant handful of reasons are mental. First of all, it's just not fun for me to deal with all this. The fun is greatly lessened by the time I get into it. Secondly, it is not fun to be having fun and then suddenly lose balance or have a knee buckle and take a tumble, wrenching something in my back. That sucks, in fact. Thirdly, it's just rotten horrible lousy awful to be cranking along on weights or the elliptical, and have some idiot make an idiot comment. My anger at the whole thing is bubbling there just under the surface, and I want to throttle the unsuspecting idiot and remove them from the gene pool. Or hide.
See? Exercise is a good deterrent for depression and stress. Ha!
Stay tuned for Part 2 of Body Issues, post work-out.
From age 3, I was sick a lot. Various things, mostly "normal childhood diseases." But I did somehow get hepatitis when I was 3, and then I had strep about every three months for a number of years. I remember getting measles and mumps. Measles - "both kinds" I recall my mother saying. I did not die. People get vaccines for these things now. But still, I was sick a lot.
When the polio vaccine came out, there were two version of that. Live and killed. Polio had been killing people, and injuring them for some 30 years in this country, and it was believed to be a miracle from somewhere... so sure, line 'em up and vax 'em down! Except no one in the military (I'm a military brat) heeded the precaution that those with weakened immune systems might not be good candidates for the vaccine. No, it was soldier up and take the medicine.
So, I got vaccine-dogpiled. And got polio from the vaccine. I have no way of knowing if my parents were ever apprised of the risks v. benefits, or just what. Or if they were told that I got polio FROM the VACCINE. It is clear that is what happened. And they told me as a child that "we caught it just in time" and the case of polio I got was "mild" because of their timeliness. But when I brought up this new awareness to them in the early 90s, they were in complete and total denial. Get it from the vaccine? No way, that's not what they told us! They had even forgotten that I was sick for months, on antibiotics nearly every month for a solid year before the vaccine.
I used to have my medical records from early early on, because we "hand-carried" them out of military life into retirement. As a single mom with baby on hip, I took them with me to Australia where I had planned to use them to assist with the anit-vax efforts down there, but that didn't work out at all. Sheer oversight on my part, I left them on a shelf in the home where I was staying, and when I left, it was not on good terms. So not good that the homeowner never replied to my requests for these valuable documents. That loss is keen. Still today. Losing them is probably the deepest wound I got from the whole experience. (The rest of my trip was quite wonderful - Australia is a lovely and beautiful place and its people are awesome. Perhaps more on that in future entries?)
My point is this: without my medical records, I could now never prove anything to anyone about the vax injury. But also the aftermath. There were at least 90 pages of physical therapy notes (extensive testing, these days not documented in as much detail), surgical notes for three surgeries, and similar. It would be important to me, in further medical care, in writing about my illness, to have those records. It would be important to others, I feel. Yes, the loss of those records is keen.
However, I do have the body still. The records only describe what was done to it, and I have the original body. The paralysis I suffered from polio at age 6 went up my left leg entirely stopping at my hip. I could not walk for a good three or four months. I did not lose function, at the time, in my right leg. The growth in that leg was stunted, but more importantly, the protocol after polio was to "take it easy." That was the exact wrong advice. After all the PT, wherein I learned to walk again, further exercise should have been allowed to build muscles and functionality. I grew but the left leg didn't catch up. There was an unequal leg difference and my slight limp became more pronounced as I grew taller. Scoliosis developed and I was put in a Milwaukee brace - from neck to hips. Special shoes were entertained for a few months but they helped nothing and caused pain, so I abandoned them.
You can imagine the social implications of this. Yeah, playground kids LOVE someone who limps. Oh, and the fun of 7th and 8th grade. Yeah. Good times.
Anyway, I had a permanent PE excuse. Great, except I was a very athletic-minded person. I wanted to be running, doing, riding bikes and horses, playing kickball, etc. I did as much as I could without incurring the wrath of my mom, but she never took the hint. I could stay out all day, come home completely dirty, sweaty and happy, and then get up the next day and do it all over again. But still they kept me away from sports and organized activity. After school, once we'd moved to the country, I was out every day with my dog, exploring the woods, climbing trees, trying to catch the neighbor's horses.
Which is why it is so hard for me now to get off my lardass and get to the the gym, or ride my bike, or whatever. But I'm going to do that now, as an experiment, so I can write about it here. It is so difficult to overcome the mental obstacles every.single.time I want to be active. Plus, there's the physical ones - constant physical limitations due to weight gain and now the onset of post-polio syndrome, with constant moderate back pain.
So when it's time to exercise, I can find a million reasons not to, most of which relate to the avoidance of pain, but a sizeable and significant handful of reasons are mental. First of all, it's just not fun for me to deal with all this. The fun is greatly lessened by the time I get into it. Secondly, it is not fun to be having fun and then suddenly lose balance or have a knee buckle and take a tumble, wrenching something in my back. That sucks, in fact. Thirdly, it's just rotten horrible lousy awful to be cranking along on weights or the elliptical, and have some idiot make an idiot comment. My anger at the whole thing is bubbling there just under the surface, and I want to throttle the unsuspecting idiot and remove them from the gene pool. Or hide.
See? Exercise is a good deterrent for depression and stress. Ha!
Stay tuned for Part 2 of Body Issues, post work-out.
March 20, 2009
I See Dead People
I am certain that one of the most primary factors of what is going on with me right now is that I see dead people.
They are everywhere. In my house, in my life, in my heart. My mother died in 2003, my father and eldest brother in 2007, within six weeks of each other. I have one brother remaining, a handful of nieces and nephews and cousins who are distant.
I am divorced too, single mother to one son. The (ill-advised) marriage died, perhaps before it ever drew breath.
Somewhere in all this dying, divorce and turmoil of the past few years, I died too. I look in the mirror and I see someone else. 20 lbs heavier, I type-out on the MBTI as an I now, where about 10 years ago, I was an E. (Extrovert v. introvert).
My aunt died last fall. She was the one who had all the family memories. She was sharp as a tack until the last time she laid down in her bed at home. They broke out the emergency pain meds, and she floated out on morphine and terminal cancer. And all those memories died too. All the stories. The artifacts remain - those that she kept and that my cousin did not throw away. Those artifacts are in a box in my office. They are unconnected dots because the family is dead.
Everything I've ever known about who I am and what family I come from is gone. All I have is memories, disconnected. I've got a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle and only about half of the pieces anymore. Most people could enjoy the bit of lake that did get put together, or half of a big-eyed kitten. I'm only able to see the gaps, the lost pieces.
I've spent more than 10 years being a Good Mom. Now that the lad has begun to turn into teenager, all that hard work seems to be for naught. No one looks at the mother of a teen and says, "ah, what a good mom." The pudding is cooked, so to speak. Though I do know there are important months and years of parenting still to come, my 24x7 vigilance is not essential.
So what do I have left? Visions of people dying, young and old (brother died at 60 - that's young.). I held my mother as she died, I spent many hours with my father at the end, and I witnessed my brother in extremis. I've looked into the faces of the people I love, the people who made me, who raised me, and I've seen death.
Moreover, I've seen myself old and dying. I've seen it like it was today. And the way I feel in my body, the way I feel in my heart, it IS today. And so I wake up every day like it's the last. That, unlike the country songs, makes me feel like it's over, not like it's time to live. Or at least it's an uphill climb to live, to function like I'm part of the world here and now, instead of the world that is gone from my sight.
The emotions and moods come and go, but the simple loss of identity, the loss of people who cared about me on a cellular level - that's the hardest thing to deal with. The world that passed is more real to me. The world I live in now is foreign, bewildering, difficult.
Maybe I am coping... grieving, as the shrinks like to say, but it's just vastly different, and a lot less glamorous, than I thought it would be.
Edited to add: while I say that I wake up every day like it's the last, I do still wake up and have some kind of interest and impetus for living. I always look forward to what the day might bring. I'm decidedly NOT suicidal. I don't WANT to die at all. I don't WANT to be in this limbo between life and the beloved dead, but I am.
They are everywhere. In my house, in my life, in my heart. My mother died in 2003, my father and eldest brother in 2007, within six weeks of each other. I have one brother remaining, a handful of nieces and nephews and cousins who are distant.
I am divorced too, single mother to one son. The (ill-advised) marriage died, perhaps before it ever drew breath.
Somewhere in all this dying, divorce and turmoil of the past few years, I died too. I look in the mirror and I see someone else. 20 lbs heavier, I type-out on the MBTI as an I now, where about 10 years ago, I was an E. (Extrovert v. introvert).
My aunt died last fall. She was the one who had all the family memories. She was sharp as a tack until the last time she laid down in her bed at home. They broke out the emergency pain meds, and she floated out on morphine and terminal cancer. And all those memories died too. All the stories. The artifacts remain - those that she kept and that my cousin did not throw away. Those artifacts are in a box in my office. They are unconnected dots because the family is dead.
Everything I've ever known about who I am and what family I come from is gone. All I have is memories, disconnected. I've got a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle and only about half of the pieces anymore. Most people could enjoy the bit of lake that did get put together, or half of a big-eyed kitten. I'm only able to see the gaps, the lost pieces.
I've spent more than 10 years being a Good Mom. Now that the lad has begun to turn into teenager, all that hard work seems to be for naught. No one looks at the mother of a teen and says, "ah, what a good mom." The pudding is cooked, so to speak. Though I do know there are important months and years of parenting still to come, my 24x7 vigilance is not essential.
So what do I have left? Visions of people dying, young and old (brother died at 60 - that's young.). I held my mother as she died, I spent many hours with my father at the end, and I witnessed my brother in extremis. I've looked into the faces of the people I love, the people who made me, who raised me, and I've seen death.
Moreover, I've seen myself old and dying. I've seen it like it was today. And the way I feel in my body, the way I feel in my heart, it IS today. And so I wake up every day like it's the last. That, unlike the country songs, makes me feel like it's over, not like it's time to live. Or at least it's an uphill climb to live, to function like I'm part of the world here and now, instead of the world that is gone from my sight.
The emotions and moods come and go, but the simple loss of identity, the loss of people who cared about me on a cellular level - that's the hardest thing to deal with. The world that passed is more real to me. The world I live in now is foreign, bewildering, difficult.
Maybe I am coping... grieving, as the shrinks like to say, but it's just vastly different, and a lot less glamorous, than I thought it would be.
Edited to add: while I say that I wake up every day like it's the last, I do still wake up and have some kind of interest and impetus for living. I always look forward to what the day might bring. I'm decidedly NOT suicidal. I don't WANT to die at all. I don't WANT to be in this limbo between life and the beloved dead, but I am.
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