A New Focus

This whole rough start to February is throwing me off a bit.  I know that my Alien is inbound in the next couple of days and that I shouldn’t make any sweeping judgements on anything right this second.  But as really awesome as January was, February has kind of sucked bobo.  I went through my goals list this morning and was happy to have come in successfully on one or two….but there are a few important ones that I will definitely not make it on.  Running 5km around our park 4 times this month (the thought of running right now makes my lower back cry).  Not eating any sugar in February; ya….that ship sailed on Day Three of being a Couch Hostage.  My biggest sadness right now is that with only 18 days left in February, I will more than likely not meet my Century Challenge.  I haven’t logged any kilometers since February 3^rd and to succeed at the challenge now I would have to log at least three per day for the rest of the month.  Possible?  I guess……..it would be an enormous stretch to get that done.  I’m really on the fence right now on whether or not I should even try or just write it off.  Thoughts?

I went to the gym this morning and did some gentle rowing (because, duh, ROWING), some lighter resistance training (squats, lunges etc), a whole bunch of core work and a shit-tonne of stretching.  I think that’s what I want to focus the rest of this month on; my general wellness and consistent activity.  My body is So Sore, all the time, which is ridiculous since I’m only 35, fairly fit and top-of-the-heap in the healthy eats department.  I’m pretty certain that I have some systemic inflammation in my body (heartburn, joint pain, skin rash, headaches, mood swings) and as we all know, inflammation is almost 100% caused by food.  So I’ve been going back and forth on whether or not to try an autoimmune protocol and figure out which of the foods that are known inflamers are causing me problems.  The trouble?  They are all the foods that, in our house, we eat the most of.  Eggs. Potatoes.  Tomatoes.  Peppers.  Cumin & coriander.  Paprika!  All nut products. I truly don’t know if I want to know.  You know? Once you know, you can’t scrub that information from your mind.  Also, if you determine that you are sensitive to “some” of the AIP foods….the chances are enormous that you are sensitive to all of them.  For that reason, I am going to try a LOT of other things first to get my body under control.  HEAVY amounts of water and tea, nightly stretching (regardless of gym), supplementing with more Omega 3 and with gelatin, daily walks, icing the sore spots, losing a few pounds and some hot yoga.  Sugar and alcohol are also known to be HUGE inflamers and I drank way too much this weekend (of a really sweet wine, no less) and ate chocolate.  After lazing about for 5 days with my injured shoulder and the chocolate and the wine, my body was wracked with spasms on Sunday and Monday, it was awful.

So, I’m off on another little side road to see if I can clean up, improve, move forward, break new ground and feel better.  In looking back at the sheer number of times that I have been injured, how long recovery seems to take and my constantly recurring general discomfort over the last few years, I surmise that I may be onto something with the food-caused inflammation…..and I desperately hope that I’m not.

As possibly sad as this is, I have this……renewed drive right now…..knowing that I have a purpose to eating healthy and moving and hydrating and sleeping.  If you’ve ever lost a lot of weight, you’d know that once the weight is gone, there is no more reward and it’s really hard to find a reason to keep going when nothing really changes anymore.  Sure, there’s “always” reward in being healthy and eating right or exercising….but it’s not the same as actively doing something in order to move yourself to a different place.  I suspect that doing a Whole30 is one of those “I have a reason for this now” instances?  I’m kind of looking forward to having a tangible reason within myself to dig a little deeper…and in some different ways.  Yoga will be a huge stretch for me (haha, no pun intended).  I don’t like regular Hatha yoga and I don’t like being new to things.  And I’m really inflexible.  Focusing on my core and my stretching along with rowing and some body weight exercises will be a bit different focus for me.  Stretching every night, even the ones that I’m not hurting….that will be new.   I’m excited though…..I’ve been stuck where I am and going forward and back and forward and back for a long time now and never really getting anywhere……because I haven’t really needed to be anywhere.  And now I do, so off I go!

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Bye Baby

It would be really easy right now to completely chuck out all of February’s goals, given my current state.  But….this afternoon, in a drug and pain induced haze, I had the thought that if I did that, it would be the complete opposite of my theme of the year (self) and my goal to find balance in my life.  So I can’t go to the gym….is that any reason to chuck out my financial goals, my sugar-less goals, my relationship goals?  It is not.  I’ve been called “stoic” a few times in the last couple of days and I’m going to be stoic here and stay true to my values and goals and stay as true to the course as I can get.

One thing that has come out of this is a dramatic slow down in everything.  Every single thing I do, from pouring and drinking a coffee to picking which pajama pants to wear has to be thought out in advance and done deliberately.  Every move I make right now is painful and that is ratcheted up exponentially if I have to move quickly or do something more than once.  Just to elaborate on my situation (because it’s all-consuming right now for me), here’s a fun list:

Things I can’t do at all right now (besides fitness, of course):

put my hair in a ponytail, tie my shoes, wear tights, floss my teeth, take my contacts in or out, fill the large dog water dish, put on or take off a necklace, go to work, drive my car (stick shift)

Things I can’t do efficiently or effectively:

laundry, dishes, cooking, shampooing or styling my hair, brushing my teeth, getting off the sofa or out of bed, anything that requires my dominant hand/arm to be engaged at all.

I just got back from taking Gracie for a walk…..after 20 minutes of cavorting into The Ugliest Outfit I’ve ever worn outdoors (selected for my ability to get into and out of it one-armed), we went on a Very Slow march around a few residential blocks in the neighborhood.  It is cold outside but clear and the fresh air felt fantastic.  Tonight is Thursday so we normally go to Costco after dinner but….and here’s a bit of vanity for you…..unless Ray is going to help me get some leggings or yoga pants on, I’m not going out in public wearing what I just wore to walk the dog.  Not.  I still have pride!

I’ll be trying to go to work tomorrow because I don’t currently get paid for staying at home (thanks, new job!).  Ray is going to have to help dress me a bit in the morning…..but I’ll be on my own when I’m at work and have to pee.  TMI, but it’s something I have to think about.  As long as I can get some sleep tonight (slept last night in our spare bed and alternated between crying and dozing sitting up….which was the only position that the bastard arm didn’t make me want to shoot myself) and get dressed with at least combed hair tomorrow, I will go to work.  Even typing that I’m considering going to work sounds so frigging idiotic……(as long as I can comb my hair and get dressed??) but I have to at least show up there.  This is still a new-ish job and I can’t just not show for two days.

We have a three day weekend ahead (thank HEAVENS) and although I won’t be doing any of the things I originally planned, I’m so grateful for the extra days off!  Ray doesn’t know it yet but I’ll still be doing my weekend cooking “hour” because I want to be able to eat good and healthy food next week.  The only difference between my normal cooking time and this weekend is that Ray is going to do most of it with my guidance.

And in regards to hubby dearest who was acting like a bit of a spoiled brat the past few days……he got told last night to step up his game.  He got reminded that I do A LOT for us normally where he does very little, he got reminded that we are in a PARTNERSHIP and you don’t just hang the other partner out to dry when it gets inconvenient.  And he got reminded that he was severely injured FOR A YEAR and I did absolutely everything from cooking, laundry, dog, house, shopping, banking, helping him with hygiene, doctor appts, and being ready and available for HIS EVERY NEED.  FOR A YEAR.  So slamming pots around and acting like I’m torturing him because he has to fry the fajita ingredients (which were pre-chopped and already seasoned!) is effing ridiculous and childish and makes me look at him very differently.    I realize I’ve given him a very nice life and he’s become accustomed to being taken care of and I don’t personally do well on the accepting help front….but we have No Choice in this case so he needs to step up and I need to let/make him.

So to summarize:  not throwing the baby out with the bathwater (February Goals), taking this forced slowdown for what it’s worth and trying to learn from it, considering getting some nice yoga pants/sweatpants that can be worn in public, and doing some work on the old relationship.

Wishing for good, restful and pain-free sleep tonight and some improvement tomorrow….even if it’s miniscule, I’ll take it!

Dog to the Shoulder

Remember this picture from a couple days ago?

Remember how I said she crashed right into me at top speed?  It was HILARIOUS at the time, seriously funny, we both killed ourselves laughing.  I haven’t laughed since.  My right shoulder started aching on Monday night, a deep, bone-ache.  By this morning it was excruciating, couldn’t move it at all, Ray had to put my shoes on me this morning (after I’d cried for two hours trying to get myself ready).  Turns out that thanks to Gracie’s antics, I have trauma (bruising, bleeding) where the biceps attaches to the bone (called the biceps insertion), a torn deltoid and a heavily bruised spinus anterior muscle.  What all that means is ridiculous pain.  RI-DIC-U-LOUS.  Absolutely nothing I can do about it but let it heal.  Ice.  Ice.  More Ice.  Rest.  NO gym.  NO lifting anything…and that means NOTHING, including a fork to my mouth (ever try eating with your non-dominant hand?).  NO heavy breathing (ie, fast walk, stationary bike etc) because….the nerve that services the shoulder contingent is the same one that services the heavy breathing part of your diaghram.  Think about it…..when you are heavy breathing, what are your shoulder muscles doing?  Lifting your chest up and down to facilitate the breathing.  So…..nothing.

I am at work, apparently that is good for me…..small movements bring healthy blood flow to the area (typing, mousing…no writing because that requires grip strength…which starts in your forearm and travels to your bicep and delt…and believe me when I tell you, it most certainly does affect that area!).

Snowflake (my Jetta) is stick shift so Ray and I have to trade for awhile.

I’m borderline amused by all of this and borderline hysterical.  ALL of February’s fitness goals are in the toilet, I am in SO much pain (which hopefully will start to abate in a few days….dependant I guess on how much I really follow the “lift absolutely nothing” rule).

Ray is going to have to step up his game over the next few days…..this morning after I made breakfast (yes, seriously) and served both our plates and poured our coffees, he took his plate and coffee and went and sat down and left me and my breakfast and coffee standing in the kitchen….whereby I burst into tears because, seriously, HELP ME!  And then…..sitting on the sofa, crying into my breakfast while I tried to eat it, he made this comment, “So, what time on Saturday are you riding your bike to work?” and then laughed at me.  He is very, very lucky that I couldn’t lift my coffee or it would have been all over him!  SO not the time to be making stupid jokes about things that, quite honestly, are going to be depressing.

So….that’s where I am right now…..won’t be getting up to much….no bike ride this weekend, no Coquitlam Crunch, no Perimeter Trail run, no gym.  Nothing.  I’d be really bummed right now…..if I wasn’t busy being in so much pain I could puke.

Air Teddy out.

Not My Week!

I’ve been away from Ye Olde Blog for a few days.  You would think it was because I was off galivanting around Osoyoos.  You would be wrong.  Thursday afternoon, driving home from work I got into a fairly serious car accident.  It was raining and the guy in front of me stopped short for the guy in front of him.  Unfortunately there was an oil slick on the road so instead of stopping in time, I bumped his car (no damage to his vehicle).  Aaaaaannnndddd……several seconds later an SUV  rammed into me from behind at full speed.  Needless to say, I’ve been struggling these past few days.

We did go up to Osoyoos on our planned trip anyway since it was already paid for.  Unfortunately…………it wasn’t what it could have been.  I was poor company and incredibley stressed.  To add insult to injury, I got food poisoning on Friday night.  So if you’re keeping track, that’s bank account cleaned out on Monday, car accident on Thursday, food poisoning on Friday.  Nice, right?

Each day since the accident my back and neck and shoulder have gotten progressively worse until Sunday night when I knew I was in trouble.  I’ve been to see my chiropractor (whom I love and have so much gratitude to over the years) and I’ll be in to see him three more times this week.  I saw my family doctor yesterday as well and she wrote me off work for the week and wrote me a couple of prescriptions.

I haven’t eaten much to speak of since Thursday at lunch time, I haven’t slept since the accident, my anxiety over the past week has been off the charts (for me) and I can no longer tell if I’m having a heart incident or if it’s an anxiety attack.  As you may know, I try very hard not to consume any chemicals or preservatives…………..but unfortunately I’ve had to break the rules and last night I took a sleeping pill.  Sometimes you just need a little help getting over the hump…..and dealing with anxiety and stress becomes harder the less sleep you’ve had.  Vicious cycle!  Plus, while it may seem inconsequential given everything else that is going on, I’m not cleared for exercise except walking for at least a month.  That bothers me quite a bit…………it bothers me that some asshole woman was on the phone and not paying attention to the hazard lights ahead of her and slammed into my car and ruined my quality of life in the short term.

Yesterday afternoon we took my car to the insurance adjuster and they wrote it off.  It had more than $7500 damage to it and it’s just not worth that much.  They gave me more for the write off than I was expecting which is great news.  Unfortunately I am four months away from being car payment free.  What that means is that the Total Loss Cheque from the insurance company does not get paid to me……………it gets written to the car company, they take what they are owed and then they mail me back a cheque for the balance.  The trouble with that is that it takes mailing time across the country + 10 clearing days for the cheque + 3 business days to cut a new cheque + mailing back across the country.  So what I have here is no car and no money with which to get a new car for approximately 20 working days.  That’s a month.

It seems like everytime I turn around, I’m getting screwed somehow and I’m really getting tired of it.  My bank still has not returned the money that was stolen from my account, I have no car, I’m injured and I can’t even go and think about getting a new car for a month because I won’t have the downpayment money from the insurance company.

So, I’m going to go and lay down now for awhile and try to unchemically calm myself down enough that I can make breakfast.