Diseases

Putting myself out there more honest and open than I normally would. Thus the silence. I don’t know what to say or how much I should say.

They say knowing the name of your affliction feels so much better. Uhm, maybe. I would posit that sometimes it doesn’t feel so encouraging to be told you have an incurable degenerative “disease.” I think it’s mainly the “disease” word that gets me. Maybe “condition” would sound less sinister? See, you have a couple of symptoms (and by “you” I almost always mean “me”), and even though it’s not a big deal, you go ahead and meet with a specialist to see what’s going on. When people tell me I have a symptom, like dry mouth, I’d shrug if off thinking “being hydrated is good for me. If you think my mouth is dry, it sounds like that is more of concern to you than it is to me. Whatever.” You know? You try to downplay it to be less doomful than it does, because you don’t want to feel like you have this affliction or disease or whatever. It’s not who you are.

(Abrupt topic change here.)

I’ve been on prescription drugs most of my life. Didn’t used to bother me at first. Modern miraculous science, right? Then sometimes a person occasionally feels bummed or resentful, like they’re a weakling if they can’t function without taking pills every single day. One usually gets over it, and trudges on. When the number of prescriptions start stacking up and you hear side effects like permanent vision loss, it’s possible to start wondering how much poison one is pumping into one’s body. At least, it can give one pause, especially knowing that it’s a build up of the drug in your system that causes issues. Every day you take it, one more grain of rice, piece of straw, but you wonder when the scale might tip t where the cost outweighs the benefit. You soldier on, taking the pills that seem to keep symptoms manageable. Then when the symptoms become more noticeable, I was scared to acknowledge them to the docs. What would they say if I admitted symptoms? They’d offer to pile on more pills, of course. Is it that bad that I want to avoid downing more toxins? Hmm, maybe not. They’d ask if I had symptoms in the morning that might last 30 minutes. I think to myself, heck, if you’re asking whether I want more drugs or if I’m willing to get up half an hour earlier to cope, I’ll keep my mouth shut and cope. Maybe this isn’t the right way to act, but can you at least see how my thinking made sense, even in a possibly warped, twisted way?

Then when you finally admit life isn’t as pleasant as you’d like, they pile on more pills. But wait, this pill makes me feel great! Wow, what was I thinking avoiding it? Maybe quality of life does matter. But alas, the prescription is a short-term fix, and while some reap lasting benefits, me, not so much. Let’s try more pills. Sure. Let’s go in or blood work every 3 months or so, to make sure said drugs aren’t destroying my body elsewhere. Have I mentioned I detest needles? So to say that I’m feeling bad enough to meekly submit to needle pricks that frequently says something.

I don’t know. I still don’t like that word “disease” and I dare say it haunts me a bit. Again, life-long condition we can try to cope with, while more wordy, sounds more palatable. But to feel like I’m a “diseased” incurable person still feels more dismal and hopeless. It won’t kill me, but it can easily progress to make life miserable. I start to wonder if it’s getting me down because something in my brain expects it too. Maybe I should have listened more carefully when they said that the prescriptions could slow down the progression of the disease. Maybe had we piled on more drugs sooner, I might be in better shape, as odd as that sounds. I thought the less you think about it, and the more optimistic you can be, mind over matter, right? Maybe my point is, does it do more harm than good telling someone they're diseased all the time so that the expectation gets engrained in their brain?

Knee Physical Therapy

Going to a different physical therapy place for my knee. Being treated like a grown-up, that it’s ok to do exercises at home. In fact, it is assigned to do them at least once daily in addition to what I do there.. Exercises are kicking my hinie. Wished I would be getting better at them by now, but I’m still huffing and puffing all the time. He also threw in a couple of things for me to try with my shoulder, since I’m still waiting for my PCP to give instruction on what to do next. Probably wants an MRI on that too, but his office refuses to get the paperwork in. Would have been nice to have it before end of the year, as my insurance would have paid for it.

Speaking of which, I seem to have lost the filter between my mild pain and my mouth. Not swearing, but seems like I’m uttering mild moaning and groaning all the time, not suppressing it anymore. Oops. Guess I’m tired and that filter requires effort.

Anyway, the new physical therapist seems nice and is available after I get off work. Just not making progress as fast as I would have hoped, especially since I started a couple strengthening things before I got there. New method of taping my knee this time. Need to buy different tape and practice.

Strength Cardio

Tried strength/toning cardio. Man, that stuff hurts. Is it just me? It hurts worse while doing it than later, when one would think you’d be sore afterwards. If it hurts “that” much while doing it, I fear over-doing it because I don’t know if I can handle if it gets much worse afterwards. (sigh) What to do? I found a play list of Pahla B’s seated workouts, and thought hey, I should go through the whole list so I can see which ones I like. But I’ve already had to to modify or drop the strengthening part on multiple times because I can’t stand how much it hurts. How is that possibly normal? One would think you might get too fatigued; tuckered out, and drop the weights, or switch to smaller ones, during the workout. But is it normal to hurt this much? And the hurt not being because I’m sore from previous exercise?

Ortho visit

You ever get up and try to convince yourself to have a gung-ho positive attitude against your usual disposition? I tried to think of a good mantra-ish statement like “every day is a new day” and my twisted mind remolded it into: you’re alive whether you want to be or not. Might as well try to make it the least amount of miserable you can. That’s what happens when you’re not a morning person.

The orthopedic appointment wasn’t that bad, all things considered. In short, no surgery can fix anything. Whenever I need surgery, it’ll be a full knee replacement, and we’re not there yet. The tendon is completely separated and there’s no fixing it. It’s completely useless. First option will be go back to PT (pain and torture) and strengthen all the supporting muscles to reduce pain and suffering. Next option if/when it gets super bad is cortisone injections, which usually calm things downhopefully for 6+ months. The more injections you get, the less effective they eventually become. They also offer PRP – platelet rich plasma injections, though insurance doesn’t cover that, so it’d be on my own bill. They believe there’s decent evidence it can promote healing (of whatever is left) and provide relief up to a year.

On a good note, they said there are no activities I need to avoid based on this evidence. Listen to the pain and take it easy and use home remedies as needed (rest, ice, wrap, whatever). I don’t have to be paranoid that doing something I don’t perceive as painful will cause more irreparable damage that I have no idea I’m causing. Hey, maybe I can get in super duper shape and go hiking again. They didn’t say I couldn’t. Several years ago when someone first diagnosed me with arthritis, they said stay away from hiking and inclines. While I wasn’t in great shape then either, that took away a lot of possible motivation. I’m not a runner; never will be. But I could convince myself to hike up the incline and sweat and toil away knowing it builds muscles and endurance for hiking, which I loved. Come on, people, you have to give me incentive of something. The idea: "maybe you won’t be as painful and miserable someday" doesn’t cut it for me. Well, not 10 years ago, anyway. Today might be a different story. That’s how we arrived at the mantra to make one’s existence the least amount of miserable as possible. Wow, how my dreams have changed, huh.

Knee Surgical Consult Reserved

PCP (primary care provider) advised the MRI results are such that natural healing through conservative methods (rest, ice, compression, physical therapy) are less likely. The good news is that the orthopedic surgeon can get me in next week. Yay. Can’t wait to see the look on my work-place manager’s face if I have to have another surgery, even if it’s a minor one. And who knows, maybe they’ll recommend to try and exhaust conservative methods first to be absolutely sure. it still creeps me out a little that who knows what state one’s tendons are in unless one gets an MRI, which is super expensive. I mean, what if we try PT and a few months from now, it’s better, but not great. How do you guess at what condition the tendons are in at that point without another MRI?

It’s a bit irritating and unfortunate how long it took to figure this out. Trying not to hate or resent all the previous providers, but it’s a yucky situation. The most helpful one thought I merely needed to be put on strong prescription anti-inflammatories every couple of months to reduce sweelling and call it good. They never entertained the idea it could be anything worse than healthy, strong, tendons getting inflamed from time to time. Now I’m envisioning them torn, chewed, and possibly semi-mangled and, well, yuck. I do have a chronic inflammatory “disease” so I get it, but . . . Is it because I’m so fat and this type of tendon damage is usually from athletic sports injuries? Not hating on them, but good grief it took a while to get here. Even my insurance would probably have rejected an MRI request earlier in the year without proof of a traumatic injury.

Will try to focus on the idea that hard word towards losing weight WILL come eventually. It’s been so slow, and so arduous the past few months. As I mentioned, all things considered, even with a supposed “significant” weight loss so far, I don’t feel much better than before. I have to force myself to believe that even if it’s seriously delayed, and I don’t see the payback yet, that it will come someday. I realize it’s not immediate or dramatic, but oye, it’s been tough to hang in there. You get to the point you start to think eh, what does it matter if I eat this or that? I feel semi-cruddy either way. Why bother?

Knee MRI

Got MRI results for my knee; sounds like multiple “complex” tendon tears everywhere. At least, sounds bad. No idea, since I don’t have access to a real doc for another 2 months to interpret the clinical terminology and tell me what to do next. Sad thing is my knee is actually feeling and looking a lot better. How bad was it earlier this year? Has it healed a bit since then, or is it worse from not getting any treatment? How much can tendons heal by themselves? No idea.

General web recommendations are RICE: rest, ice (and elevate), compression, exercise. I can tell you it’s hard to ice and elevate it several times a day, so that’s not gonna happen easily. Maybe beginning and end of the work day, and right before bed? Tried to figure out how to ice and/or elevate it at work before, and propping my foot up on my trash receptacle only made it feel worse b/c it was jammed at a bad angle. I got some ice-packs in anticipation of my surgery. Maybe I can lash them to my knee, but have a feeling it’s not gonna be very comfortable either (gee, isn’t cutting off circulation bad?).

Compression – I did use a compression sleeve earlier this year, but after the steroid rx, it feels worse to use it. We’re talking pain after putting it on, and a lot more pain after taking it off, vs. no or very little pain all day long. It’s not merely pain at the end of a day, not having the helper compression sleeve on. More like pain all night long after using it.

Exercise. Usually after the appropriate time of rest and ice. But what exercise can I do or what is going to make it worse? My PCP isn’t available for two months. I can try to get digital images and take them to a walk-in place. They are probably going to get sick of me.

Ups & Downs

The nutrition place cancelled on me the day before. Kinda ticks me off since I had another provider cancel the day of, recently. Even though they were separate places, my workplace sometimes seems like it’s this huge burden on them to let us miss work for appointments, you get everything in place and arrange to made up the time, and boom, never mind, you can’t come in.

This begs the question, do I need to see some specialist? Am I doomed to be resentful of half the stuff they suggest I do? What is the goal here? Show up once and see what they say, make notes and never go back? I probably can’t implement everything even if I try to take small steps and don’t reject everything they say. Is it more to get that other provider off my back who keeps giving me advice that I don’t ask for?

It may not hurt to go since maybe they could give advice on foods or supplements for inflammation, since that’s a large issue for me. I’ve been taking ginger and turmeric for a while, and in my experience, the supplements are usually higher doses than I would ingest in “real life” eating. Taking a spoonful or two of chia seeds every day like medicine, since still dislike them. Yeah, should probably reschedule when I’m not quite as miffed.

My mood is still very up and down. One day I’m trying to give myself encouragement thinking thigs like “I’m going to lose weight and feel better” and before long I turn it into a hokey affirmation of “I’m losing weight and feeling great.” Then a few days later the best I can muster is “It’s easier to be miserable and thinner than miserable and overweight.” Not that I’m about thin for the sake of appearance. But hey, when you need to reduce yourself drastically, smaller is going to happen somewhere.

Tried a new video today and pushed myself harder than I have in quite a while. 30 minutes straight walking in place (if we’re not counting having to stop and press the “skip ad” on youtube 4-5 times). Haven’t done that in quite a while. Hopefully my body doesn’t hate me tomorrow. I got 7000 steps by the end of work, including 49 minutes of “intense” activity, according to my fitbit. Would hope that’s something. Maybe help counteract all the junk-food I ate last weekend. Maybe subconsciously I thought I had to eat those Halloween themed Cheetos before the nutritionist scolded me to never touch them again. Yeah, that's it. Sad how it doesn’t matter how long you go without them, they still taste great. I keep hoping they won’t taste as good, but somehow they always do.

I admit the amped up exercise was good for me, and possibly even for my mood. There’s another point against that one provider with the unsolicited advice. Long time ago they told me to forget cardio and only do strength. Whatever. I think what they meant to say was that with my advanced age, it’s probably a good thing to focus more on strength and maintaining muscle. Not sure if people always listen to what comes out of their mouths. I don’t need people scolding me as if I need to feel guilty for still doing activities that get my heart rate up. Come on. Let’s scold the obese person for exercising while they’re already feeling down. Grow up. Where did that good mood go from my exercise? Huh, dissipates quickly, doesn’t it. Sure, it helps, but I have yet to see it solve everything.

Nutritionist Appointment Paperwork

I finally got all the paperwork completed for the nutritionist. It kept timing out on me, and I think I forgot a few food preferences/non-preferences to mention. They’ll probably tell me to eat fish all the time. Meat seems to be the craze, and the only thing “better” than that would be the omegas in fish, right? Glack.

I should be happy the questions seemed very holistic. One of the medical directors at my insurance company once called holistic health voodoo. Was that the word? Either that or witch-craft. Probably voodoo. It's supposed to be covered by my insurance, but if they decide not to pay, I won't go to more than one visit.

I digress. The more it asked, the more defensive I felt, like whoa, what are they gonna make me try to do? Not merely food, but sleep, exercise, screen-time. The beginning asked how ready one is to make changes: from not at all, to ready to make drastic changes. I started the questionnaire with the response that I’m ready to make small changes. By the end I revised it to I’m ready to think about changes.

Does all screen-time count if you’re doing an exercise video, or if you are watching tv, but doing mild exercises or stretching? Does take-n-bake count as eating out? Yeah, I know.

Say whatever you want, I am not going to lock my pets out of the bedroom even if they say it is unhygienic to allow them in. We have one with abandonment issues, and we’re lucky if we can keep them from going berserk. See, super defensive.

The biggest ego-crusher was exercise. I asked my husband his opinion on several questions to keep me marginally honest. His impression was that I don’t exercise regularly at all. Maybe not super regular exercise. I don’t do much on weekends because I hang out with him and he’s tired from his physical job. So maybe that doesn’t count as “regular” exercise? My fitbit and I thought I’ve been doing ok, still logging an average of 25+30 minutes a day (averaging out over the entire week). It goes nuts buzzing at me when I reach 150 minutes for the week, and sometimes I hit that by Wednesday. Whatever. Told you I’m too defensive. We’ll see what happens.

State of Affairs

Not sure how I’m doing. Trying not to be paranoid getting a couple of tired body parts returning, you know? I’ll just say that it’s sad when you think oh is that a good thing because keto makes you feel like crap, and that means you’re burning fat, therefore it’s a good thing to feel like crap?


I am not doing keto, nor do I think it would be a good idea for me. I once tried a program that resulted in mild keto-ish flu-like symptoms for less than a week and I made a couple ofcritical mistakes at work so that I spent the rest of the year trying to get my accuracy up to an acceptable level for my annual review.

I made an appointment for an official nutritionist today. First appointment is 90 minutes. Will I have the discipline and determination to do what they tell me? No idea.

Autumn

Well, Autumn is definitely here, where I live. Almost unseasonably early, but no complaints from me.

Had my annul physical, and my PCP (Primary Care Provider) congratulated me for being down 42 pounds since last year. I should be more happy about that. At least they weren’t in my face how that wasn’t good enough, and pushing semaglutide. They also agreed a meat only diet should not be required. But . . . they did have a free sample of Ozempic. Not sure if I will take it, though free is free. Like protein bars or shake mixes, is it ok if it’s means to an end? Certainly one free month’s worth won’t get me to my goal, but if it nudges in the right direction, one could argue I might have less pain and more energy to keep at it.

This is my last day of the corticosteroid prescription that has kept my pain at bay. A little bit on my shoulder and knee has crept back in while weaning off the dosage, but I’m trying to remain optimistic. I’m certainly doing much better when my whole upper body doesn’t feel like I’ve been in a wind-tunnel slapped repeatedly with debris going 180 mph for an hour.

Speaking of that, I had heard counseling can help dealing with chronic pain, so I found one that can work with my schedule, and finally had an appointment. I’m not in a lot of pain now, but I’m sure I have plenty of issues to work through. They gave me a nice pep talk that 40 pounds, even slowly, is still 40 pounds and I’m progressing in the right direction. The also noted it’s “not been that long” since my major surgery in May. I must be very lucky because I swear after 3-4 weeks I was ready to get back to normal life. Sure, I’m not an athlete, but I was antsy to start exercising and was hardly in any pain from the actual surgery. Considering my age and lack of superb health, hallelujah.

I was ordering some items online and snuck some compression gloves into my cart. I have not tried them yet, and if I continue feeling great, maybe I won’t have to. But I wanted to be prepared, and they weren’t that expensive. I don’t think that makes me too pessimistic; just realistic. And if the gloves could make a positive difference to keep me feeling great after the rx, even better.

Ha, speaking of that, I was able to get on an old size 4.5 ring yesterday. The 4 ¾ felt more comfortable, but I could get into the 4 ½. The time those fit, when I had them sized down, was when I was 100+ pounds less than I am now. What the. We’ll see how my hands are after the rx ends, though, right?

Now what to do with all this yarn . . . perhaps I should save that for another post.

Pain-Free, What a Concept

Strangely mostly pain-free. Wow, is this what it feels like to be normal? It’s a short-term prescription, but hopefully it will have long-lasting effects. Might as well enjoy it while I can.

It’s funny to see what people are calling HIIT (high intensity interval training) on youtube, especially since I avoided it for so long. See, I get the idea to push yourself for a bit, and then let up. But back when I was in shape I was already hitting BP 140-180 and I thought what, you’re telling me that’s not enough? And if you’re going to push yourself say, 2 minutes (or whatever), I thought you might as well push yourself as long as possible, right? Get that much more out of it? Why “only” do intervals if you can push yourself and haven’t keeled over yet?

Right now I’m looking at the stuff I’ve been dong and seeing it labeled HIIT and I think you’ve got to be kidding – this is easy. Some of them are doing the activity for 50 seconds, resting for 10 (or various combinations). I’m trying to see if I can push through and not use the 10 second break because that would be even better, right? Let alone the ones that are 45 seconds work and 15 second breaks. Geesh, if I had know it was this easy I would have gotten on board long ago. Of course maybe it’s because some of these are old-people exercises, but not all of them.

Then this bizzare idea that a person can exercise for a smaller time-frame and it still counts. 10 minute cardio? Unheard of when I was younger. I thought one had to do at least 25 minutes in order for it to “count.” I came from the background of ok, how long to we want to exercise? Am I ready to commit to 30+ minutes? Is it worth dragging out the treadmill if not? I wish I had contemplated a less serious approach could still be beneficial instead of a more all-or-nothing approach. Now when I work from home I can do a few minutes on each break. I don’t have to wait until lunch or after work to do a “serious” work-out. What a thought.

Silly Girliness

I’ve never been particularly feminine or girly. One of my mother’s chief complaints was that I didn’t like to dress up and she didn’t want to be seen in public with me (thanks, mom). My one weakness is sparkly stuff. As a child, it’s glitter or crystals. If you try to adapt it to being grown-up, it becomes jewelry. I don’t go for expensive jewelry, but since there’s so much variety of cheap and pretty stuff out there . . .

Last year when I had the cancer scare and waiting for yucky tests and results to come in, I got a ring that ended up kind of having that specific meaning associated with it - hope I don't have cancer. Somewhat recently I thought maybe I should wear the “hope I don’t have cancer” ring more often to see if it could motivate or scare me into eating better. You can tell that didn’t work.

I was on this cheap website my spouse told me about (therefore it’s not my fault, right?), and I thought hey, this one could be a sort of “condolences you can’t eat food like that anymore, but you can look at this ring instead.” Ha. I eventually gave in and bought it, cuz, why not. Now the funny thing is that my size 6 rings are so loose I’ve discovered I’m almost a size 5. Good grief. I still need to lose 100+ pounds, how am I already a size 5? The lowest I ever was, when I had 17-point-something body fat, and WW threatened to kick me out, was a ring size 4.5. Even if one loses weight from the extremities first, this seems weird. I’m still in the “morbidly obese” range (not merely obese, morbidly so). But more importantly, my stupid ring hasn’t even arrived yet and it won’t fit. Wah. How much does that serve me right? I have little ring sizers, so it’s not the end of the world, but still. Of course it’s the cheap kind of website where returns and exchanges are not allowed, and I knew this before purchasing. Oh well.

Weight Loss Desperation?

The prescription I’m taking the next few weeks makes me monumentally hungry. It commonly causes weight gain. I’m upping protein and plants, but may not be enough. Think I may need to resort to incorporating drink meal replacements into my life. Is that an indication of failure? Maybe I should use things like this to re-kick my weight loss even after I'm on the short-term rx? Idk. In theory it's at least partially my fault for being in pain since I'm so heavy. And if it hurts so much to move . . . Of course there are also those injectables and weight-loss surgery one could try. People have been pushing keto type diets on me. After researching and discussing with a nutritionist at work, I don't think that would be a balanced and healthy idea for me. Maybe it could work for some people, but I believe it is also my right to pursue other options (I've been kinda scolded for not doing keto lately). Hopefully the rx helps, so maybe I'm getting ahead of things.

I am not going to have bariatric surgery to lose weight, and I am skeptical about the injectables. Guess I wondered if drink meal-replacements were a gateway act of giving up hope.

Work drama has not helped overall well-being, but not going to go into that. Let's just say escalating stressors there.

Score One for the Rheumatologist

Yay, another provider doing a good job. Maybe you have to see specialists to get better results? Is that the secret?

They did a great overall exam even though I was only complaining about my one knee and one shoulder. Unfortunately they said I was inflamed pretty much everywhere (hands wrists, elbows, knees, ankles) even though I felt pretty good today. They are going to have me get more imaging and a 5 week prescription and see how to proceed based on those results.

Let’s tally the positive points. By saying I was inflamed, they validated my suffering. Not only that, but they apologized for not getting me scheduled sooner (what? It was only 3 or 4 months? Everyone is booked out that far). They were interested in what remedies had or had not worked, and asked if I had any questions before leaving. Follow-up appointment scheduled scheduled without issue.

What a refreshingly positive experience. Even better the front desk was nice. Overall score? Pretty decent, even if I had to wait a while since they were running almost 45 minutes late. Still, I'll take it!

Anti-Inflammatory Foods

As I sit here in pretty immense back pain, already having taken an NSAID prescription (for the shoulder,) muscle relaxants, and Tylenol, I’m thinking ok, maybe I really need to get more anti-inflammatory foods. Yes, I know they have whole recommended diets, and books, and so on. I’ve read numerous articles off and on, and since that isn’t sinking in, I switched it up and watched a youtube video. As if that would be more convincing. It was not, but probably because I didn’t choose a great video. Here were some of the highlights they suggested.

Ginger, garlic, and omega 3s I’m more likely to get from pills than actual food. A few years ago I had high cholesterol and got that warning to do something about it. I already love garlic and used large quantities in food (actual garlic, not merely powder). I tried taking a garlic supplement religiously. I dropped 20 points in 3 months. I figured ok, diet is fine, but the supplement probably has more than I could realistically eat. Same with ginger. I used to eat ounces of dried ginger daily, at first because I thought it might be cheaper than pills. But in order to make it palatable, sugar is the usual go-to, and sugar causes inflammation. So again, taking a high dose pill seemed more straight-forward than eating it.

Broccoli. I’ve gotten so broccoli-ed out lately. It’s not evil, but . . . can we put it in a blender with all those other things like kale and somehow transform it into something I don’t mind ingesting? I jest, because I’ve been taught so adamantly that one should never drink their calories if trying to lose or maintain weight loss. Maybe I can do cauliflower sometimes. That’s still in the cruciferous category.

Chia Seeds. See above, but even more so. I know one can mix them into other things, but I haven’t found a desireable mix-in strategy yet. Still, I ate a spoonful today after being reminded that inflammation is one the reasons it's good or me.

Avocado. I can do that. Expensive, but not disgusting.

Leafy greens. Sure, I can do that (already am).

Berries – YES. I could do berries all day long, every day, if I could afford them and not get lightheaded due to lack of protein.

Of the options available today, I took my supplements for ginger, garlic, omegas, had some chia seeds, berries, and cauliflower. I know there are more foods out there; this is just what I looked at today. Still in enough pain that it is difficult to concentrate right now. Probably time for more biofreeze or salonpas or something.

Yay New Knee Sleeve

For starters, miracle of miracle, Amazon.com delivered to the correct address (gasp) and I didn’t have to go to a dozen apartment buildings, up all the stairs in an attempt to track down where they left my package. I put “special instructions” for them to verify the street address, and re-stated it. Gee, maybe it worked (knock on wood).

Even better, it fits how I want it to and feels great on my knee. The first one I got earlier this spring, professionally recommended and fit by a Durable Medical supplier, is too lose on my knee and keeps falling down no matter how I try to fold it over or jimmy-rig it to stay in place. Not sure if it wore out, or the 5 pounds I lost since then were isolated to my knee, but suffice it to say I needed a new one.

After way too much time reading reviews, evaluating total number of reviews and ratio of 4-5 star vs. 1-2 star review . . . measuring every which way and comparing to my exiting, sleeve, I took a stab in the dark while sleep deprived and ordered one. It’s a tad snug and sits a little lower than it should, but my body is not correctly shaped for these in the first place, so in my opinion, it’s perfect. Trust me, the last one was always baggy around the bottom because of this. Anyway it provides the perfect amount of compression and feels great (except a tiny bit itchy from being new). Happy happy joy joy. And it was a SET of two sleeves instead of one. I only need for one knee, so I have the luxury of using one and washing one at the same time (ooooh, aaaaah). I might actually be able to walk without my knee getting swollen and feeling like it’s going to explode. You know, the unwanted pressure, like when you have a sinus infection so horrific you have difficulty concentrating on anything except the fantasy about pounding a nail into your forehead to release the pressure? You don’t know that feeling? Ah, maybe it’s just me.

Fingers crossed this sleeve holds up well and keeps my knee supported for a few more months.

Score One for Sports Medicine

The verdict is in – rotator cuff tendonitis.

That was almost the last thing I thought I was afflicted with. Right above frozen shoulder (since my shoulder isn’t frozen). I thought rotator cuff ailments were only among active, or athletic people. I sit at a desk all day. Why would my rotator cuff tendon be inflamed from that? Yet it seems plausible. They said one thing gets off, and then everything gets off, or in the way, or effected by muscles/body trying to compensate. I can buy into that. Sometimes it’s this part of my arm, sometimes the opposite side of my arm. More importantly they didn’t simply ask me to describe, but they did the poking and prodding, and asked me to press this way or that wa to see what hurt or didn’t. They gave me a short-term anti-inflammatory prescription and some exercises. Some of them are ones I’d come across, some new.

The amusing part was where they asked me to press against their hands in various directions. Seemed almost surprised I had toned muscles. Yes, me fat, but also have muscles. Sure, not a lot, and pressing some directions I definitely gave up more quickly because it hurt so much. But yay, I have muscles. Maybe even a surprising amount to the doc, based on their reaction.

At least I have a name for it now. You know I’m not going to sit here with 6 exercises and only do them three times a week. I'm going to try to do them every single day. I’m going to keep searching for other exercises and stretches. But at least now I know if I’m in the right direction. I know that the freaking painful towel stretch is good for me and I'm not doing more damage.

3 Months Post Op

I was reminded it’s been 3 months since my surgery. Doing pretty well. Honestly hadn't given it much though since I returned to work - thinking how long it's been. They say can take up to a year to fully heal, but I haven’t noticed any difficulties directly related to the incision sites. Scars still turm purple-black with temperature fluctuations. I guess I could hope that the muscle soreness/pain twinges in my arms and legs might be because my surgery site is grabbing extra feel good nutrients and the rest of me is depleted of nutrients and that’s why they’re cranky. Yeah, that’s it. Sure, let’s visualize that as a twisted logic and why one should have hope it’ll eventually feel better.

Want to go on record that I didn’t resume activity too fast after surgery. Although I was a smidge impatient to go back to exercising, I knew I couldn’t start up right where I left off. I did wimpy weenie slow modified movements of everything. The shoulder started aching a couple weeks prior to surgery. I still haven’t done any real weights yet. I pulled out the 1-pound wrist weights a couple of times but everything hurts too much to do much with them. And it’s now been a month and a half since I got the green light. It’s not like I whipped out the 10 or 15 pound weights and was surprised things hurt.

I experimented for two weeks on the shoulder and I give up on what to try next. If I push myself hard and long enough, it’s nasty, and then it eventually gets better late evening. I’m sure the lesson here is that I should exercise first thing in the morning. I cannot find words to stress enough how much I am not a morning person. Caffeine in hand, I head out to work bleary-eyed before breakfast. I might not even trust myself to send out important e-mails in the first hour if I’m still half walking up. To suggest I not only get up earlier, but early enough to hydrate and be conscious enough to not injure myself doing what seems like semi-strenuous activity, take a shower, and then go to work? Uhm, not unless I’m on a swing shift. All for the hopeful reward of possibly feeling better by late afternoon? I think not. 2 minutes of slow Cheater Tai Chi before work? Maybe. But 20+ minutes of regular exercise?

Two more weeks until I can get into see the doc about my shoulder and follow-up on my knee. Fingers crossed they have some ideas for me. If this is simply getting older, all I can say is this really sucks.

Chi – Cheater / Rebel

Something more light-hearted here. Not meant to offend anyone.

A while ago I got (re-)interested in Tai Chi and learned its relationship to QiGong. Cool Asian-ish practices of well-being. Can be applied to well-being for physical health, spirituality, and martial arts/combat. I don’t mean to offend anyone who has this as their religion, especially as I’m a no-nothing Western-er.

I mentioned to a healthcare professional a while back that I’d tried some Tai Chi youtube videos and found them relaxing. They set me straight that I was doing it wrong. Very wrong. They lectured me on what it’s supposed to be like. Long story short, I tried some of their suggestions, but it made me not enjoy it anymore, so I stopped. But who cares? I’m not teaching others and corrupting the practice that way.

The funny thing is, from what I learned on-line the common thread is that even if there are similarities, there are hundreds of different schools and traditions of Tai Chi. There are thousands of different schools of Qigong. A family starts the tradition and passes it down, but a different family elsewhere has their own version and does the same, and that’s fine if they don’t match. Qigong is supposed to be a vast array of movements and practices, one move here, another move here, like exercises, where one doesn’t necessarily have to do them all in a specific order. Tai Chi, on the other hand, is supposed to be where you put those moves into a prescribed order and sequence. These ideas seem pretty common in what I read.

Boy did this person dis-agree. They said there is only ONE way to do Qigong, and it MUST be done in a specific order, and the order is always this, and if you don’t do it this way and you’re exhausted afterwards 5 steps, you’re doing it wrong. Felt like they really put me in my place. I looked into the ideas they had, and attempted some of the tips they told me were absolute, and it made it something I no longer wanted to do. But is there any reason I can’t go back to the possibly very warped and cheating way the internet says I'm allowed to do if if I enjoy and benefit from it? As long as I don’t go about preaching it to others? (shhh, don’t tell on me)

Not everyone builds great architecture. Some make little play forts in the back yard. Some people are world class champion ice skaters. Some of us try to get from one place to another on ice without wiping out and are elated if we can stop on our own without hitting something or someone first.

Week Two Progress

I hate how much pain I am in this week. That’s a strong word. I am acutely frustrated with how much pain I am in this week. Two more weeks until the doctor appointment to ask about the shoulder pain that I’ve been experiencing since April. This week’s tactic has been to try youtube shoulder exercises and do some of the arm exercises I used to. The result has been strenuous pain during and after, eventually subsiding to some pain relief several hours later. It does feel better than the initial starting point pain, but it takes a while to get there. Not really fun even if it does eventually improve for the evening. Today I couldn’t convince myself to hurt enough in the morning, so this afternoon I’m still at the really hurting point despite Tylenol, ibuprofen and bio-freeze. Bio-freeze helped initially, but not long lasting. I can get away with using it while I work from home, but what about when I go into the office? We're not even allowed to use smelly lotions. Pretty sure the intense menthol aroma would be frowned upon.

Even if the intensity of the pain is not horrific, it’s nearly relentlessness. It's thethe constancy that drives me nuts after a while. It wears on a person after a while. Doing even 10-20 minutes of painful exercises for the reward of lesser pain hours later is mildly encouraging, but not really a morale booster. They say keep moving more, and you’ll hurt less, but how much torture is normal to get there? This isn’t casually warming up stiff muscles with a leisurely walk. This is attempting those HIIT work-outs while wining, grimacing, and occasionally holding my breath because it hurts that much. Today with my opposite arm throbbing despite all he otcs, I guess I couldn’t push myself into quite enough pain to achieve delayed relief. Shame on me.

Also trying stretches and massage in addition to otcs.

Week 2 Trial & Error

Started looking for more shoulder/upper arm exercises on youtube. I try to only go with ones that are from doctors or physical therapists. Even then, I’m only going to try what I feel comfortable with.

Which exercises to try? Is it impingement? Rotator cuff? Tendonitis? Capsulitis? I decided to conduct an internet search to see if I could narrow down if anything sounded familiar. Yes, big mistake. Soooooo many nasty sounding things it could be. Bursitis, arthritis, adhesive capsulitis. Muscle pull, tear, or fracture (I didn’t know muscles could fracture?). Calcium deposits, tendon rupture, acromioclavicular separation, Distal Clavicle Osteolysis. Need I go on? I decided to stick with more basic search words (shoulder, biceps and triceps) and go from there. I know biceps are on the front of the arm, triceps on the back. Uhm, what’s on the sides?

Week One Status (what's next?)

Diligently keeping the pain log including what seems to hurt and when. Patterns seem pretty consistent, though intensities vary a bit.

The day starts out great, a tiny bit of soreness as if I used some muscles, which sometimes makes me excited that I’d like to work a few more and build up tolerance. But by noon I’m glad I didn’t do anything because I'm increasingly sore for seeminly no reason. By the evening shower, almost any movement hurts and triggers thoughts of dude, this cannot be normal.

The idea to keep moving slow and gentle was because I read something that if you give yourself too much rest, muscles atrophy and everything will hurt. I thought I'd given it plenty of rest, so I was trying to not be so much of a wimp.

This is getting old really fast. I said I would continue the current status quo for a week. What to try for the next week? Cuz I’ve got to admit, I’m itching to try something differnt. Even if I have no idea what to do.

The general biggie recommendation you hear is "ice and rest." Ok, uhm, I have a desk job. I do most carrying of tiny objects with my other hand. The only activities difficult to avoid are shower and getting dressed. Those don't hurt until I try them, and by that time it's too late, and it's also over, so it's also pointless. Like I put on a shirt, ouch, that hurt. It's not like I need to do that repeatedly therefore I think ok, maybe I should stop and rest. I've even modified those activities to use the opposite hand/arm/shoulder as much as possible.

Icing the shoulder is not very easy. I could hold an ice pack over the unhappy parts, but then I can't do anything else. I've gotten wraps and packs, and the only way to try to hold it in place ends up hurting more and strangling my armpit. So it's not like I can ice it several times a day unless I simply go to the freezer, grab an ice pack, and then stand around for a while waiting to feel better. I don't have that kind of extra time until after work. Then half the time it hurts to put the ice pack on anyway, so I'm not motivated to keep it there.

I suppose the other thing I can do is try those youtube videos. Already watched a couple. Hmm. For consistency, does one try only one video per week? Otherwise if you try out a whole bunch, and pain and soreness is delayed, who knows which one really sucker punched you.

I did google articles on the difference between soreness and pain. It feels like I have both. Had to guffaw over the part where it says "it may be time to seek medical attention. Ha. Seek, yes. Then wait. In my area, anyway. Three months average to get an appointment anywhere besides urgent/care Doc In The Box places. So I'm waiting and trying to think of what to attempt next.

Pain Log and the Power of Blogging

I didn’t stay quiet for long, did I?

I’ve admitted this blog is mainly for me to work through my weight and health challenges. So don’t be surprised when I change my mind. Sometimes writing it out helps me work things out. I realized I haven’t necessarily been very consistent with my efforts. Aside from the almost 6 week mandatory post surgery rest, I’ve probably been all over the place. Feel better? - Do more! Ouch, it hurts? – Why would that be? Kidding. But still. I decided I need to get with it and keep an actual pain log and do something consistently for at least a week and track and see what happens. I tried to figure out a pain log before, but I kept changing my mind on the format. There wasn’t enough room in my existing health-tracking calendar. What to develop instead? Or overhaul my existing tracking instead? Excel can create graphs (not that I have made recent graphs, still there’s potential). Word has more space. You wouldn’t believe how much trouble I had finding amiable free online calendar templates. Should I color-code things? How many days do I want to be able to see at a time? In short, I got bogged down and didn’t track my aches and pains anyway. I believe I have a calendar format to my liking now, so let’s do this.

Here is my resolve for the week.

• Keep a log of my aches and pains, when or what seems to make them worse, and use the 1-10 scale.
• Move my ____ shoulder slowly and gradually at the beginning of the day to loosen up.
• Keep moving my blasted shoulder throughout the day and keep moving as long as it’s not significant pain. Power through the vague achiness and only modify things if it’s the ouch – something is really wrong pain.
• Take ginger and turmeric supplements at least twice a day. Was going to try this anyway. They’re supposed to be good to reduce inflammation.

Could do more, but don’t want to make it so complex that it’s harder to keep up with everything. There’s proof for the power of blogging. I might not have remembered how sore I was last year merely trying new exercises in the first place. I thought after surgery I wouldn’t be starting over square one, but maybe I am. Thus the idea to power through mild discomfort and keep going. Besides, what is the exact difference between soreness versus pain? I mean, soreness does sometimes seem like a general mild pain. We’ll leave that debate for another day.

Contemplating

I’ve got appointments set up for a sports medicine doctor and a rheumatologist in the next couple of months (they’re booked out a bit). In the meantime I’m looking at youtube videos for exercise ideas for the shoulder and upper arm. Not sure what’s wrong with it, so I don't know what exercises help or hurt. At least I’m discovering definitively what movements cause pain here, there, and everywhere so I can report to the docs. Taking otc pills and various topicals. Looking at supplements and food choices to decrease inflammation. Doing the leg lift exercises recommended last time for the knee. I’m up to 10 pounds, and need to go get heavier weights to pile on. In the meantime, depending on the day, it hurts to write and type. Guessing I should spend more time researching how to help myself, so that’s where I’ll be if I’m not here.

The Downfall of Doc-in-the-Box

Been putting off scheduling an appointment for my shoulder. It’s been bugging me since April. Now my upper arm hurts. Glack. If I ask my PCP, he wants an MRI before even looking at it. You go to a walk-in clinic, they say you’re not dying, go see your PCP. They used to only do that for Emergency centers. So that sucks. I heard I could try a rheumatologist, but they throw long-term (permanent) drugs at you so I don’t really want to try that either. I tried to schedule an appointment with the last Dr. I saw for the knee (she was nice and helpful) but she’s booked until October. Ok, I’m not dying. I get it. I can still use my other arm, chug some otc meds and simply not do certain activities, like writing with a pen. Guess I could make a game out of it, like see how much weight I can try to lose by then. Since they usually say everything is caused by being overweight. Another reason I delayed going this long.

Guess I’m mildly irritated. Walking is good for weight loss, but isn’t pleasant since my knee and leg swells up. I can only do my arm supposed HIIT exercises with one arm now, so I’m not sure how high intensity they truly are at that point . . . Not sure what good exercises are left out there besides swimming. Probably time to try youtube and see what they recommend. Maybe I'll be all better by October. Yeah right.

Year Recap

It’s been a little over a year since I started semi-seriously attempting to be more active. I’m kind of on the fence what to think. My perception is that I feel worse now than I did a year ago, which is disheartening. Though if I glance over the posts a year back, there was a lot of mention of pain there too. A lot of that was pain after doing exercises. Now I seem to have static chronic pain no matter what I'm doing. It's not a horrendous level of pain, but the chronic part is starting to get to me. This hurts, that hurts, everything hurts.

I’m still afraid to do any neck stretches. Those did cause immense pain last year. The arm exercises I did at the time made me so sore, and it did seem to take forever to build up stamina. Right now though, I’m avoiding using my one arm and shoulder, and I experience pain in basic daily tasks such as showering or getting dressed. A year ago was before my foot pain, and then my knee pain. I can’t even recall any event that motivated me to try to improve.

It could be worse; but I guess I had hoped I might eventually feel a little better, given the effort I’ve put in. I’m not gung-ho by any means. I’m trying to make more gradual sustainable modifications. I’ll try to keep the faith.

I still think the work wellness coach is a joke. We can leave that for another day.

Got different cooling sheets and a cooling cover for my weighted blanket. Scared to use the blanket in case moving it somehow makes my shoulder hurt. It doesn't hurt while I'm moving it around, but I guess it could cause issues 24-48 hours later. Who knows what else I did with my shoulder that felt fine at the time, by 2 days later.

What went right today

You may think I’m bipolar, to suddenly post about something not being negative or frustrating. To be fair, I prefaced this journey saying my intent was to use this as a sounding board to myself, working through issues. When things aren’t negative issues, one doesn’t really need to write about them so much. You’re to busy being happy and going about your business not writing. Back to things that went well today.

I taped my knee and it felt much better than the compression sleeve (when it doesn’t slide down in 60 seconds or less). I was able to walk more and got 8000 steps in by the time I left work. Yay! I rarely hit 10k, and 8k is my mini-goal for the time being. The “not a complete loser” goal. Not 10k, but not horrible. I actually read somewhere that 8k can be a decent goal for elderly people to achieve significant improved benefits. Not sure how elderly I am, but I’ll take it. 4/5 of the way there, at least.

I was able to walk even on my afternoon break. Usually I start off ok, morning and lunch, but by the afternoon, I’m so tired and sore and achy I have to force myself to simply get away from my desk for a few minutes. Today I felt fine. Very rare. Probably extraordinarily rare. I’ll take the win. Double Yay.

My newer pants are comfortably lose. Not saying I can fit into a size down, since my middle is the largest part of me, and the legs are always a bit lose to start off with. But they are to the comfy stage where they would not strangle me if I over-ate and then slouched in half or something. Not that either of those things are good. But you get the idea. For me, standing up in pants and having them fit is one thing. Still feeling comfortable sittign down after lunch is another thing, even if I don’t eat too much. Just sayin'.

I had a nice conversation with a coworker in the breakroom about the trials of being old and overweight. No idea what her name is, as she works in another department, but it was a nice chat. It wasn’t just an angry gripe-fest either. It was an encouraging “hang in there” type of exchange. I didn’t think she looked very old and only moderately overweight, but she’s had some challenges and told me about her ideas and so on. It was the type of conversation that left me feeling more chipper and energized. I’m generally introverted and not one to reap energy from talking to others, so this is saying something.

Although I’m avoiding using my right arm and shoulder for much (the let it rest stage) it’s not feeling too bad so far. By this time of day I usually do something inadvertently that causes an unfortunate stab and regret. So far so good. Small mile-stone, but I’ll take it. Pain-free is pain-free. Having pain or soreness in my knee, shoulder, and neck so much of the time, this is a welcome change.

Survived First Work Week Back

Survived my first week back at work. Not great, but not horrendous. It’s not the most favorite enjoyable place, but we won’t go into that. I’m just sore and tired today, and not sure why. Haven’t done much except walking. Shoulder is still unhappy. I wondered if could be from turning over and tugging at my weighted blanket, so I stopped using it this week. I love my weighted blanket and have used it every single day for years, so this is not a happy thing for me. In fact, I was previously contemplating getting a slightly heavier one. Still, for the existing one, Why would it start to hurt now, after so many years? If it is the culprit. It was the last thing I could think of. I’ve rested and iced it during my time off. That was the only thing I could think of.

Did some mild knee strengthening, and that hurts too. More than it should. When you’re younger, they say if something hurts, ice and rest. I guess when you’re older, they suggest to keep moving through the pain and hope it gets better by moving more. Ok, but what at what point can you settle down for the evening? Doesn’t seem fair when you take a couple hours off after dinner, get ready for bed, and everything aches again. Does it ever stop? It gets old really fast.

5 Weeks 6 Days

One day short of 6 weeks, I a couple tiny youtube exercise video. It was seated, arms/shoulders, which were not close to the surgery zone. I did not attempt full blast if it felt too much, so I modified as needed. Fitness tracker even acknowledged 27 activity zone minutes. A few minutes after finishing, I felt some unpleasant pangs closer to my surgery area. See? They are trying to protect you by telling you to take it easy and not do too much too soon. I would have tried this on week 2 or 3, had I not been warned not to. I’m sure my pangs aren’t anything serious, but the point is recovery is slow, even when it goes well. Reading the recovery board and some doctors advised it can take up to a year to fully recover in some aspects. I know that sounds redic, butI heard the same timeline with my previous eye surgery as well. It can take a year not because you’re old or overweight; it can just take that long. The activity today didn’t kill me though, so I’ll call it a success.

Almost 6 Weeks Post Op

Thursday is officially 6 weeks from surgery. I have the last appointment with my surgeon that day, and anticipate she will release most if not all activity restrictions. I’ve been doing really well, but also appreciate them being protective of me. I’ve found it’s easy to over-do things when feeling well, especially the first three weeks. Even if one doesn’t significantly injure themselves by over-doing it, it still stresses the body out, which is already stressed trying to rebuild and recover. I’m still significantly overweight and in an older age class, so if anything, I almost feel guilty I’ve done so well. I wouldn’t post to those surgery recovery boards because I realize not everyone is so lucky. Definitely wouldn’t want to lead prospective surgery patients to believe that it would be as easy as I’ve had it. I saw a post this morning how someone also appreciated their fitness tracker to chart their progress. They made steady progress building up to 2600 steps by day 9. I worked up to 6000 steps on day 6. Yet I wasn’t consistent and have only been averaging about 5500, with some days doing far less. That lack of self discipline isn’t anything to brag about.

The one thing challenging my patience is my shoulder. It started aching a bit before surgery, and I figured it might be the new mattress. Not so much sleeping on it, but hoisting my big ol’ body around when I change positions. It doesn’t hurt when I do that, but I’m half asleep so it’s possible the discomfort doesn’t register. I wake up and it’s not too bad. By the end of the day it feels semi-terrible and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. If I hold completely still, it’s fine. If I stretch – pain. Move in particular directions, sore pain, as if it’s been over-used. Pretty sure it contributed to my neck being so tense sore a while ago. The thing is, I’m not doing any exercises or weights, so what the? I do try to gently rotate and stretch once in a while, but I have no idea how it builds up all day. I spent a couple of weeks trying to only use my opposite arm/shoulder to reposition and scootch around in bed and it didn’t help. Generally the remedy is rest, ice. I had plenty of time and ice packs during my surgery recovery, but no improvement.

I could go in to a walk-in place, but it’s not like it’s urgent (as they are called urgent care clinics). Most likely they would say it’s nothing serious, follow up with my primary care provider . . . based on the previous knee situation. Otherwise I’d be tempted to go. Idk. It’s so hit and miss with these places. Sometimes they can fix you right up or refer to physical therapy if needed. Other times they’re rude, ask what the heck do you expect of them and tell you to let things run the course. Maybe I could start strengthening exercises once I get the green light on Thursday.

Sleeping When Hot

Ugh. We got a new mattress this spring. It was sorely needed – the prior mattress was basically a dud quality wise, but not covered under the warrantee for being too firm. Problem is, structurally it was super cooling (freezing in winter, had to put multiple blankets under the sheets) and now that the weather is getting hot, I didn’t realize how much I would miss that feature. I think it was the honey-comb-like semi-hollow structure that seemed to suck all the warm air away. Idk.

Now what. Can’t get another mattress. Besides, we already tested every mattress tested in the valley, and not going to try the mattress in a box types. As tempting as some of those looked, we stumbled across one in real life and it was terrible. Not going that route.

They have supposed cooling sheets, blankets, comforters . . . But which one? Amazon.com is notorious for not refunding my returns, so I don’t want to stack up 2 or 3 $100+ duds figuring out which one is best. I love my weighted blanket, so that’s an issue too. Do I need a different “cooling” weighted blanket? Or would a cooling cover suffice? Cooling weighted blanket doesn't do any good if you don't also have a cooling cover. You need a cover because you don't want to wash weighted blankets often. Can one sandwich a supposedly cooling thin sheet/blanket between oneself and the weighted blanket and feel cooler or does it not work that way? It’s not that my weighted blanket is super warm, but it doesn’t help. Maybe I got used to it being warm because all the heat was sucked out of me by the blanket and it balanced out somehow? Therefore maybe it would balance out if I found some super cooling weighted blanket even though the mattress feels like the source of heat right now. It’s all relative anyway – it’s not that the mattress is inherently hot, but it feels warm it in comparison to the ice cube we’ve slept on for the past few years.

I’ve spent a couple of weeks looking at articles, reviews, etc. and haven’t come to any conclusions. I guess it’s my fault I didn’t ask about cooling properties on the mattress, and only went for comfort. Like sales people would be entirely honest. And as if they’d know exactly what my old mattress felt like. Besides, did I mention we didn't like any other mattresses? The question is what can I do to cope with the current situation and make it more bearable?

Already have a cooling mattress protector and supposedly semi-cooling natural fiber sheets (closet shopping). I recently saw supposedly gel-infused memory foam pads/toppers may have cooling properties. I hate memory foam but if it’s only a couple inches vs. the whole mattress, and if it really cools . . . I might be willing to give it a go. Gel-only cooling pads are only supposed to help for a couple of hours. One could argue that might be long enough to fall asleep pleasantly and maybe the gradual less-effectiveness while asleep wouldn’t be that disruptive. But if solid gel doesn’t last that long, gel-infused probably isn’t going to be any better.

Drilling holes probably isn’t a great solution either, even though I think that’s what helped the previous mattress feel like a heat sink. If I went for the toppers, there go the fitted sheets. Current mattress is already 16 inches, and adding 2-4 inches of cooling topper . . . granted, we sometimes use flat sheets in lieu of fitted, and that works, but then you have no use for the fitted ones at all and cut your useable resources in half.

Too bad I didn’t realize we should have taken a chainsaw to the last mattress. Maybe there was a layer in there we could have used while destroying it. But we didn’t have a chainsaw or room to destroy it. Sigh.

Qi Gong and My Neck

I am the least qualified to discuss Tai Chi and Qi Gong, but I’ve been attempting to learn about it, and both are pretty darn cool. My in-laws have a Lego resale business, and I thought the easiest way to convey to my spouse what I think I understand is as follows: Qi Gong is older and like the predecessor of Tai Chi. Qi Gong appears to have lots of different movements, which would be like individual Legos. Tai Chi is more like when you get a specific set or creation of Legos. A prescribed order and sequence. Qi Gong can be martial arts, spiritual, or physical wellness. Tai Chi was developed from Qi Gong focusing on the martial arts application.

The funny thing is, I think a lot of the videos labeled as Tai Chi aren’t necessarily strict Tai Chi Forms, so in theory they might be more Qi Gong. I wonder if it’s the term Tai Chi being more recognizable. That’s why I initially searched under Tai Chi. At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted to open up learning Qi Gong if it was entirely different and perhaps harder. Surprise – it’s probably easier or similar to those beginner Tai Chi videos anyway.

I realized it’s been about a year since I’ve had tension and pain in my neck whenever attempting to stretch or exercise my neck. I finally gave up because it wasn’t worth it, even if my physician gave me a standing prescription for muscle relaxants. I watched a couple of Qi Gong videos online and automatically stopped as soon as any of them mentioned stretching or turning the neck much. I finally realized today that it might be worth a shot. If they cause pain and I regret it, at least it’s not doing so while I’m at work attempting to concentrate and deal with that aspect of life. I still have a week and a half left (and a bottle of prescriptions at the ready). As it is, I don’t know what I’ve been doing that makes my shoulders so tense and hurt by the end of the day, but I’m in pain and chucking back the OTCs by that time. I thought walking was supposed to help with that, and all I’m doing is walking. Anyway, I tried a couple of gentle videos (the first semed more geared towards arms and shoulders) and only went as far as I felt was safe. The pain is always delayed, so we’ll see what happens. Fingers crossed. I can always try different videos tomorrow.

When Green Equals Noise

Spring should be nice, and I always love seeing nature and foliage, but dang it’s been noisy lately. It’s a pleasant temperature to open windows for fresh air, but unfortunately it also lets in a ton of noise. Traffic from nearby busy streets is at least a relatively constant hum and noise level. It’s the landscaping that is driving me nuts. I didn’t think there was enough surrounding our apartment complex and neighboring business complexes, but they’re at it all day three days a week. As soon as you think maybe, just maybe they’re done, due to a small lapse, it starts up again. Probably moving to a different area, or brining out different tools. Three consecutive days of mowers, blowers, trimmers buzz-saws, and who knows what else. The mower finally fades in the distance, and three minutes later it’s back for another lap.

Tried a 17 minute walking video on youtube. Went ok except for the 3 commercial interruptions. My furkid was a bit anxious of me walking that fast. Like they wanted attention and I wasn’t stopping to dote on them. Hope they can get more used to it, as I should do those more often.

My surgery support website is awesome giving weekly encouragement.

Tai Chi and Week 4

Not much blog-worthy to report this week. Four weeks since surgery, two more before returning to work. Never wanted to exercise with weights so much, and never so bored of walking. Not sure I can do anything like those walking videos/programs where you do more than march in place. Not yet. Not even sure I can do certain stretches yet, and I keep going back to what the surgeon advised: why risk it.

Tried following some basic crochet youtube videos and became frustrated as it took me far too long to realize I was practicing incorrectly. May revisit, but not the best start, and I get frustrated with these things far too easily. Kind of knew the risk, but I've got all this time, right?

Went back to seated Tai Chi and generally enjoying it. Haven't found an ideal instructor or series yet, but trying to be open minded and learn what I can. Most youtube videos are geared more towards watch and immitate. I would prefer to learn and memorize so I could do this anywhere – not merely when glued in front of a screen. It's nice there are so many adapted for being seated, and I may get the idea how to adapt the standing ones, the more I watch. Sounds like Qi Gong is related, so I might look into that as well.

3 Weeks Post Op

I should be posting that 3 weeks after surgery I’m continually doing better. Apartment management gave a day’s notice for an inspection, so I overdid it while cleaning and am still sore. My husband did the major work, but I felt compelled to do what I could (which wasn’t much). I didn’t take any otc pain relief until no more work was left. I figured that way I wouldn’t overtax myself even more, not feeling the subtle pains of over-exertion. I’m pretty sure there's no permanent damage, but feel sore and grumpy about the whole thing.

I have walked as much as 16 minutes at a time, which is on track for increasing 5 minute increments per week. Still have a that bruise and a tender bump underneath it, which I asked the surgeon’s office about. It’s nothing emergent, so they'll get back later. It's just driving me crazy wondering if it’s permanent or will go away. Bruises are finally gone from the IV’s in my hands and I only have little dot scars that might fade over time.

I forget exactly what day I decided maybe it was better to simply recover and eat healthy food rather than focus on losing weight at the same time. For example: protein is good for rebuilding tissue and staying full, and I usually lack in that area. For now I'd rather focus on getting protein rather than skimping on calories. Yes, I'm a wimp.

2 Weeks Post Op

Currently at 2 weeks and a few hours after surgery. Still have a big bruise on my hand from the IV. I may be a weakling, but I’m not up to 60 minutes of activity a day. More importantly, a friendly website about recovery for my specific surgery said that it’s ok. It really is/was a major surgery where multiple internal organs are impacted, and it takes 6-8 weeks to heal and function at any level of normalcy. So just because I did 9k+ steps on Tuesday, I don’t need to beat myself up if I can’t do that every single day. It’s normal to have energy one day, and feel like napping the next. It’s easy to overdo it (think I did last Saturday) and it doesn’t help to torture your body over-doing it when it’s trying to heal and get back to normal. It’s great to take lots of small walks here and there to not be completely sedentary, but the resting and healing a lot is still a real thing. Even stretching some body parts is not a good thing. So many things adjacent or connected enough that you don’t realize a stretch was a bad idea.

In the meantime I’ll do what I can. It won’t do any good to injure myself trying to do too much too fast. And that’s ok.

New Bruises, Walking Ideals

Developed a large bruise 10 days after the surgery, nowhere near any incision sites. They said it should be fine since I don’t have any other symptoms (fever, chills, etc.), but keep an eye on it. Surprised me, was all. Guessing it was a deep bruise and took that long to surface.

My skin is still has spots that are porcupine-y from rash, some that are red and nasty looking but not infected, some dry and flakey, or just plain itchy. I’d use lotion or moisturizing soap, but not really supposed to scrub or lotion most of it yet.

Not sure where I read that one needs a minimum 60 minutes a day of moderate activity. That’s a lot even if I take multiple 10 minute walks. What if my fitness tracker doesn’t register that my pulse is up to the moderate zone the entire time? Glack I’m pathetic if this seems like such a challenging goal. I don’t recall where I saw it or who came up with this number. A couple other resources and health professionals had advised about 150 minutes a week, which comes out to 22 minutes a day. Certainly more feasible, but one might also argue if that’s enough. Even breaking up 60 minutes during a regular workday, it seems like a lot. Yes, one has breaks and lunch, but using this time to use facilities, get water and food at lunch, I think it’d be pressing it to get 40 minutes total. And that’s only if you go by the clock and don’t worry if the tracker states you only spent 25 of those minutes in your target heart-range. Then 20 minutes after work wouldn’t seem so bad, but that’s still an ideal day. If you had to do most of it after work, or feel you need to make up for any other days you didn’t get 60 minutes in, you start to see where activity seems more like a chore than an opportunity to be healthy. Under surgery recovery protocols, I’m not supposed to worry about walking speed or intensity; only gradually working up total endurance for length of single walks. At the end of 6 weeks, I should be ok to walk 30 minutes continuously. This is still week two. I can do 10 minute walks. All I’m saying is 6 of them is still quite a bit. What about the tiny walks inbetween if you don’t start your timer? Do you discourage yourself from sneaking in a few extra steps if you don’t got a full 10 minutes at a time?

I saw another site that recommended 150 minutes plus strength training. That means if you strength train 3 times a week for 20 minutes that's an hour that doesn't count? Good grief.

Perusing the internet, I found a walking app that professed it could get me to my ideal weight by a not so distant date. I will not be investing in it, but it was that an interesting thought. Maybe that’s the type of ideal I should visualize when I’m griping about 60 minutes of daily activity. The last time I was at a healthy weight, I did roughly 90 minutes a day of combined activities. Parked far away on purpose, walks and stairs on lunches and breaks, 40+ minutes vigorous activity (dripping sweat) after work, and then stretches and mild strengthening on top of that. I did not find it to be sustainable. There’s a point where you don’t mind pushing yourself when your trying to lose weight, because you think eventually you can let up a little bit. You think sure, I’ll do extra right now to get to that goal, but you don’t necessarily think you’ll have to keep up that intensity forever. Some activity, sure. 22 minutes, no problem. An hour? Maybe.

I guess for me, just try to be consistent and build up as permitted. Try not to be overwhelmed or discouraged by ideals that seem far off . . .

How the Fitbit Helps Post-Op

I know, this is the post you’ve been dying to hear. How on earth a Fitbit (or any fitness tracker) could be helpful motivation for someone recovering from major surgery doing minimal walking.

One can set the hours, and the thing will nudge you if you haven’t gone at least 250 steps every hour. It buzzes at me at 50 minutes after the hour if I'm under 250 steps. During work hours, this is a huge annoyance when I would normally love to be active but I’m stuck in meetings or don’t even feel like I can take a break. Not having that tied-to-a-desk structure, I can actually set a broader range to be at least a little bit active. 250 is not a lot, but I think the idea is to at least get up once in a while. Who knows what information out there is accurate or not, but I saw an article claiming it wasn’t the total number of hours one sits, that is dangerous, but how long in a row one sits in a row. If that’s correct, some of these trackers have the right idea to nudge you every hour.

The other thing that’s nice is having an impartial judge of how much activity I’m doing. I’m not aiming for strenuous exercise (that’s a no-no right now) but it does tell me if my pulse is up, and for how long, for even moderate activity. Sure, why not get credit for that? The idea for my recovery is to walk often and for longer stretches. However I get my steps in, some here or there, or walking in pace during commercial breaks watching a show, at least it tracks them for me and gives me a decent count. Unlike those days where they used to tell you to guess how much or how active you were by how hard it felt. That’s a joke. If you’re tired, the same amount of exercise (or steps) is going to feel harder than when you’re full of energy. Ask anyone with a less than perfect job. The walk in to the office Monday morning is a lot different than the walk out on Friday afternoon. Sure, one could argue which model is 99% accurate vs. 98%, and if it auto-detects this kind of activity or that, has gps, blah, blah, blah. This is perfect for what I need right now. I could see I did 1200 steps the day of surgery, and how I've increased a little bit ever since. My highest was only 6700 so far, but it'll get there. I was barely getting 8k steps before surgery.

Granted, walking indoors vs. outdoors does feel very different muscle-wise, and that's another story. My surgeon said don't worry about it for now; all activity is good activity, whether marching in place or covering distance. They say walking is the perfect weight-loss activity. Let's try to prove them right. Let's try not to focus on all the muscle I may be slowly losing while I'm not allowed to do any strength excercises or lifting.

At least one week out I'm doing ok if I try to ignore the bruises still on my hands (from the IVs) and itchy skin from the surgial glue (protects the wounds and stitches). Week two I should be working up to 10 minute walks, and this morning I did 11 minutes. That's something.

1 Week Past Surgery

Had my one week surgery follow-up and all appears well and on track. I can do as much walking as I’d like, but absolutely no weights or band exercises. Can't even use tiny one-pound weights – I asked. Surgeon said It’s better not to risk it and wait it out until the six-week milestone. I could look up walking workouts, but any strenuous activity is discouraged. Way back in the day I did Leslie Sansone and Walk Away the Pounds (WATP) but I wouldn't necessarily be able to do all of those moves either - anything that engages the core. Which puts it back at hey, maybe walk in place and put some music on in general. Gah. Whatever.

In the meantime my spouse is organizing the front room in an effort to make things look more tidy for the next apartment inspection. I still fail to see the point why they care how many dusty books we have if they are sitting on a bookcases that is our own property, and it is not damaging our dirtying the actual walls, floors, etc. At any rate, getting rid of some things we don't need or want anymore. There's a thrift store down the way that takes donations, so that's nice to let them salvage anything they can, instead of everything going in a landfill. We don't have time or means to do the Kondo method, but willingness to let go of things is a step in the right direction. I read and semi-tried Kondo years ago. There are some valid points, like you shouldn't keep crap that doesn't "spark joy" (unless it's practical). But there's no way I will ever fold everything the way she does.

Speaking of which, should probably do some reading while I have time off. Could even attempt a new hobby, but Idk if I'm that determined. Could designate my own NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo deserves a better sales pitch than I feel like presenting, but suffice it to say it developed when some people said hey, wouldn’t it be cool to sit down and write a Novel in a Month? National Novel Writing Month ensued and is observed every November, and Camp NanoWrimo also occurs in April and July with loser customizable goals.

In looking through all our stuff, an interesting conundrum: to keep or chuck WW (Weight Watchers) material. Even if the plans are outdated, in theory, there could be usable recipes or ideas in there. I mean, I whole-heartedly believed in the plan I started out on for years, despite them revising and rebranding every now and then. And like anything else, sometimes you can read the suggestions and take out of it whatever you agree with, or whatever or works for you. Like the Kondo thing, or anything else. I had a falling out with WW years ago when they made it clear how much more they value money than people. But that’s another saga for another day. The point is, even if I don’t agree with them, it doesn’t mean I need to chuck all the materials I paid for based solely on principle. But how likely am I to ever re-read and use this stuff? Ugh.

Bored

I might end up posting more than anticipated out of boredom, if nothing else. I’m approved for 6 weeks off work from this major surgery. I’ve been out two days and am already going stir-crazy. I slept most of surgery day afterwards, and a bit of the next day (does that count as day 1 or day 2?). I stopped taking prescription pain pills yesterday on day three, and am only taking otcs, but very religiously, to stay ahead of pain. Still hurts occasionally, especially if I cough or such, but overall, I’m surprised how well I’m feeling. Walking is supposed to be great. I can’t cover much ground indoors, and unfortunately outdoors involves getting dressed, stairs and weather. Had my first outing yesterday and I did notice how my stride is different with an actual destination vs. shuffling around indoors. We’ll see what I can do. It’s only one flight of stairs, but my knee doesn’t appreciate them (and my silly Fitbit refuses to acknowledge them, which defiance is irritating). So far the weather is cooler than normal – ideal for me, because I hate the heat.

The sad part is when you gain 6 pounds overnight because you’ve formed the habit of getting on the scale every morning no matter what. And you eat nothing but saltine crackers and pills the first couple of days and keep gaining. When you think “yay” that your appetite has not returned yet, even though you should probably still eat a little bit of healthy food to promote digestion and healing. I used to be able to pour a 2 cup bowl of blueberries and munch on it all morning. The other day I poured a cup in a bowl and it took 4 separate visits to finish it.

I’m very grateful the pain is bearable and hopefully the worst is over. Sounds like day two is the worst. Bruises are surfacing and incisions itch, but otherwise surviving remarkably well.

Still Alive

Still breathing. Napping, walking, trying to get fluids down; incredibly thirsty. No appetite, so only having saltines with the pills that should be taken with food. Surgeon ordered a bunch of blood labs, and I hope my insurance pays for them. Didn't know what all she ordered besides blood type, until I got the lab results via e-mail. No idea if we passed the apt inspection or not, or when we would find out.

Of all the crappy timing . . .

Of all the blasted timing, got an apartment inspection notice this afternoon for tomorrow. My spouse is telling me to try to relax; he will take care of the deep cleaning as I go over my pre and post-op instructions and try not to stress.

Yes you can say we’re stupid for renting, but one has to have enough money in order to buy as well, and the cost of living goes up way faster than our paychecks. No, they don’t reschedule the apt thing – they aren’t even available to take calls for emergencies, let alone questions. They charge for regular wear and tear and threaten to charge if a repeat visit is needed for repairs (even though we’ve been there so long, things wear out, like caulking, non-water-resistant-paint on the shower walls . . .

Since they can show up whenever they please, no idea if they will arrive while we’re at the hospital or after we come home. My spouse is prepared to give them a lecture about disturbing me if it’s after surgery, since they feel they need to inspect every cranny, whether I'm recooping or not. I'd even like to put a note on the door something to the effect that “Please note when you enter, the person living here has had major surgery in the last 24 hours and you are stressing them out.” Technically said statement is true whether or not I would be home. Yes, I have watched a lot of television shows with con-men.

I drank my assigned 3 liters of water plus some, so yay. Still have to wonder how high my blood pressure will be when I check in, given all of this. My fitbit says my BP is much higher in the morning. Wonder if that’s a trend for some people, whether due to age, fitness level, weight . . . Interesting is all, since I have to get there at 5:30 am. I’m usually borderline barely acceptable on a good day, but throw in “white coat syndrome” of being at the hospital, getting what the internet acclaims is on the top 10 most painful surgeries, and stressing about the perceived violation of strangers photographing my home and belongings, hoping they don’t break things and wondering why they need evidence of what I have in my closet in the first place (suspecting drugs?) this is gonna be fun.

I suspect only one person reads this blog anyway, but if anyone by chance is reading this, I welcome any and all positive vibes you can spare (even if you read this later). I really don’t need the threat of eviction on top of everything else because they don’t like our interior decorating (they have complained about dust in the past, good grief people). Happy grateful wishes to anyone reading this at any time who doesn’t judge and scold me for putting myself out there in the first place.

Tired

Tired. Lot of tension and pain in my neck. Found this helpful youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIfTXp5L1kE Yay.

I probably should have done a lot more work preparing, watching videos, reading recommendations on surgery recovery, but at this point, I’m too tired. If I do any more, it’s probably going to be counterproductive and stress me out more. I did watch one short video how to get in and out of bed with less pain, and that’s great. I should have spent much more time finding things like that. I’m going to have to defer to my wonderful spouse and afterwards and whine to him, to find additional videos as needed (when I’m too tired and cranky to want to).

I think all the over-the-counter pain meds have finally purged from my system, because today everything hurts. That, and the super strong anti-inflammatory I was on for my knee. It’s like every single joint in my body hurts, whether I’m using it or not. I didn’t do any excessive typing or writing, and little crevices in my hands hurt without reason. Maybe this is what I’m supposed to naturally feel like, getting old. No vitamins or anti-inflammatory supplements either, of course.

Life in Croc-land is going well so far. Nice to not trip over laces or take as long putting my shoes on when I've been in bed. Still builging up to wearing them more here and there, but so far so good.

One and a half days until surgery. I may not post for while during recovery. Most of these recent posts have been burning off nervous energy. We'll see.

Asserting the Alter-Ego

At work they pretend to be nice by collecting a list of your favorite items. I say pretend because this would be the perfect occasion for them to be nice, like give me a little care pkg for my ordeal, but I know I won't get so much as a get well card. But I filled it out anyway.

I chose to try to fill it out as if asserting my slightly healthier self. I didn’t just put things I’m supposed to like, that are completely unrealistic. But I thought about what would I eat first at a potluck if I was given free reign and first pick. Honestly, I would go after the fruit. It tastes good, it’s filling, and if someone else spent the money on it, I’ll never pass up things like fresh pineapple or raspberries. (pretty much any berries except maybe gooseberries? Not sure about those; haven’t tried them). For cookies, I put gingersnaps (previously had been Oreos). For dessert I put fruits. I still included a couple guilty pleasures like salty stuff. If that’s the worst thing on my list, that’s still a vast improvement. Did I fully buy into my list? Mostly. It’s not as if anyone is going to run out and get me any of this stuff. But if they did, I could be perfectly happy with gingersnaps.

There’s a story that a WW member used to always walk out of the grocery store with a candy bar in hand, eating it on the way out the door. Then one day the person looks down and realizes that they tore open a banana and didn’t even realize or miss the candy bar. That transition sometimes takes longer than we'd like. It’s always good to dream, right?

Two and a half days until surgery.

OTC Addiction

Addiction. It’s not a pretty word. Yet I think most of us have little vices, whether we care to admit to them or not. I read an article a while ago about how flight attendants dislike people who request Diet Coke and believe those who do are usually addicts. I shrugged and thought yeah, I’m probably a Diet Coke addict. I’ve mentioned how hard-wired I am to to my salt flavorings (not straight table salt, fun fancy sea salt—there is a difference).

The hospital called and gave me instructions including to stop taking any Over The Counter products. I’m happy for anyone to whom it is business as usual. Unfortunately for me this is no small feat. It’s allergy season and I’ve been taking an otc preventive pill every night for years. I also have been advised to take generic Flonase for when the otc decongestants can’t kick my sinus pain. After the congestion is cleared, who wouldn’t want to dull any remaining sinus pain with a mild otc pain pill? So ugh. I already have a good sinus headache going. Can I put something like Vicks Vaporub on my skin where it hurts or are topicals also forbidden? I googled that topical pain stuff is for sure.

Besides my nightly allergy pill, I also take a natural sleep aid, again, which I have been per provider recommendation, for years. They cleared all my prescription medications, so I can take them freely. Who would have guessed it would have been better to have prescription sleep and pain medication for situations like this? I didn’t ask about my eye drops, but I sincerely hope they are ok as I’m not stopping them. Occasionally I wake up and it’s difficult to move my eyelids because things are so dried out (because I don’t want to put goopy gel in at night). I could see about distilled water for eye drops. Pretty sure that’s what they use for eye-washes when foreign substances need to be washed out of one’s eye.

No vitamins or supplements. I had no idea vitamins were bad. I guess it’s been a few years since I had minor surgery, and the last ones I had were semi-emergent, so they were scheduled within a couple of days. No one told me to stop doing anything, but perhaps they were more concerned about getting me in quickly. Ignorance is bliss on their part too, right?.

The only part more fun than this is that I am not allowed lotion the day of surgery. This makes perfect sense except that I have pretty dry skin and lotion up every time I wash my hands. Doesn’t help that I live in a dry climate either. At least that’s only one morning. Still not going to be fun itching and fretting and will probably beg them to put me under. I have to get up at 4 am to take surgery specific medications, arrive at the hospital at 5:30, and supposedly the surgery starts at 9am. I really hope they dope me up with something on the earlier side.

1 Week until Surgery

Officially losing sleep and stressing. My stomach is also having issues, but that could be related to the prescription they gave me for the knee/leg swelling. The good news on that front is it seems to be helping. Only taking it a few days, so fingers crossed settles things down and helps long term.

I'm dismayed at the emotional eating I committed today. Granted, the food I ate was significantly more healthy than usual, but that’s still bad behavior. Reinforcing bad old habits. Surgery is going to make me not want to be very active and also mess with my metabolism, so I shouldn’t be screwing around. For all I know the “good” news is that I lost all this weight so I won’t be so far gone when a lot of it comes back. Not a very pleasant prospect.

One should forgive themselves and move on, but I feel stuck because idk how to manage stress better. You can say one incident isn’t the end of the world, but I would refer you to the lunch I had with my mother last fall. I swear it precipitated an avalanche of poor eating that cost me 15 pounds. I blame the situation and my lack of coping skills; not my mother.

On a humorous note, I thought ok, I have to drink a ton of water the day before surgery, and have to get up at 4 am to drink more and take pre-op meds. I thought hey, maybe it won’t be that harmful if I stay up half the night because I’ll be peeing anyway and then by morning I’ll be too exhausted to worry much more. The pre-op instructions say to have a good night’s sleep. No one’s perfect. Come on, people, you can ask, but you can’t have everything.

I normally acknowledge that meditation isn’t a skill that can effectively be crammed, like studying for exams. But at this point, I don’t see the harm in seeing how many meditations I can do for the next week. Why not. I've got a couple meditation apps and might as well get good use out of them.

More Medical Headaches

I tried not to dwell on this, but it’s bugging me, so I thought I’d vent and try to get it out of my system.

Went in for more imaging yesterday; pro-actively checking for any miniscule indications of cancer or pre-cancerous changes. Already had an MRI, and they said xrays and ultrasound were also warranted, as they all have different strengths and could potentially pick up different details. Fine, no need to convince me. We make arrangements for both me and my spouse to get off work early (1 car), go one city over, way across on the other side. Kind of a pain, but this is important. They do the xray, then say the doctor there says the ultrasound wasn’t needed. Uhm, ok, not trying to argue with you, but can you write up something to my docs about that to explain that? They said there weren’t findings on a previous ultrasound, so there was nothing to look for. I was tired, hungry, headache, and honestly not arguing, but I did politely ask if they were writing up an analysis if the xray images, could they add a note why the ultrasound wasn’t needed so that would be clearly communicated to my docs. They said no repeatedly. I went home.

The thing is, I had to call hospital scheduling 3 times just to get this. The first two times, they also said, no, all three images seem ridiculous, you need to check with your doctor to confirm. They usually only want one. When I checked back with them, they were all, yes, we know what we asked for, and we meant it. I went home, pulled up the previous e-mail, where two different providers said yes, we absolutely want all three done. I’m not so paranoid that I think there is cancer and it’s being missed, but I really don’t want to feel like I’m getting scolded by them again saying hey, we told you to get all three. This was not a scheduler, but the MD in charge, and he repeatedly said no. Usually I’m the one who throws a fit, so I tried not to. I just said fine, please add a note to my chart so it’s passed along to the ones who requested the ultrasound. I was going to get his name, but in my stupidity, I forgot. I’m an idiot. Either way, though it should not be this much of a pain. You think my providers are idiots, fine, roll your eyes, try to talk me out of it by saying I was randomly told I’m in a high risk category with finger quotes and let me make a choice. Write a letter to the Department of Insurance and say you think my docs are nuts and ordering un-needed tests and suggest they be instigated. But don’t outright refuse services. I mean, come on. They already made me feel bad enough and implied my doctors are idiots randomly assigning me a high-risk label and I’m a sucker for believing them. But let me get what I came there for and go on my way. I should have been able to get all 3 images done at the same time, but since they refused to scheduled them all at first, I had to do 2 different trips so far. You’d think this isn’t a big deal except that with all the appointments I’ve had for this and pre-op, my foot and my opposite leg/knee, it adds up. If my doctors re-evaluate and say ooops, yeah, we didn’t really need the ultrasound, fine. But if the push back, that’s going to make me really irritated. That’s what I’m dreading at this point.

Oh well. 13 days until surgery.

Non Scale Victory (NSV)

NSV for the day/month/whatever. Need to officially retire one pair of pants. I have stretchy waists, and thought hey, get as much use out of them as I can, right? If I have my phone in the pocket, I cannot keep them up anymore - within seconds the band pulls a few inches down. Kind of embarassing, but I guess it's a good thing.

2 weeks until surgery. Or feels like it when the current day is over, and I'm scheduled o-dark-thirty the day of.

Silly Fitness Trackers

Ah, fitness trackers. Yes, I caved and got one. I’m not promoting mine or any tracker, but will admit I got a Fitbit Inspire 3, only so anyone reading can have that information in case they think “well MY tracker doesn’t do that.” Good for you.

Fitness trackers are glorified pedometers at best. Mine does not report sleep, oxygen level, or any of the other bells and whistles it is supposed to. I didn’t get it for that, so it’s not that disappointing, only irritating. The couple of times I attempted the “meditation” options it didn’t track to give me credit for it and my pulse actually went up 10 beats per minute. Like I said, glorified pedometer.

Why did I succumb to buying one instead of a basic pedometer? That could be separate blog post or mini-series in itself. Suffice it to say pedometers that clip don’t work well for me, and I wanted a wrist version. I wanted to count up the “steps” and make progress increasing activity. Flapping my arms around like an air traffic controller is not the same as walking, but it is my current form of exercise due to my swollen leg. I wanted to count all the walking and arm flapping I did all day, even if it was in little bity chunks, and try to be motivated to make the total number grow larger. Even with the upcoming surgery, getting credit for miniscule walking or movement might be encouraging rather than thinking I’m never doing enough.

Now we get to the saga and my point. Previous to having the tracker, I would do various youtube videos and mark down on a calendar how many minutes I spent. I attempted to track several things on my calendar, including meditation, water, caffeine, fruits and vegetable servings, and so forth. I gradually increased activity minutes, so yay for that, but by March my overall enthusiasm for doing and tracking everything was waning.

Enter the tracker. I was pleasantly surprised (if not confused) that it counted moderate activity I had not considered might count, such as walking at work, like the longish trecks to get water. Yay. Plus it added it automatically, so I didn’t have to time it. it reports that I “exercised” if I get my heart rate into the moderate zone for 10 minutes or longer. It had a goal to exercise 5 days a week and I left it at that, even though I’m kind of a perfectionist and would aim to do at least something every day. Here’s where it gets complicated – do I count what I think is exercise, or try to please the silly Fitbit? Today I did some smaller exercises here and there while watching tv with my spouse, and was pleased to get 19 total “zone” minutes before attempting any official exercise. Then I sat down for my videos. I did 15 minutes of strength training, but it didn’t get my heart rate hardly up at all even though I was huffing and sweating. Oh well. That’s fine. I followed it up with a 10 minute cardio workout video. Upon completion, it only added 2 "zone" minutes, and still defiantly told me I had not exercised. Hence the question – which is more important – setting my own goals or that of my silly digital tracker? I can go back to my manual calendar. Just silly

10% and Crocs

Finally lost 10% of my total body weight since I started late December. I was happy excited for a few hours, then ho hum. Part of me is paranoid if I’m not super careful, the scale will tip back up just over that milestone. Though I’m taking my weight with shoes, and they weigh a little over a pound, so that’s a tiny buffer. Still I guess it’s something. I can’t tell anyone who knows me in real life since they wouldn’t believe it. Thus I'm posting here.

Part of me still wonders when all this regular uplifting goodness comes from being more active and eating so much better. The only salt I’m having is from occasionl processed foods, like salsa or the spoon of sauce I had on my steamed veggies the other day. My leg is still ridiculously large, so that didn’t seem to help yet, if it would at all.

in other exciting news, after 9 weeks of constantly wearing super cushy Hoka Clifton 9 shoes and arch support inserts (sold separately), the podiatrist said I could gradually start wearing Crocs a few minutes a day and build up. They’re more supportive than sandals, he claims. Need to work down before barefoot, and who knows if I can ever go barefoot again. I have no idea about any other supposed arch support imitation brands, but the doc said Crocs, so Crocs it is. With all the effort and money I’ve already spent on my foot, I’m not going to risk going generic.

19 days until surgery.