Category: injury

How Much of Healing Is Faith?
health · injury · mindfulness

How Much of Healing Is Faith?

MinaLeave a comment

How Much of Healing Is Faith?

The foot surgery I mentioned last month has come and gone. I didn’t meltdown or freak out, except in the moment when the physician’s assistant was trying to put in the IV port and I got so stressed out that my veins went into hiding and I started to lose consciousness. The poor PA was mopping sweat from my face, forearms and shins, as he tried to keep me awake. The surgery itself was a black box, after the anesthesiologist said the words, I’m just going to start with something to calm y ... I woke up in the operating room, while they were vigorously swaddling my foot in a dressing, thick wads of cotton batting and a tenser bandage.  

At home that evening, I kept waiting for the pain to hit, mindful that I’d been instructed to, Get ahead of the pain. There was none. Nor the next day. Or any day. There was no swelling either. The only mild discomfort I’ve had is when a shoe causes pressure or friction against the stitches on the top of my foot. I had prepared myself for immobility. Instead, after Friday afternoon surgery, I could walk around normally by later that evening on my one bare foot and one swaddled foot. If my steps were tentative, it was out of anticipation of the pain that did not arrive. I was surprised. After all of the everything around my auto-immune situation, I lost quite a bit of faith in my body’s ability to heal. With each hour that passed post-surgery, then each day, then week, now 10 days, my cup of healing faith is refilling. I wonder how much of the healing is due to my restored faith in my body’s ability to heal.   

I diligently forced myself to stay on the couch over that first weekend. With no pain to remind me of why I needed to be sedate, by Sunday night I was feeling confined and itchy to move. I rode a Monday morning loop of Central Park on Citibike. I wore a surgical boot, to be safe. On Tuesday, I wore a sturdy, regular boot when I rode the same loop. Wednesday was on the Peloton (in running shoes, not bike shoes). And Friday, a week post-surgery, yoga (with modifications to upward dog, so as not to aggravate my stitches).

To be clear, although my foot looks ugly with stitches and bruising top and bottom (be glad I’m not sharing a photo), all of this activity is pain and swelling free. I am not pushing limits. I carefully re-read the post op instructions, which clearly say, weight bearing as tolerated. I was told to expect 2 weeks in a surgical boot, followed by 2 weeks in super sturdy shoes. I was told that maybe I could think about running after 6 weeks. Was my foot doctor just setting low expectations? It hasn’t even been 2 weeks yet and the challenge now is to resist the siren call of running. I see the doc tomorrow (if you are reading this on the first Wednesday in December, when it posts). I’m guessing (please please) that he will take out the three stitches. He really adhered to the minimally invasive promise of the surgery with his tiny incisions, each of which only required one stitch. I’ve promised myself to do nothing over-exuberant until I see him.

Which is hard, because I am bursting with astonished gratitude at this moment. All I want to do is dance and run and jump up and down, to test how much better my foot feels. I can feel how much more mobility there is. How the pain that I had is gone. I can stand on my tippy toes, for the first time in several years.

I tell myself that I should moderate my hopes. After all, my toe also has a bunion and arthritis. Even as another part of me is jumping ahead, wondering, if my foot can heal like this, then what about my Addison’s Disease? Finding the balance of faith in my body’s ability to heal and being realistic about what’s possible is delicate. Some people say that faith is everything. While I believe that faith counts for a lot, I don’t think that my belief in my own healing is enough on its own.

Things I’m wondering:

  • Is faith a virtuous cycle, in which the faith in healing supports the healing?
  • Is it more than a virtuous cycle, as in, without the faith the healing cannot happen?
  • How far can faith go, as in, why does it seem to pertain to my foot and not my auto immune situation? I had a lot of faith I could be cured of the Addison’s. At first. Now, that faith has gotten complicated. How do I untangle the knotty question of whether my patience with a longer road to recovery is faith, or resignation to my fate?
  • And is this faith I’m talking about just another word for control? A veiled way of satisfying the human hunger for control over our lives?

One last wondering, can faith harm my healing? I have an answer to this one. Yes. If I use faith as an excuse to not actually follow medical protocols. I did that in the beginning with the Addison’s. Going off my medication. Against doctor’s orders. Believing that I could cure myself with infusions, supplements, meditation and a positive attitude. That didn’t work. Now I’m on my medication. Diligent and compliant. Mostly. Plus, meditation, faith, vitamins and supplements. That really works.

So, for my foot, weight bearing as tolerated. That’s working so far. I’ll see the doc tomorrow. A little girl part of me is bringing him my foot, as if it is a drawing from school, wanting him to be impressed by my healing. Pin it up on the fridge. Give my faith a boost. What if he just says, yup, this is what I expected? It changes nothing about my condition. Puts a question mark in the power of my faith.

Maybe the trick is to have faith and hold it lightly. Faith will intervene when appropriate and only it knows when that is.

A physical therapist helping a client. BY Annie Spratt for Unsplash. Graduating from physical therapy: Catherine’s excited and a little worried
fitness · injury · mobility · Physiotherapy

Graduating from physical therapy: Catherine’s excited and a little worried

catherine wLeave a comment

I’ve been in physical therapy for a recurrence of sciatica since late July. I’d had pain and weakness in my right hip since May, causing me problems climbing stairs and pain that would wake me up at night. Blech!

Once I finally acknowledged that yes, I needed some help, and got started with a supervised twice-a-week plan, plus at-home exercises, I felt relieved. Relieved that I had a structured plan for dealing with the pain and getting stronger, and also relieved that I could leave this plan up to the professionals (thanks, Julian and Louis!), who would guide me through a process of healing and rebuilding my muscles and getting needed functionality back. Ahhh…

Starting with stretching exercises and some easy strength-building (e.g. bridge, clamshells), I moved on to a full array of hip machine exercises, leg presses, balance activities, farmer’s carry, and stair climbing with dumbells on one side. It’s been gratifying to see and feel my strength increase and pain decrease. Yay!

My classes are all on the second floor of one of the campus buildings, with extra stairs to get into the building. I’ve really not enjoyed waiting for the super-slow elevator to take me to my floor, but it was necessary. Until the past couple of weeks. I’m now taking all the stairs, and my strength has increased so I don’t need to rely on the stair railing to offset weakness in my hip. Yesss!

I knew it was coming, so I wasn’t surprised when I got a call from the PT practice to say I didn’t need twice-a-week sessions anymore. I’ll go once a week for the next few weeks to transition to discharge. This means they think I’m recovered enough to maintain my newly-regained strength and flexibility on my own. Uh, yay?

I mean, here’s the thing: I know I should be feeling like this:

This lamb is feeling it. Thanks, Jonathan Mabey from Unsplash.
This lamb is feeling it. Thanks, Jonathan Mabey from Unsplash.

And I am. It means I’m pretty recovered and functional. I’ll have 4 more hours back for my week. I won’t be paying $40 in co-pays each week. I’ll be climbing stairs to beat the band!

But I also I feel a little like this:

This woman is also not completely sure about the plan. Thanks Simon Abel for Unsplash.
This woman is also not completely sure about the plan. Thanks Simon Abel for Unsplash.

What am I worried about? I’m worried about the challenge of keeping up my fitness maintenance without the help of the PT bros, who I’ve come to like and respect and depend on. Now I have to depend on, well, me. Hence the worried face.

The good news is that my gym has all the machines I need and is a mile from my house. I also know what to do, and in fact like the experience of the weight work and strength training. And, I can bring a friend to my gym for free on the weekends, so I can enlist help in getting there.

And yet.

I’m almost at that transition point– not yet finished with PT, not yet into a regular gym routine. So that’s my next challenge: get to the the one-mile-away-from-my-house gym to do those exercises without the guidance of physical therapists, but instead with the company of other exercisers, including friends.

Maintaining strength, flexibility and functional fitness is really important to me. And it doesn’t always come easy. It’ll take some adjustment, just like twice-a-week PT and at-home exercises did. I’ll report back in a month to let you know how things are going.

Dear readers, what have your experiences of transition from PT/physio to maintenance exercise been like? I’d love to hear what’s worked for you.

Thanks!

cycling · fitness · illness · injury · sailing · strength training

You never know when you’ll perform your last heavy deadlift

Sam B8 Comments
Snipe racing on Guelph Lake

I was going to title this post “You’ll never know when you’ll lift your last sailboat” when I realized that it’s the functional impact of my recent health news that will hit much harder.

What’s the health news? I’ve been diagnosed with a hiatus hernia–see here for what that means. It’s also called hiatal hernia. They’re the same condition.

I’m trying not to be dramatic about this, given that in the scheme of things the health news could have been much worse. I’m aware of that since some of the diagnosis involved ruling out the much worse things that could have been causing my symptoms.

What the diagnosis means for me, among other things, most immediately, is no more heavy lifting or intense efforts on my bike.

I think of myself–and this matters to me,  perhaps more than it should–as a strong person. I know that’s connected to feeling good about my size.  I’m large but I’m large and very strong.

I am all about lifting heavy things and intense efforts on the bike. Power and speed are my go-to fitness places. Rawr!

But no more. No more heavy lifting and no more racing. I feel like my entire fitness personality will need a rethink!

The pamphlets on living with a hiatus hernia all talk about the importance of exercise for weight loss and emphasize that low-intensity activities are just fine. You can still do lots of gentle movement, they say reassuringly.

Gentle movement!?

That is not at all reassuring.

Readers may know how much low-intensity exercise bores me. And you know for sure what I think about exercising for weight loss.

I’m giving myself some time to pout and mourn, but it’s very clear my life will need to change.

I won’t miss planks and crunches. They’re on the no-go list along with heavy weights and intense efforts. There’s also to be no more pull-ups, and lots of yoga poses aren’t recommended either. No cobra or camel but chair pose is okay.  Fine then.

I don’t know yet how bad it is and if surgery is called for (most likely not), but I’m not really writing today to talk about the medical issues. I have an excellent family doctor. I feel very well cared for by the Canadian health care system. I’m lucky. And to be clear, I’m not looking for medical advice. I’m writing mostly to share the fitness impacts and the way I’ll need to adapt my fitness story.

Tracy has blogged about entering her 60s and changing her thinking about fitness. For Tracy, it’s now more about walking and yoga, less about racing, and more about sustainable fitness that will see her through the decades ahead. I confess that hasn’t been my plan. With my big knee surgeries behind me, I wanted to get back to fast cycling, heavy lifting, and intense efforts. Now that won’t be happening, and I am trying to come to terms with it.

Swimming seems to be fine according to most things I read. All my swimming is slow swimming.  Maybe this is the thing that finally gets me into the pool. I have a month free membership at the Y that starts today.

There’s always aquafit. I did aqua yoga Saturday morning. And there’s seated bicep curls. (Yawn. ) Long slow bike rides are still good. We’ll know more as I track what does and doesn’t aggravate my condition. There’s also physio to help with a hiatus hernia. I might try that too. See the video below.

In addition to all the movement advice, there are some serious food impacts. I have already given up afternoon coffee (all coffee in fact except for one in the morning), carbonated beverages, and chocolate for dessert. I’m moving on to eating smaller meals and not eating late in the evening. The medication I’m taking requires 3-4 hours between meals. It’s also recommended I eat a few hours before exercising. (And I know the fussy eating regimens are familiar to many of you. Not me. I’ve always been able to eat a normal sized meal and hop on my bike. But no longer.)

Anything else to worry about? There’s also some worry about tightly fitting sports bras and any clothing that fits snugly around the waist. I guess I’ll be switching to bib shorts for the bike.

Sorry if this sounds a bit dramatic.  I know slowing down with age is normal.  I’ve been siding with team “it’s normal but not necessary,  you don’t have to slow down” and yet here I am,  now deliberating slowing down.

It feels like a lot right now.

I’m giving myself time to get used to this news.

By the way,  my family doctor was surprised I even went to the website the specialist recommended and read the exercise section.  Most people,  he said,  just ignore that and keep doing what they’re doing.  Just take it easy,  he did,  but keep moving.

He makes it sound so simple.  But he also seems like not an over-thinker.

Wish me luck!

fitness · injury · mobility · standing · strength training · stretching

Sam is bringing back the yoga balls

Sam BLeave a comment

Way back when,  BTB (“Before The Blog”), I hurt my back pretty badly. First,  there was a fall when skiing.  Then,  there was the Australian beach crash. I talk about the beach incident here.  For years after those accidents I put my back out doing simple things like taking off my cycling shoes or sitting too long at my desk.

All of that prompted me to get a standing desk and I’ve used one at work for more than a dozen years.

So for the past bunch of years,  since moving to Guelph,  I haven’t had very many back issues. I figured I’d solved that problem.

Until last week.

After three days of bike riding,  followed by hot yoga,  and then weight training,  I spent way too much time sitting at my desk.  I was tired and somehow never moved my desk to the standing position. 

I followed the very long sitting at my desk day with a night at the movie theatre. When I got up from the movie theatre seat,  there was that horrible low back pain that I know so well from the past.

The next day I was okay sitting,  and okay standing,  but moving between those positions was very painful.

I thought, in that doomy and pessimistic way that gets us all sometime especially in this political climate,  that that was it.  My back would just hurt forever.

Sarah nagged me into stretching.  And I ordered a new set of yoga balls to use on my back when I’m sitting.

Here they are:

Yoga balls on the dash of the car

Lo and behold,  I’m better again.

Same lesson,  learned again.  Keep moving.

A person on a table being evaluated by a physical therapist. By Judy Beth Morris for Unsplash. Five lessons Catherine is learning from Physical Therapy (this time)
fitness · functional fitness · injury · Physiotherapy

Five lessons Catherine is learning from Physical Therapy (this time)

catherine w1 Comment

I’ve been in physical therapy for six weeks for sciatica, which has been centered on my right hip and glute. I had the same problem in my left hip and glute two years ago, and got physical therapy for it, which helped enormously.

But it came back, this time on the other side. Which brings me to the first lesson from this round of PT:

Lesson one: our physical vulnerabilities don’t ever go away; they’re always there and in need of attention and care.

I knew this, of course, as do we all. But when we devote concentrated attention to some problem, we tend to hope and believe that it’ll be fixed, once and for all. Well, in the case of our musculoskeletal bodies, this just isn’t true.

Lesson two: slow and steady actually works.

Once I got into physical therapy and made a little progress– less pain and more function– I was ready to throw myself into more intense activity. But they counseled me to let pain guide me; if doing something hurt a lot, stop doing it. Sounds simple, but this bears repeating.

Lesson three: more activity brings more discomfort, but it’s okay.

When I was on vacation in Canada, swimming and dog walking and just generally being more active, I had some level of pain every day, for much of the day. Because I’d been prepped for this, I didn’t freak out. I did what I wanted and could do, took Tylenol when needed, and enjoyed the fact that I was able to be more active and out there than the previous month. Yay.

Lesson four: sitting in cars and planes is evil for the body (or at least my body).

Yes, I knew this, but driving from Boston to Ontario and back again (with some detours along the way) showed me once again how my body is vulnerable. And don’t get me started on air travel; that’s what precipitated this flare-up. This doesn’t mean I can no longer drive. But it does mean that 1) I should stop more often and get out and stretch and walk around; 2) I should know that after a very long drive, my body will need attention through stretching, rest, and movement; and 3) If I ignore and push through this, I do so at my peril.

Lesson five: bodies are wonderful things. They take a licking and keep on ticking. And they respond to focused attention and care. This means that I have renewed appreciation and love for my physical self. This time around, both the physical therapists and I are working on a maintenance plan that I can and will follow. I really love what my body can do, and I want to keep doing it for a long time to come.

vintage bicycle in lush green field belarus Getting on and off your road bike with grace!
aging · cycling · fitness · injury

Getting on and off your road bike with grace!

Sam B3 Comments

Sometimes I worry that I’ve run out of things to blog about, but then there are new injury and age-related challenges that arise, I know that I am not alone, and I want to share the solutions I’ve found.

One of the things that older cyclists sometimes struggle with is getting on and off our road bikes. It’s enough of an issue that sometimes people choose a different style of bike–say, one with a step-through frame–when they get older. This issue didn’t bother me until knee surgery. My knees aren’t as bendy as they once were, and I also have stiff hips. I do a lot of physio, but I’m still not very flexible.

For me, it almost never is a problem getting on the bike. I’m all limber and stretchy then. Sometimes getting off, though, can be dicey, and it’s almost always when we’re stopping in front of a coffee shop, full of fellow cyclists, that I struggle. It’s embarrassing, and so I’m keen to find other ways to do it. If I’m home I sometimes gently drop the frame to the ground, in the grass, and step out and over it that way. Very easy! But necessarily something I want to do on the side of the road.

This video was really helpful. Turns out that I’m a fan of number 2, the side lean, and it’s how I now how I get on and off my road bike.

How about you?

This was another video of “magnificent” ways to dismount your bike. Enjoy!

Creating Ease Isn’t Easy
ADHD · fitness · health · injury · mobility · self care

Creating Ease Isn’t Easy

Christine Hennebury1 Comment

After last week’s conundrums, this Tuesday finds me feeling a lot better overall.

Things are getting a bit easier in my brain and in my muscles and while it’s tempting to jump back into my regular routine, I am determined not to fall into that trap.

Instead, I am working bit by bit on creating more ease for myself in my day to day actions.

And, like the title says, creating ease isn’t easy.

A drawing of the word ‘ease’ against a background of sets of concentric circles that overlap.
This ease was actually fairly easy to create. Image description: a drawing of the word ‘ease.’ Each letter is capitalized and is a different colour (blue, yellow, purple, dark pink) and the background is all kind of overlapping sets of concentric circles.

Creating ease means doing gentle yoga and stretches, breathing deeply, relaxing when and how I can and, it means spending a lot of time and energy paying close attention to how I am moving, how I am sitting, how I work, and how I do a variety of tasks.

My ADHD brain is ok with the first few things but it is not a fan of the latter part of that list – in fact, even the thought of paying that kind of attention to those details is tiring.

But I do want to feel better. And I know that unless I make some adjustments, it’s going to be a) harder for my neck/back/shoulders to heal and b) I’m going to keep having some of the same issues over and over.

Right now, I am working on two things that I hope will prevent me from exacerbating my current issues AND will help me avoid some other issues in the future.

Here are my current practices:

1) Getting up and rolling my shoulders/doing a few neck stretches every 20 minutes or so.

I already like to use the repeat timer app throughout my work day so I have a better sense of time passing AND so I don’t feel like any given task is going to take forever. (I have given myself permission to change tasks whenever the timer goes off)

Now, I don’t just note that time is passing, I use the chime as a reminder to move and stretch. It’s not perfect – I sometimes inadvertently ignore the timer – but I definitely have a higher success rate than I would without it.

2) Practicing holding my head differently when I am drawing, writing, and using my phone.

Since a lot of my leisure time is spent doing one of those activities making this change will really help.

Instead of spending so much time with my head down and my neck jutting forward, I am taking Katy Bowman‘s advice about how to hold my neck:

A video called ‘Hold Your Head Better When Using Screens’ from the Nutritious Movement YouTube channel. The still image shows a woman in a purple shirt standing in profile holding a phone in her right hand and holding her left hand up to the back of her neck.

Since I can’t necessarily put my drawing/reading/writing in the same place I would hold a phone, I am also using the same movement to take breaks during my drawing/reading/writing sessions – here’s a demo in this Facebook video of hers from a few years ago.

Between these two movement elements things, the yoga, the massage therapy, and all of the being-careful-but-not-coddling-myself, I am hoping to keep inching towards more ease in my body – especially the muscles of my neck and upper back.

Creating ease isn’t easy but it will be totally worth the effort, right?

Right?

Right?

(It had better be!)

Outdoor photo of a dog skidding the ground Christine’s Current Conundrums
ADHD · health · injury · rest

Christine’s Current Conundrums

Christine Hennebury2 Comments

Conundrum #1

As I work towards healing the muscles in my back, neck, and shoulders, I need to do a certain amount of movement to keep the circulation up, to create ease, and to maintain mobility but I can’t do too much or I will end up hurting myself and have a setback. 

How can I tell if I am doing enough or doing too much?

It’s a conundrum – there’s actually no way to tell, it’s something that everyone has to kind of figure out for themselves.

I hate that for me because I really have NO IDEA how hard I am working at any given time – even when I am not injured – so I can’t compare how I am moving now to how I moved last time (even if ‘last time’ was 5 minutes ago.)  

I’m sure you can see how that makes it very challenging to take a ‘do what you can, evaluate, then make adjustments next time’ approach for this healing process. 

I know a lot of people with ADHD mention having issues with this sort of thing – a lack of perception regarding our efforts – so it seems to be one of those challenges that everyone has but is often exacerbated by ADHD. 

The whole ‘how much is enough/how much is too much’ is really an unanswerable question loop so I’m really just going to hope for the best. 

Conundrum #2

I woke up on Sunday morning with the sort of panicky thoughts that usually only show up when I am having the sort of migraine that doesn’t involve any actual headache. I thought that was odd until I sat up, my stomach turned and I realized that I *was* having a migraine. 

I took a migraine pill, slept for another few hours, and then felt pretty ok until about 9pm on Sunday night when I suddenly stressed myself out about something and my stomach turned again.  Next thing, I was lying in bed with my migraine hat on , listening to cello music , putting an ice cube in my mouth, holding a hot water bottle to my stomach, and trying to find some ease.

Did I actually have the same migraine all day but the meds in the morning put it in the background? Or did getting stressed out bring on a new migraine? Or did a pre-existing migraine make me more vulnerable to getting suddenly stressed out and the stress just brought the symptoms to the foreground again? 

Is there even any point in asking myself these questions?

Since I haven’t ever been able to reliably predict my migraines there’s probably no point in going through the thought-loop but it would take a lot of energy to stop myself so I might as well travel the loop until it burns itself out.

Conundrum #3

After my Sunday night migraine,  my Monday self felt pretty lousy but I also had a bunch of tasks that I needed to do.

If I had felt any worse, I would have just taken to my bed like a Victorian lady and called it a day but I wasn’t that kind of sick. It was a ‘take it easy’ day, not a ‘grind to a halt’ day so, basically, I was in the same kind of loop as the ‘enough/too much’ question above except with work and rest.

Rest is important, obviously,  but my day wouldn’t be very restful if I couldn’t put those tasks out of my head, especially since I knew people would be checking in with me about them. (I never want to risk getting extra email.)

The best answer would be to identify the most important tasks and work on those but that brings me to a different challenge: 

Prioritization is extremely difficult for me under the best of circumstances and a day in which I am very tired and recovering from a migraine was not the best of circumstances – especially since my ADHD meds are less effective when I haven’t slept well. 

And if my meds are less effective, it not only affects my ability to prioritize, it also affects my ability to concentrate on my work so I am going to be slower and less focused.

So, I basically spent a good chunk of Monday putting a lot of mental effort into my attempts to prioritize/cut back on my work for the day so I could rest. 

Conundrum #4

As I got towards the end of my day, I discovered another conundrum:

Am I too tired/out of sorts to take Khalee for a walk or will taking Khalee for a walk actually make me feel better?

Luckily, I quickly figured out the correct answer for that one:

And about 5 minutes after we got home, it started to hail (just a little, but still!) so I was really glad that my ‘Will a walk help?’ loop was far shorter than the others. 

Conundrum #5

My final loop of the day was ‘Do I feel up to writing a post for the blog? What am I going to write about? Should I write about this loopy day? Will anyone want to read about that? Am I just being self-indulgent and whiny?’

And maybe I am being self-indulgent and whiny but I also know that I often feel better when I read posts like this. When other people write posts like this they always remind me that I am not alone in my frustrations, and thought loops, and in my efforts to make my way out of ordinary, fairly low-stakes conundrums. 

So perhaps today is my turn to do that for you.

It’s ok to get caught in conundrums – thought loops happen to everyone.

It’s ok to struggle to balance things and lots of us find it hard to figure out how to rest. 

There’s nothing wrong with you if it feels like AllOfTheThings are in your way today. 

Please be kind to yourself as you make your way along.

ADHD · fitness · health · injury

A frustrating mystery solved (I think)

Christine Hennebury5 Comments

Grab a cup of tea and a snack, this post will be long.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it here and there on the blog but I’ve been having extra trouble doing things for a while now.

Everything has been just a little harder. I’ve struggled to start things, I’ve struggled to finish things and there have been some tasks that just felt impossible – tasks that would normally be well within my capacity.

Unfortunately, because of the stress of the past few years and because of how ADHD categories things for me, I didn’t realize how much this was happening.

I’ve been struggling with exercise, including Taekwon-do. I’ve been struggling with writing projects and other creative activities. And I have had trouble summoning the energy to do good planning for a lot of different areas of my life.

I had put this all down to various kinds of stress, ambient stress, grief, and the kind of work-juggling stress that comes from a combination of ADHD and having taken on a few too many projects.

Oh, and, of course, the kind of stress that comes from feeling like you have been making too many excuses about too many things for far too long (even though there have been SO MANY OBSTACLES one after the other.)

Recently, though, I have discovered that there may be an underlying cause contributing to my frustrations over the past six months.

I tried to write a post about it several times in the past week, but I couldn’t pull my thoughts together the way I needed to.

So yesterday, on World Creativity and Innovation Day I decided to take a different approach and I made a zine instead.

I actually thought doing a zine would be quicker but as I wrote page 20, I realized that there was no way to make this story short.

I have photos of each page of my zine below and I’ll put a image description with each one, but if that’s all too long to read scroll way down to the bottom and I’ll put a summary of the whole thing.

Got your tea?

Let’s go!

a photo of a zine page
A photo of the cover of a black-and-white zine called Well This Is Frustrating – a scene about an unexpected answer to a mystery by Christine Hennebury
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with the following text “When you have muscle pain and stress and anxiety and brain fog and extra migraines and low energy and it keeps getting harder and harder to start stuff and to keep doing stuff or to even think about starting or doing stuff” Some of these words have been sort of illustrated. The word brain is huge. The word fog is made in sort of wiggly letters that kind of look like fog and next to extra migraines there is a picture of a person’s head in a vise. There was a black arrow after the word stuff.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with a drawing of a confused looking robot next to text that reads “it can be really tricky to figure out why?”  Why is written in block letters and running vertically on the page instead of horizontally.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that features a pill bottle with eyes and a frown, and the word Concerta printed across its middle and it has its little arms crossed. A speech balloon next to it says This isn’t my fault. The text on the page reads “First I wondered ‘Are my ADHD meds failing me?’ That would explain the stress and anxiety and brain fog and the low energy and the trouble getting started…”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that reads: “but it doesn’t explain why a few minutes of exercise feels like an hour. And it doesn’t explain the muscle pain, especially in my neck and shoulders, and usually my ADHD fights me on getting started, it doesn’t usually prevent me from carrying on, so maybe it’s…” in brackets at the bottom of the page more text reads “I’m 52. Can you guess what is on the next page?”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that reads “perimenopause” in big letters and right underneath it says “or even full on menopause?” On the bottom left is a black-and-white witch’s cauldron with bubbles and steam rising from it, and the cauldron is labeled “(peri)menopause may contain brain fog, anxiety, muscle aches, mood issues, low energy, and more!” Next to the caldron is text that reads “I thought: OK maybe but it doesn’t exactly fit. It doesn’t feel quite right.”
a photo of a zine page
Black-and-white text that reads “You know what? The worst of it wasn’t even the symptoms. It was how I had been gradually (and unbeknownst to me) narrowing my life to deal with them.” At the bottom of the page are four speech balloons: 1st speech balloon says – I don’t want to write about that. It takes too much energy. 2nd speech balloon says – Maybe I’ll feel up to that next week. 3rd speech balloon – OK Khalee, maybe we’ll take a shorter walk today. 4th speech balloon – I don’t know if I’ll go. I feel tired just thinking about it.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with text reading: “I adjusted my meds. I got lots of rest. I reduced my stress as much as possible. I tried taking teeny steps toward more exercise, but still, I found myself here”  There’s an arrow from the word here that is pointing to a drawing of the top of a person‘s head underneath a stack of boxes that read 1) I just cannot  2) task initiation issues 3) lack of motivation 4)  fatigue 5) muscle aches 6) nope 7)  brain fog. The person is saying ‘Glerg’ to all of this.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that reads “and this all seems like part and parcel of the same big problem from this perspective. But when it was developing, and when I was living it, it kind of snuck up on me. Each piece seemed like a separate issue.” The word big is written in much larger and darker text. And the word separate has each letter in a box sort of like scrabble tiles laid next to each other.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that reads “I talked to my doctor about some of it, and I did some research on my own about other stuff and I kept meaning to call my chiropractor, but I kept forgetting.” The word Dr is wearing a stethoscope. There is a picture of a computer and some books next to the research sentence, and at the bottom of the page is a drawing of a person with their face enveloped in a cloud that says brain fog and there’s a speech balloon that says “what was I going to do?”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that reads  “But then an idea arrived from an unexpected source. Last time I was at the hairdresser, she mentioned that my scalp was hard as a rock. I said.  ‘Must be stress, I guess’ but it made me think if my scalp is so tight, what else is not working right?” And in brackets at the bottom, it says “good question hey?”  On the upper left on the page there’s a very rough drawing of a hairdresser washing someone’s hair and there’s a note beneath that says “Please note that Hillary is not a ragamuffin. I don’t have the skills to draw her well.”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that says “and then I started having trouble with my neck. A knot on the right side kept recurring so I called a massage therapist. I mean, this was a specific issue that could be treated in a specific way. This was what is known in the field as a good idea.” In the middle of this page is a small drawing of a person‘s chin, mouth, and neck and there’s a large black spot on the right side of the neck.  Notes next to the picture read “a reasonable hand-drawn facsimile”, and “in real life, I have hair and features.” At the bottom right of the page next to the word good idea is a light bulb.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that says, “and it was a good idea. During my massage, Renee said something like “You know, you have the tightest neck. One of the tightest I’ve ever massaged.  My other clients with this tight of a neck have a constant headache.” At the bottom of the page in darker letters is text reading “Wait! Could a tight neck be part of the big problem?”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with dark text that reads: “I asked her some questions and then did some research about the checklist of things she mentioned.” In the middle of the page (enclosed in a box) is a checklist that reads “tight neck, tight shoulders, ribs tight enough to restrict breathing, tight jaw” and each item is checked off. Beneath the checklist is text reading “and yep! All of those things can add up to brain fog, fatigue, mood issues, lack of motivation, low energy and increased migraine/headaches/muscle aches…”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with large text at the top that reads “Maybe it’s ADHD….Maybe it’s menopause…Or maybe it’s neck and back related?” Smaller text below reads “That certainly would explain a lot. Sure, ADHD. perimenopause, and stress could be doing their part but maybe, just maybe, the underlying issue was more directly treatable? I love this for me. I mean it’s still a challenge, but it’s way more straightforward.”

a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with large takes to the top that says “But wait! There’s more!” And then smaller text reads. “I was telling all this to my friend Cathy via text when she asked a key question.” In a Speech balloon is the text “So it’s all due to stress? You didn’t have an injury did you?” In larger text it reads “I went to say all stress and then I remembered one afternoon last October…”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black and white zine page with text reading: “I was lying in my circle swing in the backyard when CRACK the branch it was hanging on broke and down came baby (Me!) cradle (i.e. swing) and all. The branch landed on my hands and I landed on the ground.” The word crack is printed in big letters and there’s a crack running through each one – a little space between the top and the bottom of each letter. At the bottom of the page is a very rough drawing of what supposed to be a circle swing on the ground with me lying on it, holding a branch aloft.
a photo of a zine page
A black-and-white photo of text reading “I was shocked and I hurt, but not ‘specific injury’ and not ‘something’s broken’ hurt. It was more of a jangled nerves and ‘I feel jammed together’ situation. I checked for symptoms of concussion, but you know what I did didn’t check for?”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with a whip drawn at the top and the word WHIPLASH in large black letters. Smaller text reads “Now, I haven’t seen my doctor yet but can you guess what happens when you don’t treat whiplash right away? Yep, brain fog, breathing issues, muscle pain, anxiety, mood issues, low energy, motivation, troubles, headaches.” Text in brackets at the bottom reads: “You get the idea.”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that reads “And you know what else happened a while ago? I fell on the steps and kind of caught myself. So I definitely added to the whiplash or whatever happened as the result of my fall.” Larger text at the bottom reads “And the effects of those two unpleasant but largely unremarkable incidents have been compounding for months.” Note: The words “I fell on the steps” are written as if they are a set of steps with a landing in the center.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white zine page with text reading “All of the yoga, all of the stretching, all of the bits and pieces of exercises? I couldn’t actually make progress with them, couldn’t get them to a new level. All of that effort was actually going towards keeping things from getting worse.” The word progress and the word level are written larger than everything else on the page for emphasis.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with text reading “And I had no idea. Yes, I knew about my frustration. I knew about my symptoms, but I couldn’t see the big picture.” The word frustration and the word symptoms are both written larger than the surrounding text and the words big picture are written very large and much darker than the other text and they’re surrounded by a rectangle almost like a picture frame.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of black-and-white text that reads “I didn’t realize that I had been limiting myself avoiding things that aggravated my injuries. I noticed that I ‘wasn’t trying hard enough’ and I was fighting the urge to be critical of myself about it.” All of that text is in large black letters, not capitals, but with emphasis. At the bottom of the page there is some text in lighter strokes that is in brackets and it reads” ‘You aren’t trying hard enough’ was my unmedicated brain’s favourite refrain. It still hurts to think it.”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of black-and-white text that reads: “And now I’m realizing that there was an underlying issue, something causing all the symptoms, something preventing me from trying hard enough. It reminds me of when I first found out I have ADHD I feel both sad (for the lost time) and hopeful for the future, but I have a question that haunts me.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of black-and-white text that is all in dark, emphasized letters: “What would’ve happened to me, to my life, to my ability to do the things I like doing, if I hadn’t figured this out?”

So, yeah, that’s where I am right now – trying to be kind to myself, trying not to aggravate my injury further, trying to stretch and rest, and working with my massage therapist (yay, Renee!) to help my neck, shoulders, and upper body figure out how to relax again.

Summary: After months of having a rough time with my physical and mental health, a visit to a massage therapist helped me realize that I may have injured myself more than I realized when I fell in October and then fell again back in January. I may have been dealing with untreated whiplash that has just been compounding over time. Whether or not it’s whiplash, I have been dealing with ongoing neck, shoulder, upper back and rib issues that have actually been physically preventing me from operating in my usual way and at my usual capacity. And I feel rather sad and frustrated about how long it took me to figure out what was going on.

A graphic of three yellow minions with the words work together as a team. Back to basics, again: joining an exercise accountability group
fitness · injury

Back to basics, again: joining an exercise accountability group

catherine w1 Comment

Last week was not good– not in the life of the world, nor my nation, nor me, for that matter. Leaving aside the first two for the moment, I had noticed some pain and buckling of my left knee while walking. The pain was a lot-a-lot worse after driving or otherwise sitting for a good while.

On Tuesday, as I got out of my car, having driven 70 minutes from work to my polling place, I could hardly walk without pain. An extremely nice woman with a seven-year-old child offered to help me walk inside to vote. At first, I demurred, thinking I could do it. But then I took her up on her offer, putting my arm around her shoulder. Together we made it inside, and both carried out our civic duties. Thank you so much, fellow Belmont voter!

Once I got started walking, I could find a way to walk without pain. But it required some experimentation and no twisting of my left knee. Clearly, I’ve got some problem or other (my guess: IT band problems, which I’ve had before). Sigh. This means seeing my doctor and getting a referral to physical therapy. Sigh again.

Honestly, I don’t mind PT. The physical therapists at the practice I go to are very knowledgeable and encouraging, and I enjoy the exercises. However, for me it’s a challenge to schedule and maintain a regimen of at-home exercises in between sessions.

Enter my serendipitous new exercise accountability group.

It just so happens that a friend, who’s in physical therapy now, texted a few folks to ask if anyone was willing to be an exercise accountability partner for her. The response was immediate and impressive.

I can do that!
I can do that!
Don't stress cos I'll help you
Don’t stress cos I’ll help you
I got this!
I got this!

Isn’t that lovely? I thought so, too. Not only that, but everyone in the text thread added that they could use some help with either their PT exercises (in every life, injuries do happen) or their strength training, or their at-home workouts.

Enter the exercise accountability group, newest edition. Yes, I know, accountability partners and groups are no news to anyone. BUT, in my experience, their theoretical goodness often exceeds their practical efficacy. To be fair, I am often the weak link in the accountability n-tuple, as consistency and follow-through over time are probably my main hobgoblins. That helps explain why, after being set free from PT, newly fixed up and ready to function and maintain on my own, I tend to let daily exercises lapse. Sigh.

But hey, hope springs eternal. And this newest exercise accountability group is getting underway now– today! The first person posted about their plans for the week, and we will all follow suit. Then, we check in with the group as we do the things we planned. I like it– simple yet powerful.

Yeah, I know– what if someone doesn’t post on Sunday? Or doesn’t check in during the week to say what they’ve done? Do we ask them? Encourage them? Put together an online tote board to add up number of workouts or workout time each week? Should we give gift cards to the ones who stick most closely to their proposed plans?

This woman has no idea, and neither do I. I guess we’ll work it out as we go.

There are some really nice features of being part of an accountability group:

  • I’m not alone–there are others going through similar processes.
  • I can rely on them for encouragement and support.
  • I can, uh, well, maybe ask for help if I need it?

But I’m also aware of the potential downsides (for me) of opening myself up to an accountability group:

  • I’m under pressure to make a doable plan and then execute that plan (both hard things for me).
  • When I invariably miss some part of that plan, I will have to reveal that information to the group.
  • I will have feelings about those revelations, which are not pleasant.

Again, all this is no news to anyone. Many of us feel vulnerable about consistency and follow-through of exercise plans. And speaking for myself, I often feel shame about not being more active, more self-caring, more organized in carrying out my (often very grand) plans for self-improvement.

But maybe, just maybe, an accountability group can actually help with those unpleasant feelings. That is, we/I don’t have to be alone when we/I didn’t get around to doing a planned at-home PT session. We/I can message the group, who will:

  • sympathize with us
  • share their own challenges with maintaining their plans
  • encourage us to get back to it or alter our plan in light of whatever came up, or take a day of rest, all in service of general self care

There’s no shame or embarrassment anywhere in sight.

Yeah. Wow.

So it begins. I’ll report back in a month to let you all know how it’s going. I’d say wish us luck, but we don’t need it– we just need each other.