Tag: health

fitness

Lessons from Dad

Diane HarperLeave a comment

It has been just over a year since Dad died, and and now I’m the one dealing with multiple health diagnoses. The heart is on the mend, following surgery for a condition that I had no idea about until my doctor caught it while checking for bronchitis. I’m on a waitlist to see someone about the concerning lumps on my thyroid, discovered when I went for a pre-operative CT scan. I’m finally getting around to being tested for sleep apnea after the nurses in hospital asked whether I had it.

In all three cases, there were signs I should have been paying attention to, but ignored. Dad ignored or downplayed his symptoms until nothing could be done. I’m trying really hard (now) to break that pattern of behaviour.

I think of these things as mostly being lessons from Dad, but some come from Mom too. Was it a generational thing? Or just my family dynamics? Thankfully it doesn’t seem to have been passed on to my kids so hopefully they have learned the lessons already.

  • Listen to your body;
  • Consider that what you are telling yourself is normal for your body may actually just mean you are stubborn;
  • Admit when things hurt or feel wrong;
  • Ask for help;
  • If you can’t ask, at least accept help when it’s offered;
  • Read up on what is considered “normal” so at least you have some sort of baseline for assessing whether you should be worried, or feel free to carry on with whatever gives you joy.
A smiling woman wearing dark clothes rides a blue bicycle with an orange basket on the front. She has both her feet off the pedals, stretched forward. Having done this just last week, I am pretty sure she is saying “wheeeee!”
fitness

Every Step Counts

Diane Harper1 Comment

There is a certain irony to having started this post just as the hospital physiotherapist arrived to take me for a walk around the ward. Where did my glute muscles go and why did they take my endurance with them?

I managed 140 metres, which was double my previous step count. Then I needed a nap.

When I’m not napping, I’m cleaning out my in-box and that’s how I rediscovered this January post by Nat. The softness of being okay with where I am, and working only to what feels comfortable really spoke to me.

It made me think of another thing that isn’t quite in season but is always relevant: One Foot in Front of the Other from the 1970 classic Christmas Show “Santa Claus is Coming to Town. You can follow this link to a YouTube version here: https://share.google/niRH0a8naZuA2zaRN

Diane in a purple jacket and carrying a blue and white umbrella out on one of her two daily walks. In the background, you can see trees beginning to bud, a sure sign of spring and better things ahead.

As of today, my walking distance has increased to 22 minutes, which works out to more than 2 km. One foot in front of the other.

health · swimming

Last Swim for a While

Diane Harper1 Comment

By the time you read this, I will be in recovery following my heart valve replacement.

I’m grateful I was able to go into surgery relatively fit. It will help my recovery.

I’m even more grateful that we finally had some good weather and I was able to go for a bike ride on Friday.

And I’m especially grateful to this amazing group of women, my swim club lane-mates. I couldn’t ask for better pals and can’t wait to be back in the water with them.

Five women grouped together in a swimming pool, hamming it up for the camera.
fitness · health · swimming

Swimmer’s Teeth

Diane Harper2 Comments

Forget those images of lifeguards and swimmers with teeth sparkling white in their tanned faces. Apparently, swimmer’s teeth is a thing.

What is it and how does it happen? Apparently the chlorine and other pool chemicals can change the ph in your mouth, leading the discolouration, tartar, and even softened, cracked teeth. A swimmer friend brought it to my attention, and the consensus in our little group is that it can be a real issue.

All three of us have more than normal tartar at every dental check-up, and one has issues with discolouration and cracking. I’m curious about how many members of our respective swim clubs also suffer from it.

I have written about cycling and dental health before. A quick search shows that it appears to be an issue for runners, and athletes more generally, as well.

The advice to manage it all seems to boil down to: brush your teeth, especially before exercising; drink plenty of water; avoid sugary drinks and snacks; get to the dentist regularly.

This is good advice for everyone, so I’ll tuck this information away, keep up with my dental hygiene, and swim as often as possible in lakes or rivers.

A woman in a grey bathing cap and goggles shows off her smile from a pool with dark blue water.

a decorative artwork with a photo of a woman surrounded by a variety of patterned sections Sick Day(s): How Christine Spent The Weekend
fitness · rest · self care

Sick Day(s): How Christine Spent The Weekend

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

I had a few “off” days at the end of last week.  I couldn’t really tell if I was just tired, if my allergies were acting up, or if I was getting a migraine. 

It didn’t even occur to me that I might actually be sick until Saturday afternoon when my head suddenly weighed about ten thousand pounds, my throat was sore, and I started sneezing.

Luckily, I didn’t have many plans this weekend and I could easily shift things around to make room to rest.*

Here’s what that looked like:

I wasn’t quite in ‘lie-around-and-read’ mode so I spent a long time playing with paints and markers and paint markers.

While drinking approximately 1.5 million cups of tea, of course. **

a tea mug
My favourite Tarot card – The Empress – on a mug sprinkled with gold stars. You probably could have guessed this was mine. 🙂 Image description: My mug is sitting on a folded red cloth napkin and both are resting on my worn wooden kitchen table. The mug is white with a black handle and black interior. The white parts are sprinkled with gold stars and in the middle is a black and white image of The Empress, a woman in a crown and flowing robes with a scepter in her right hand.

I had a lot of fun with this video from Art Therapy with Sana

A video from Art Therapy with Sana called ‘Feeling Overwhelmed? Try this Klimt Pattern Art Practice. Still image shows a patterned painting in shades of red, brown, and gold. On the left side of the image is a woman in red robes, the woman’s face is cut from a magazine. The rest of the image is made up of vertical sections framed in wavy lines and each section is filled with a different pattern – spirals, ovals. dots. Behind the first artwork is another work that features a collaged image of a woman with patterns drawn around her in gold and black.

Here’s what mine turned out like:

a small painting that's fairly abstract except for a drawing of a woman's face between two sections of the drawing that kind of look like a robe.
My version of the first painting from the art therapy video posted above. The colours are shades of red, purple, yellow, pink and gold that work well together (I hope!) Near the centre of the painting I have drawn a woman’s face looking out between two sections that form a robe. The rest of the painting is formed from wavy lines that mark off different sections that contain different patterns of squares, circles, dots, lines and spirals.
a decorative artwork with a photo of a woman surrounded by a variety of patterned sections
My version of the second painting from the video. I cut out a picture of a woman in a blue and green patterned dress – you can see her from the waist up- she is leaning towards her right shoulder and looking down. The rest of the painting is divided into sections filled with patterns – squares, spirals, grids, circles, and squiggles, all patterned in green, yellow, and blue.

And since I like to listen to podcasts while I draw, today I chose Old Gods of Appalachia – a horror anthology show with incredibly strong writing, world-building, and performances. (Yes, I do like spooky stuff!)

When my head got too heavy I tried the exercises in this video. They helped a lot.

One Move to Quickly Relieve Sinus Congestion – YouTube

And I borrowed some moves from Joelle here:

Yoga for Sinus & Cold Relief – Feel Better in 10 minutes!

When I needed a nap on Saturday, I did Yoga Nidra: Yoga Nidra For Sleep & Rest | The StillPoint

And on Sunday, I fell asleep to some ghost stories from the Classic Ghost Stories Sleep Compilations.

My husband thinks it’s pretty funny to fall asleep to ghost stories but the stories on Classic Ghost Stories are more ‘creeping dread’ than ‘scar them with the horrors’ kind of tales and Tony Walker is an excellent narrator.

My weekend wasn’t all art and ghost stories though, I also did my usual stuff – walking the dog, making meals, puttering around, but at a much slower pace than usual. 

It is no fun to be sick but being ‘too sick to go out’ and ‘not up to doing much at home either’ was a great reason to prioritize rest, creativity, and taking good care of myself. 

What are your go-to activities when you are feeling under the weather?

*As I write this on Monday afternoon, I am feeling better than I was on the weekend but still not great. I actually ended up having to reschedule a dentist appointment AND a mammogram so I could keep my germs at home instead of taking them on tour to various medical facilities.

** Don’t worry, it wasn’t all caffeinated. I alternated between Cold 911 from David’s Tea, Ginger Peach, Chocolatey Chai, Wild Sweet Orange, (no caffeine so far!) and black tea (there’s the caffeine!) with the occasional foray into boiled water with lemon, candied ginger, and honey. I also drank regular old cold water.

fitness

Acting my age – at least when it comes to exercise? Probably not.

Diane Harper1 Comment

I recently came across this article in the Guardian on fitness routines by age, shortly before suffering an overuse injury that had me incapacitated for a couple of weeks.

I don’t actually hate my middle-aged body. I do hate the misuse of “ladies” though – it should be “lady’s”.

I’m glad it’s just a super tight soleus muscle and not a torn Achilles tendon or hamstring injury. But I’m still not impressed with myself for needing to use a cane for several days. As much as I like my physiotherapist and appreciate her getting me on the road to recovery, I would have been happy not to see her and need to have KT tape all over my ankle.

I will do my best to take my training a little easier, at least for now. And I have already started taking a Pilates class so I can work on improving my strength.

I know exactly what triggered the injury, and what made it so much worse a couple of days later. But will I stop doing dance or lifeguarding (which includes mandatory fitness training)? Not a chance.

fitness · health

How Much is Enough When it Comes to Our Health?

Diane Harper1 Comment

I’m facing probable heart surgery at some point soonish, and I’m finding it all very complicated.

If I were a “normal” heart patient, maybe this would be easier. I have excellent care at the Ottawa Heart Institute; the issue is with me.

When I was first diagnosed with a severe heart murmur, I was surprised. After all, I’m active and didn’t have symptoms, or so I thought. But then I was sent for a stress test and told what symptoms to look for.

My cardiologist was happy with my stress test results but I was not. As a friend said at the time, I need to learn to distinguish between diagnostic and competitive. Put another way, I should have been told to go as long as I was comfortable, not as long as I could.

I started learning to acknowledge that I get breathless when climbing stairs, that I may not faint but I definitely suffer from “brown-outs”. That constant chest pressure is not normal and cannot be explained by overdoing workouts (at least not for weeks on end). And that I’ll be lucky to hit 1/10 of this year’s modest cycling goal.

At the same time, I am still active and would like to stay that way. So how do I navigate that fine line between advocating for myself and not wasting scarce health resources before I need to? When does advocating turn into drama queen behaviour?

I may still be quite healthy compared to some other heart patients, but I also have a lifeguarding job that requires me to be very fit.

I have settled on being clearer about my symptoms with my doctor while reminding myself that early intervention may actually save the health care system money in the long run.

I feel a bit guilty, but also have an angiogram scheduled for mid-December, and an appointment with a surgeon after that, which indicates that maybe it was wise to be speak up.

This is the only Heart I would like to be thinking about. Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images from an article about the iconic band in https://www.remindmagazine.com/article/26830/heart-ann-nancy-wilson-50th-anniversary-tour/
fitness

Stress Test is Stressful

Diane Harper

A couple of weeks ago, I had to do a stress test as part of figuring out next steps for my newly-diagnosed heart murmur.

It all seemed very straightforward: wear comfortable clothes and running shoes (or other comfortable shoes). Then walk on a treadmill while someone tracks what your heart does.

Then I started walking. The treadmill was on a slight incline and went faster than I was comfortable with, but I figured out how to adjust my pace and walk almost normally – for three minutes. That’s when the incline got steeper and the treadmill got faster. It happened again at six minutes and at nine. After ten minutes, I called it quits.

I felt like I might have been able to keep going until the next adjustment at twelve minutes, but decided it was dumb to try simply to prove a point to myself. Besides, I don’t run at the best of times and I was certainly going to try running without wearing a bra!

At the same time, I was mad at myself for giving up because I wasn’t going to get an A on this test dammit! I always want to get an A (or an A+). Nothing the tech said before or afterwards could reassure me that it wasn’t that kind of test and I had actually done just fine. A friend pointed out that I need to distinguish between diagnostic and competitive – yup.

I’m now waiting anxiously for my results to be uploaded into the hospital’s patient portal so I can see for myself how it went. Because of course I can’t simply wait until my next appointment with an actual doctor…

I did not look this good on the treadmill. Instead, I was wearing a bunch of wires that poked out from beneath an oh-so-elegant hospital gown worn backwards and taped shut for a little modesty. Photo by Bojan Milinkov/Shutterstock
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.

health

Broken Heart

Diane Harper4 Comments

My heart is not completely broken, but it definitely needs repairs. Back in January, I got what turned out to be bronchitis and eventually made the unusual (for me) decision to check in with my doctor. He heard a murmur and sent me off for tests.

Two echocardiograms and EKGs later, plus some bloodwork and a referral to the Heart Institute, it appears I have a severe murmur from a damaged mitral valve and it looks like I will need surgery to either repair or replace it.

The whole experience has been interesting. It turns out I am really bad at noticing (or admitting to) changes in my health. Also, answering subjective questions is hard! Do I feel tired? Breathless? Have swelling in my legs?

Answers: Compared to what? Under what conditions? How much do I take into account pre-existing things like the varicose veins I have had since I was a teenager?

Since being diagnosed I am noticing symptoms but again, I have questions: am I getting worse? Or allowing myself to notice what I have been ignoring for years? Or is it all psychosomatic?

The good news is that I am being encouraged to keep up my regular fitness routine. That surprised me, but the doctor says that cardio is actually good for my heart because my heart plumps blood out to my extremities, thus reducing the pressure on the heart muscle itself.

So for now I’ll keep up with my swimming and dance, and get back to cycling. Plus I am doing more walking – easy to stop if I get tired, and no worries about trying to keep up with a group.

There will be more tests at the end of May, and hopefully some decisions shortly thereafter. The pool where I work is closing for six months so I don’t need to worry about missing work if I get scheduled for surgery soon. I do worry about whether I will be able to return at all. That would be heartbreaking.

In the meantime, I’m going to try not to borrow trouble, and spend time with friends and family.

My son and daughter-in-law with my grandson when we were out for a walk last week.