Kick in the Ass

Okay, so here's the deal.

A couple of days ago, I pushed myself in the gym a bit. I did declined situps, body rows, squats, a stint on the bike. Afterwards, I had a lot of pain in my neck, shoulders, and arms, and all four extremities started tingling and buzzing and going numb.

I thought maybe I'd knocked a screw loose. (No jokes, please! My husband thinks I did that before I even had hardware in my neck!)

So I called my surgeon and asked about physical therapy. You know, like maybe I should be doing this under supervision. He told me he didn't want me to do physical therapy until after my bones fuse. I figured if he doesn't want me to do P.T., he sure as hell doesn't want me to do Crossfit-inspired workouts. I'm really a very bright woman.

This has left me antsy as all get-out. I can't drive. I can't lift weights. It's hard to work up a sweat. I'm eating because I'm bored, or anxious, and I miss exercise intensity and hanging out with my cool peeps at Albany Crossfit.

I know I have to do what I CAN, and not focus on what I CAN'T.

So...what CAN I do?

1. I can (and should) eat as clean a diet as possible, for the sake of my healing. I have to knit some bones together and muscles that were torn up in the surgery have to heal as well. There's no excuse for a poor diet now.

2. I can walk every day as long as I can tolerate, and I can ride a stationary bike. So every single damned day, I should be doing one, or the other, or both. I neeed to move for my mental health and wellbeing, and if that's all I can do, that's what I should do.

I gotta stop feeling sorry for myself. I'm very lucky.

KICK IN THE ASS, GIRL! GET GOING!

Susie

Collared!!!!

Okay, that isn't me, but it might as well be!

Having major surgery is a funny thing. At least, today, just about 3 weeks post-op, I can see some funny things about it. Like, you have to go in emotionally prepared to cope with a less-than-favorable outcome.

My thought processes went like this: Ok, what if I die? If I die, I have a will that takes care of my husband and children, I have letters written to my kids "in case", and if I die on the table, it won't be painful and God will take care of me, so then my dying is everybody else's problem, so I have nothing to worry about.

Ok, what if I wake up quadriplegic? If I wake up paralyzed, I will still be "me" and I probably can hope for a few more years of life so I can get my kids grown up, and I can cope with that, so I have nothing to worry about.

So I'm in the pre-op area, and the anaesthesiologist says to me, "We need to put in a radial artery line."

"Why?," I ask, remembering I didn't have one for my last surgery.

"Because we have to closely monitor your blood pressure. We found that people wake up blind from this operation if their blood pressures drop."

Oy! I didn't pre-worry about blindness! I only had 3 minutes of consciousness left in which to work that one through! Ok, if I wake up blind............

I didn't quite finish before it was time to go unconscious. I'm happy to tell you I am not dead, paralyzed, or blind. In fact, the good news is, I think most of my pre-op neurological symptoms have resolved, or are resolving. My legs are no longer numb, I haven't fallen down once, my right arm is no longer numb, and my left hand is intermittently not-numb, which my doc says means it may resolve completely in a few weeks.

I am, however, very, very sore. Still.

I have a beautiful (not) six inch incision at the back of my neck running up into my scalp. My traps are bruised and tender to the touch.

And I'm fluffy.

I'm just now feeling well enough to notice that I am putting on fat and losing muscle due to an excess of comfort eating and a dearth of activity. It's hard to walk fast outside wearing a cervical collar (see above picture). I will not be driving until at least June 3rd which is when I get Xrays taken to check on the progress of my bone fusions.

So what to do? I can't get to Albany Crossfit gym more than twice a week and I need to exercise daily.

Here's the plan:
1. Started journaling food on fitday today. No more than 1500 cal/day. Don't want to go lower than that because of the need for healing.
2. I'm going to buy a one month membership at Planet Fitness which is within walking distance of my home. There, I will be able to use a treadmill, elliptical, or stair climber daily. Plus, I can at least pick up a dummbell and toss it around if it's light enough. (I'm thinking "deadlifts", squats, and presses with very light DBs, if nothing else to "preserve the stimulus" and remind my body of the form.)
3. Time to start back on fish oil. I couldn't stand it as long as I was taking narcotics, it made me sick to my stomach. Also stopped taking my multivitamins, will start back on those, too, and my glucosamine/chondroitin.

A big struggle ahead of me is going to be with fear and sense. I'm very, very afraid of hurting my spine further, because I never want to go through this kind of surgery again. I could see myself easily overcompensating for that fear by overdoing it. So I need to stay sensible, too. I know great things are not accomplished by a rigid adherence to sensible, but now I am thinking, "who am I to want to accomplish great things?" Maybe I should be content with just not getting fat again, staying reasonably healthy, and forget about this midlife athlete thing.

I'm quite conflicted as you can tell.

But for now.....the plan. We'll see what my body tells me when I start asking it to move.

Just when you think you have all the answers, they change the questions. Life is interesting!

Susie

Zachor- "Remember": A Passover Meditation

I am just now setting up the table for our seder. Years ago, when the boys were little, I put together a Passover box of props and handouts. I have a box of tiddlywink frogs that we set to hopping when we name the plagues. There are carbboard cutouts of four wine glasses numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4 to keep track of the ritual glasses of wine, and these are appropriately stained with Manishewitz Concord Grape Wine, otherwise known as Jewish Kool-Aid.

Some years, I add things, other years, I retire an outgrown prop or custom.

As I'm pulling these items out of my Passover box, I remember the seders of years past. Last year, my mother-in-law, Edythe Rosenberg, was at my table.

This year, she will be missing. She's a resident of Daughters of Sarah nursing home, and can't navigate the steps to get into our house. Last year, I forgot the make the lamb shank bone that represents the lamb that was sacrificed to put blood on the lintels of the Hebrew homes so that God would pass over those houses and spare the firstborn. I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a hotdog. As I held it aloft, proclaming, "This is the Paschal lamb....." Edythe said loudly, "That's not right."

She will be missed.

Zachor. To remember.

I found something I said last year to start our seder, and I wanted to share it with you. Here it is:

Life dances and you have to dance with it, whether it is taking you on a wonderful ride or stepping on your toes. This is the necessary and transcendent gift of being incarnate---alive in a body. But is just life dancing. Life will move you in the rhythm and direction of its own nature. each moment is a fresh moment in the Dance, and if you are lost clinging to the past or clinging to your hopes or fears of the future, you are not present for the dance.

So why do we remember?

We remember in order to seek freedom anew, in our time, in our lives, in our world. We remember in order to see with fresh eyes the way we remain bound and unfree. We remember in order to set aside that which holds our spirits captive and our lives fettered: our fears, our old angers, our regrets and resentments.

The part of the seder in which we remember the story of Mitzrayim and Exodus is called Maggid: the Telling. Mitzrayim, the Biblical Land of Egypt, can be understood to stand for all sorts of modern slavery, and the Exodus symbolizes the journey we must undertake to become free. To become authentic. To be fully engaged when Life beckons us to the Dance.

Today, as together we remember our historical slavery and liberation as a people, I invite you to explore privately your own history of bondage and liberation as an individual. Today, I invite you to gently acknowledge the chains of habitual attitudes and behaviors that hold you bound, and to meditate on what keeps you from becoming free. In this Passover season, let the lessons of Mitzrayim teach us to not be afraid of freedom. When Life comes calling, let us Dance.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Susie

Daydreams

I find I am holding two simultaneous, contradictory, and necessary attitudes about my post-operative recovery.

First, I have to cultivate an attitude of acceptance: I have to be prepared to accept whatever outcome I get, even if more limiting and challenging than I hope.

Second, I have to be determined to emerge from surgery completely able to "get on with it" and get to work.

The ideal is some tricky amalgam: go at it with grit and determination but embrace the moment with acceptance. In other words, if I decide "today I will do 25 squats with the bar" and my body only has a capacity of 15, then 15 bar squats is where it's at. I can choose that moment to mourn the 10 undone, or accept the 15 as that day's good.

More simply put, is the glass half-empty or half-full? When is it right to push, and when is it right to surrender? And where, oh where, is the wisdom to know the difference?

REHAB SCHEDULE
M, W, F: Strength Rehab-I don't know what I will be able to do, but I do know I will need to rebuild my muscles and my strength. I wonder what kind of strength work I can do in a cervical collar?

T, TH: endurance work---treadmill, spin class, elliptical, C2 rower....

Daydreams. I am wanting to get on with it!

Susie

Let 'Er Rip

So, the other day I had the good fortune to have a telephone conversation with Coach Mark Rippetoe. What a generous man!

The upshot of the consultation was that post-op, after initial recovery, I should be able to lift weights again! As long as I go slowly and listen to my body, there's no absolute reason I can't recover my strength.

Of course, Jason kept telling the same thing, once again..."YOU WERE RIGHT!" (For some reason, whenever that song comes on as workout music, he makes me sing it to him. Sometimes he tell me I can do something when I believe I can't, and he's frequently....often.....almost always....RIGHT!)

While I'm not looking forward to surgery, I am looking forward to throwing myself into my rehab, and working my way back up. For a long time now, I've not kept training logs, because it's been too disheartening to see the numbers go down. (Like documenting the fall of Rome!) But post-op....there will be no place to go but UP, and UP I intend to go!

I have two short-term goals right now:

1. To be on my feet so I can help make the Albany Crossfit East Coast Challenge a success! That's May 30th-June 1st.
2. To be able to at least do things with decent form at my level one Crossfit cert June 21st. If I recall from my last surgery, I was cleared to lift weights by 2 months.

Longer terms goals are to be able to do that pullup!!! After that...who knows?....Fran as Rx'ed????? Wouldn't that be a kicker! At age 55, say, to be able to do that as Rx'ed for women? Life is good. It's fun to try.....

Susie

Crossfit Tough

So here's the thing.

I'm still up to my ears in tzouris (Yiddish for troubles).

My surgery's scheduled for April 21st. My surgeon tells me the idea is for me to come out of surgery with what function I walk in with. The goal of surgery is to prevent further neurologic compromise. If I recover any lost strength, it's gravy.

I remember from my last surgery that rehabbing felt like clawing your way out of a thick, tangled jungle, or swimming up from the depths of the ocean towards the air. A long, hard climb, with progress and setbacks that went on for months.

This time, the doctor says, it will be harder. Kind of like a hero workout on 'roids. Six weeks in a cervical collar. I will lose the ability to flex and extend my head because my neck will be too rigid.

I will have to be cautious. Because the discs will be gone at four levels--from C3/4 to C6/7---forces on my spine will be transmitted up and down rather than absorbed through the cervical vertebrae. This means, if I stress too hard, like from heavy weights overhead, I could damage the vertebrae below, at the thoracic levels. Not a good thing. More spinal surgery means more disability!

I love Crossfit. Part of what I love about it is pushing myself beyond my limits; I love being good at it. I love being strong and fast and capable, physically.

So.....I'm thinking.....I will take it very, very slowly coming back. It's like learning to walk all over again. I will have to start with just walking on the treadmill. Then the spin bike. Range of motion execises, dynamic flexibility. Even more slowly, lifting weights. Very, very, light weights. Nothing heavy overhead. Ever.

Fact is, I will be starting at ground zero. No, more like the sub-basement. In fact, there's no looking back at what I "used to do."

I'm going to take a deep breath, and ask Jason to erase all my PRs from the leader board at Albany Crossfit. They will be very old and outdated, and meaningless as far as my future is concerned. I don't want those numbers---and let me tell you, they are damned good numbers---to stand like some musty monument. My PRs are irrelevant right now.

When I come back, I will put up whatever numbers I earn, and if they are truly "personal best" I will cherish them. Because it is what it is.....hahaha....NOT what it "used to be!"

But you know what?

I'm still determined to do an unassisted pullup.

I don't care what it takes, I'm gonna do that baby before I kick the bucket.

You know why?

Because I'm tough. Crossfit tough.

Grateful Girl

I am feeling so blessed right now.

My younger son seems to be rounding the corner on the worst of this episode. He's had five solid, good days in a row now. I know we can expect a few more ups and downs---like a sinusoidal wave of diminishing amplitude---but I believe we are past the worst of it.

I'm having an increase in symptoms related to my spinal cord issue, and my surgeon's words--"the sooner, the better" ring in my ears. Yet I am grateful that Jason (my friend and trainer) is going to help me. We had a long talk today, and we agreed that my goals cannot be about PRs right now, but about keeping me fit and healthy so I go into surgery in good mental and physical condition.

I would like to have my surgery as soon as possible, but I also know that I am not in the right state of mind to undergo it. I can't focus on myself right now, and I need to do that in order to marshall my mental and physical forces in service of recovering from that surgery.

I'm grateful Jason will be helping me monitor my physical status. We both agreed that if my performance and abilities drop off too fast or too far, I will respond appropriately and schedule the surgery as soon as possible. I'm grateful for that; I will feel less alone during this frustrating time.

I'm grateful for the many friends I have who have stepped forward and asked, "what can I do?" I am just floored by all the good will and support.

Yes, even in adversity, there are many blessings!

Susie