I had to stop and wonder ... what on earth am I doing.
At the end of the day ("end of the day" being post-work, dinner and kitchen cleaned up), I need half an hour off my feet before I can handle anything else. It's not so much exhaustion as it is body ache. My muscles are still working overtime to do what other people don't think about.
So, tonight I flopped on the couch and gave myself a deadline of 8pm ... then, no more flopping, there are things to be done and I'm tired of spending most evenings on the couch. I've become a boring old person who has nothing to talk about except kids and work. Ugh. (At least I'm not talking about all my ailments to anyone who will listen yet.)
Deadline arrived ... on to the task at hand. I had disassembled a storage shelving unit so I could move it upstairs, and I wanted to get it reassembled tonight. In my dining room. The logical person might query: "Why would you put a utility shelving unit in your dining room?"
Because I'm crazy.
I got about halfway through the reassembly before I stopped and wondered what the heck I was doing.
A month or so ago, I decided that NOW would be an excellent point in my life to have the basement renovated. You know, now that I'm full of vim, vigour and exuberance to tackle extra things. Right. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Let's take my post-surgery life and combine it with a) back to work full time, b) winter, c) icy winter, d) trying to get back to the gym e) winter f) moving everything out of the basement and g) way too many trips up and down stairs to move stuff out of the basement.
It's amazing how much crap you collect, and it's surprisingly difficult to pack all that crap when you can't squat down or sit on the floor very well, or when you only have the energy to do an hour at a time. No more all-day-blitzes for me.
I'm thinking this wouldn't have been such a monumental task last year.
I'm thinking I would have done more of it myself last year.
I'm thinking I like having strong teenagers who know that mom would do it, but can't.
I'm thinking I'm getting better at asking for help.
I'm thinking maybe I'm being forced to create less work for myself now than I would have before.
I'm thinking that allowing other people to help will make this easier for me than it would have been last year.
I'm thinking ... maybe I'm not so crazy after all.
Wednesday 30 January 2013
Thursday 24 January 2013
Winter Hates Me and I Hate Winter
I have a new enemy.
Winter.
I live in a cold climate. Today is -18C (-1F) with a windchill of -25C (-18F). The cold itself is tolerable ... afterall, I was born and raised in this climate so it's not like it's a surprise. I own a full length down coat, I own knee length snuggy boots, hats, gloves, scarvesheated seats in the car ... I'm prepared for winter.
But I'm not prepared for the new me + ice, or the new me + slush. Ice and slush are slippery. I have no balance. A very bad combination.
This past weekend I was out for dinner on Saturday night. When I left to go home it was raining ... not a torrential rain, but enough that the wipers kicked in. I got home safely, tucked myself into bed and enjoyed a good night sleep. I woke up Sunday morning to an overnight flash freeze. The temperature had dropped from +5C to -8C (41F to 17F) overnight and had frozen all the rain. My driveway was a sheet of ice.
I looked at my car parked in the driveway. I looked at the driveway itself. I looked at the 4' of driveway that I had to traverse to get from the walkway to the car. I turned around, went inside and cancelled my movie date.
I wouldn't have given this weather a second thought last year, but now, it is my worst enemy. I have lost all confidence of walking on anything that looks remotely slippery because of my balance issues. If I can trip over myself just walking down the hall indoors, what is ice going to be like?
In the last three years, as an able bodied person, I've fallen twice, HARD, because of ice. Just walking to my commuter train in the dark in the morning, and not really paying attention. So, you can imagine why I would be tentative as a not-so-able-bodied person. For now, I chicken out and avoid it. If not physically, mentally I need more time to believe I can handle the slips, falls and near misses that winter entails.
Winter.
I live in a cold climate. Today is -18C (-1F) with a windchill of -25C (-18F). The cold itself is tolerable ... afterall, I was born and raised in this climate so it's not like it's a surprise. I own a full length down coat, I own knee length snuggy boots, hats, gloves, scarvesheated seats in the car ... I'm prepared for winter.
But I'm not prepared for the new me + ice, or the new me + slush. Ice and slush are slippery. I have no balance. A very bad combination.
This past weekend I was out for dinner on Saturday night. When I left to go home it was raining ... not a torrential rain, but enough that the wipers kicked in. I got home safely, tucked myself into bed and enjoyed a good night sleep. I woke up Sunday morning to an overnight flash freeze. The temperature had dropped from +5C to -8C (41F to 17F) overnight and had frozen all the rain. My driveway was a sheet of ice.
I looked at my car parked in the driveway. I looked at the driveway itself. I looked at the 4' of driveway that I had to traverse to get from the walkway to the car. I turned around, went inside and cancelled my movie date.
I wouldn't have given this weather a second thought last year, but now, it is my worst enemy. I have lost all confidence of walking on anything that looks remotely slippery because of my balance issues. If I can trip over myself just walking down the hall indoors, what is ice going to be like?
In the last three years, as an able bodied person, I've fallen twice, HARD, because of ice. Just walking to my commuter train in the dark in the morning, and not really paying attention. So, you can imagine why I would be tentative as a not-so-able-bodied person. For now, I chicken out and avoid it. If not physically, mentally I need more time to believe I can handle the slips, falls and near misses that winter entails.
Wednesday 16 January 2013
How it Looks is Not How it Feels
To casually look at me, you would see no disability. You would have no idea that 7 months ago I couldn't walk. If I'm sitting, standing, leaning, lying down ... I look totally normal. My issues are neurological not muscular, so I still look like the (generally) fit, forty-something woman that I was. If it's early in the day, I can even walk normally. Unless you were a specialist, you wouldn't know that I have nerve damage. You cannot see numbness and you cannot see pain.
If you see me go up and down stairs ... well, it's pretty obvious something is wrong. When I get tired my right leg does some pretty funky things and again it's obvious something is wrong. But otherwise I look normal.
So I'm starting to hear a lot of "OMG, you're doing so well !!", or "you look fabulous".
I'm never really sure how to respond to that. The etiquette books would advise that I just say "thank you" and leave it at that. It's not my mission to educate, enlighten or otherwise change the world, so I don't go down the road of detailed explanations either. I realize that most people are just trying to be polite, or friendly, or are looking for something positive to say. I realize that we, as a culture, do not teach our children how to deal with other people's pain, so they don't want to "make us sad".
I grew up in a family where death was a part of every day life. We talked about death and dying, we talked about estate planning, we talked about death in other people's families, we talked about what to say to someone who was grieving. (Well, that was my experience - my siblings may have a totally different story).
For me (your mileage may vary), disability is the same. It's okay to talk to me about it, it's okay to ask questions about it - "what can you feel", "what can you not feel", "what can't you do anymore", "is it weird", "do you get depressed" (but you'd better know me pretty well if you're asking what the sex is like). I would rather you understand that just because I sometimes look "normal", I'm not.
So when you see those people who are parking in handicapped spots who don't look like they should be there, it's okay to call them on it, but do it carefully, understanding that what you see isn't necessarily, the whole story. Something simple, a casual comment ... "it must be tough to have to walk around the mall when walking is difficult". The guilty will know they've been called out, and those with challenges won't feel assaulted.
If you see me go up and down stairs ... well, it's pretty obvious something is wrong. When I get tired my right leg does some pretty funky things and again it's obvious something is wrong. But otherwise I look normal.
So I'm starting to hear a lot of "OMG, you're doing so well !!", or "you look fabulous".
I'm never really sure how to respond to that. The etiquette books would advise that I just say "thank you" and leave it at that. It's not my mission to educate, enlighten or otherwise change the world, so I don't go down the road of detailed explanations either. I realize that most people are just trying to be polite, or friendly, or are looking for something positive to say. I realize that we, as a culture, do not teach our children how to deal with other people's pain, so they don't want to "make us sad".
I grew up in a family where death was a part of every day life. We talked about death and dying, we talked about estate planning, we talked about death in other people's families, we talked about what to say to someone who was grieving. (Well, that was my experience - my siblings may have a totally different story).
For me (your mileage may vary), disability is the same. It's okay to talk to me about it, it's okay to ask questions about it - "what can you feel", "what can you not feel", "what can't you do anymore", "is it weird", "do you get depressed" (but you'd better know me pretty well if you're asking what the sex is like). I would rather you understand that just because I sometimes look "normal", I'm not.
So when you see those people who are parking in handicapped spots who don't look like they should be there, it's okay to call them on it, but do it carefully, understanding that what you see isn't necessarily, the whole story. Something simple, a casual comment ... "it must be tough to have to walk around the mall when walking is difficult". The guilty will know they've been called out, and those with challenges won't feel assaulted.
Tuesday 15 January 2013
Excuses and the Old Married Couple
My goal for 2013: Stop using the excuse that I have an excuse.
Huh?
To explain, I need to back up in time a couple of months.
At the end of October they kicked me out of out-patient physio. Said I was doing too well, nothing more they could teach me, everything I was doing I could do on my own. Well, that's a downer - no one I'm forced to show up for.
Then I got sick .. the knock 'em down, drag 'em out, lasts for weeks, kind of sick. I had the cough from hell (and that's fun with a strained/torn lat muscle), zero energy, focused on going to work and getting rid of the never ending illness. I quickly figured out that I couldn't go to the gym before work and still make it through the day, so I stopped going to the gym.
Then we went on vacation - spent two weeks in the sun trying to shed the awfulness that was 2012. No gym there.
Then it was the holidays. You know, mad dash run around, family functions, trying to get together with friends, and hey ... it's already the end of December, might as well just wait until the new year to get back to working out.
So, for November and December I hadn't seen the inside of a gym, nor had I been doing anything at home (I OWN a treadmill from my running days ... how pathetic that I didn't even use it). I had also become used to people telling me it was okay to not work out, because, well, "you have a good reason".
That "good reason" is an excuse.
Using it as an excuse is actually doing me more harm than good. This disability requires that I get into the gym and get a work out if I want to see improvement. My mental health requires that I find some kind of cardio workout to burn off the stress. I'm never going to train my legs to behave normally unless I make them move. I can't control whether or not my nerves heal, but I can control whether or not my legs get enough repetitive motion to retrain themselves. Walking is proof. You should see me walk now. I can MOTOR !! But I've learned how to walk quickly because to survive the rush hour commute in this city, you have to go with the flow. And that flow is FAST. If you're not motoring, you're doomed. It was do or die, so I did. The training of the other muscles in my butt, hips and legs is no different.
So I'm back in the gym. I've been walking and doing weights, but I did a spin class on Sunday - first one in five months. It took some pretty stiff mental discipline to get through the full 55 minutes, my lady bits are killing me today, and the numb legs were kind of weird, but there was improvement. I have changed since the last class I did - I could sit upright and pedal without holding on and without falling off, my right knee was a lot less crazy, and those fast transitions from sitting to standing were easier.
I'm clawing my way back onto the exercise wagon. We're like an old married couple, exercise and I. It's love/hate. We bicker and argue. Sometimes we give each other the silent treatment. But at the end of the day it's comfortable, and it's what I know.
It's 9pm ... past my bedtime, my legs are numb, and I haven't done anything for tomorrow, but the 5:10 am bus beckons in the morning.
Huh?
To explain, I need to back up in time a couple of months.
At the end of October they kicked me out of out-patient physio. Said I was doing too well, nothing more they could teach me, everything I was doing I could do on my own. Well, that's a downer - no one I'm forced to show up for.
Then I got sick .. the knock 'em down, drag 'em out, lasts for weeks, kind of sick. I had the cough from hell (and that's fun with a strained/torn lat muscle), zero energy, focused on going to work and getting rid of the never ending illness. I quickly figured out that I couldn't go to the gym before work and still make it through the day, so I stopped going to the gym.
Then we went on vacation - spent two weeks in the sun trying to shed the awfulness that was 2012. No gym there.
Then it was the holidays. You know, mad dash run around, family functions, trying to get together with friends, and hey ... it's already the end of December, might as well just wait until the new year to get back to working out.
So, for November and December I hadn't seen the inside of a gym, nor had I been doing anything at home (I OWN a treadmill from my running days ... how pathetic that I didn't even use it). I had also become used to people telling me it was okay to not work out, because, well, "you have a good reason".
That "good reason" is an excuse.
Using it as an excuse is actually doing me more harm than good. This disability requires that I get into the gym and get a work out if I want to see improvement. My mental health requires that I find some kind of cardio workout to burn off the stress. I'm never going to train my legs to behave normally unless I make them move. I can't control whether or not my nerves heal, but I can control whether or not my legs get enough repetitive motion to retrain themselves. Walking is proof. You should see me walk now. I can MOTOR !! But I've learned how to walk quickly because to survive the rush hour commute in this city, you have to go with the flow. And that flow is FAST. If you're not motoring, you're doomed. It was do or die, so I did. The training of the other muscles in my butt, hips and legs is no different.
So I'm back in the gym. I've been walking and doing weights, but I did a spin class on Sunday - first one in five months. It took some pretty stiff mental discipline to get through the full 55 minutes, my lady bits are killing me today, and the numb legs were kind of weird, but there was improvement. I have changed since the last class I did - I could sit upright and pedal without holding on and without falling off, my right knee was a lot less crazy, and those fast transitions from sitting to standing were easier.
I'm clawing my way back onto the exercise wagon. We're like an old married couple, exercise and I. It's love/hate. We bicker and argue. Sometimes we give each other the silent treatment. But at the end of the day it's comfortable, and it's what I know.
It's 9pm ... past my bedtime, my legs are numb, and I haven't done anything for tomorrow, but the 5:10 am bus beckons in the morning.
Sunday 13 January 2013
My Waterloo is a Chair
I've lost track of the number of days since my life changed. I know it's about 8 1/2 months, but I've stopped counting days.
I'm back in the office full time now. And it's hell. But not for the reasons I expected.
For some reason, over the past four months, the numbness in my legs has been getting worse. My feet are always numb, and have been from early on, so unless I'm in hard soled shoes, or on my feet a lot, I'm getting used to it. It's when my legs go numb that life starts to get challenging.
Anyone who has had anything numb (like an "asleep foot"), knows that putting pressure on said numbness turns to pain very quickly. My intellect knows it's not actually pain, but nonetheless, all the self-talk and positive reinforcement cannot convince my brain otherwise. So when my legs go numb, sitting gets to be an adventure in "suck it up".
I have a desk job. I am fortunate that it's not a "tied to my desk" job and I have the luxury of being able to walk around, pretty much when I need to. But lately it seems that all the walking in the world isn't helping, so my disability insurer called in ergonomic specialists.
I'm a skeptic. I've never really believed in ergonomics. Yeah, whatever. It's a chair. A keyboard tray never changed anyone's life, and spare me those gel wrist things ... I spent too many years playing the piano to ever rest my wrists on anything. Just get a decent chair and move on. It seems like people trained to be ergonomic specialists have had it drilled into them that if you can get people into the proper kinetic position, their ails will disappear. I learned fast that "proper position" causes my numbness pain to go off the charts within half an hour. The pressure points are the same as my trigger points.
I'm generally okay at home (though there is a couch I can't sit on for more than 30 minutes anymore), but I spend much of my home time sitting sideways on the couch with my feet up, laptop on my lap. We've tried to replicate that with "the Cadillac of chairs". It didn't work. I tried the Cadillac leg rest - it really was beautiful ... like a supportive ottoman. It didn't help. There is one more footrest they are going to try and if that doesn't work, I will have to concede that I was right about ergonomics, for me. There hasn't been a modification the specialists have been able to come up with that's worked yet.
I swung by Human Resources the other day to say that the ergo guy was coming in AGAIN to try a new configuration and she said to me "at what point does your doctor say that you just aren't able to sit for more than an hour or so".
I was stunned. It never occured to me that it couldn't be fixed.
I'm the queen of suck it up but the inability to find the right chair might be my Waterloo.
I'm back in the office full time now. And it's hell. But not for the reasons I expected.
For some reason, over the past four months, the numbness in my legs has been getting worse. My feet are always numb, and have been from early on, so unless I'm in hard soled shoes, or on my feet a lot, I'm getting used to it. It's when my legs go numb that life starts to get challenging.
Anyone who has had anything numb (like an "asleep foot"), knows that putting pressure on said numbness turns to pain very quickly. My intellect knows it's not actually pain, but nonetheless, all the self-talk and positive reinforcement cannot convince my brain otherwise. So when my legs go numb, sitting gets to be an adventure in "suck it up".
I have a desk job. I am fortunate that it's not a "tied to my desk" job and I have the luxury of being able to walk around, pretty much when I need to. But lately it seems that all the walking in the world isn't helping, so my disability insurer called in ergonomic specialists.
I'm a skeptic. I've never really believed in ergonomics. Yeah, whatever. It's a chair. A keyboard tray never changed anyone's life, and spare me those gel wrist things ... I spent too many years playing the piano to ever rest my wrists on anything. Just get a decent chair and move on. It seems like people trained to be ergonomic specialists have had it drilled into them that if you can get people into the proper kinetic position, their ails will disappear. I learned fast that "proper position" causes my numbness pain to go off the charts within half an hour. The pressure points are the same as my trigger points.
I'm generally okay at home (though there is a couch I can't sit on for more than 30 minutes anymore), but I spend much of my home time sitting sideways on the couch with my feet up, laptop on my lap. We've tried to replicate that with "the Cadillac of chairs". It didn't work. I tried the Cadillac leg rest - it really was beautiful ... like a supportive ottoman. It didn't help. There is one more footrest they are going to try and if that doesn't work, I will have to concede that I was right about ergonomics, for me. There hasn't been a modification the specialists have been able to come up with that's worked yet.
I swung by Human Resources the other day to say that the ergo guy was coming in AGAIN to try a new configuration and she said to me "at what point does your doctor say that you just aren't able to sit for more than an hour or so".
I was stunned. It never occured to me that it couldn't be fixed.
I'm the queen of suck it up but the inability to find the right chair might be my Waterloo.
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