Back in the saddle...or not!

It'd be lovely to come in here and wax poetic on the beauties of New Orleans, and expound on how losing another 20lbs since I was last there helped me so much that I came back ready to hop back into my workout routine.  Then again, it would also be nice to be typing this while I sit on the porch at my island house, watching the tide come in, bringing me new shells and some fresh fish to catch for dinner.

Alas, neither of those going to happen.  Instead, I am typing this on a "cigarette" break at the office, wishing I had the energy to lift weights or even do some core work on the therapy ball.  Instead, I am praying that the hours pass quickly today so that I can get home at 7pm, get something to eat with the Artist, crawl into bed for Big Bang Theory, and lift the only weight of the day in the form of my covers over my head to pass out immediately after.  Instead, I am smiling at the sheer bliss of the past weekend in the Crescent City, while propping my leg up on my desk to reduce some of the swelling in my knee.

Choices and consequences, my friends.  Life is all about choice and consequences.

I am a huge, huge proponent of personal responsibility, as I have mentioned before.  I knew going in that this weekend would have a potentially profound physical impact on me, and I chose to do everything I did with that in mind.  I did wind up in quite a bit of pain, and generally ignored it and kept going.  Pain could be dealt with later, after all, but my time in the city was limited.  Taking pain killers was an option, but it needed to be balanced with whether or not I was imbibing as well.  Again, all about responsibility.

We got stuck in Atlanta on the way home, which led to coming off a cramped airplane and then hauling tail between terminals repeatedly to try to get on different flights.  Exhaustion, stress, fury, and pain spiraled into Very Bad Things, and by the time we got home at 3am, I was wrecked.  Work for the next two days was a physical nightmare, and then trying to catch up on things at home made it worse.  There was a modicum of disappointment in this, because I truly had hoped that losing the weight would help.  Less stress on the joints, after all, should equal less pain and inflammation, right?  The frustration wasn't so much in the pain itself, as that's an expected part of my life, but in the fact that I do try to do the Right Things to control it, and didn't get the desired result.  It was kind of like when I sat in the cardiologist's office and he told me that my losing weight was great, and my watching my diet was great, and he wasn't worried about any of that, but that I was still going on blood pressure medication because none of it would change things for me.

I do actually have a point to this, honest.

At the end of the day, that accountability lies squarely on our own shoulders when it comes to being proactive with our health and our bodies.  Disease and injury come from outside sources, but how you handle those things is your own choice.  But when the Right Choices don't necessarily work, a crossroads is met again.  It's at that point where you decide if you're going to live your life the way you want, or are you going to live your life the way the pain says you should.  There are no "right" answers to that question, and on any given day, the answer may change.

But my pledge to myself has always been, and will always be, that my life will be lived on my terms.

So with that, my friends, Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler!

Obeying the Law

I'm sure everyone out there on the Internet is a cheerfully law abiding citizen.  What?  You're not?  You occasionally speed, or you might possibly have happened to inhale when your buddies (NOT you!) had that smidgen of ganja in college?  Hmm.  Well ok, maybe we can settle on "mostly law abiding."  We won't go any further than that, to protect the uh...innocent.

However, the law we need to discuss today applies more to those of us who have to be mindful of our activity levels, lest we pay for them in misery later.  I refer, of course, to Newton's Third Law of Motion:

"For every action, there is an equal, and opposite, reaction."

"Translation: Push, and something pushes back."

It's a pretty simple concept, really.  And while it has been tested and proven and retested and reproven in physics labs all over the world, anyone who has physical limitations and they will tell you that they do not need a lab.  All we need is our daily lives to show us that if we push, our bodies will, unequivocally, push back.  We know our limits, and yes, I'm talking to you too.  Don't look away, come back here and admit it.  You know your limits, but you don't always follow them, do you?  Exactly.  And neither do I.

My "official" limits, according to the Functional Capacity Evaluation are total restriction of things like kneeling and squatting, and that I can stand and/or walk up to ten minutes out of any given hour.  Ummmm...yeah.  The first part isn't too difficult to avoid.  The second?  Well, let's just say I break nearly every day of my life.  Don't get me wrong: I own this decision.  I blame no one for it, and I accept the consequences of my actions.  But man, oh man, it hurts when I do it.  

There are probably a zillion things every week that I do that I technically shouldn't.  However, there is a fine line, a balance of sorts that one must fine between pushing and pushing too far.  I do push a bit in order to try to keep the muscles that do work toned and strong.  This compensates for the others that don't.  I also do it to gain a little extra strength, in the hopes that some day it may work enough that I can adapt enough to walk on my own.  Hasn't happened yet, I know.  But never say never, right?  

And part of it definitely traces back to pride.  Yes, yes, I can hear it now: "Well duh, Mick, you know what goeth before a fall, and if you push too hard, you will fall."  Believe it or not, I'm not completely clueless here.  However, I have always been an active, physically strong person, and losing that aspect of my very self just isn't an acceptable option for me.  My lower body strength tanked so fast and so hard, and there is really no way for me to reclaim it as of yet.  My upper body, though, has to be strong on the days when I find myself in need of my crutches or wheelchair.  So I do a lot of core strengthening (not enough, though!), and I lift weights as well.  I love the feeling of my muscles working; it's a sensual experience knowing that at least parts of my body are toned and strong.  To me, strength is sexy.  I want that in myself as well.  I find that line, and I push to it with my upper body.

However, I am quite guilty of pushing too far on the lower body, and paying for it later.  Case in point: last year, my friend The Silent One and I went to New Orleans.  As shutterbugs, we spent from early morning til last in the evening eating, drinking (oh, the drinking!), exploring, and shooting all over the French Quarter.  We walked everywhere, scoffing at taxis, and forgetting about street cars until it was too late.  Adrenaline was my main drug of the weekend, feuling my ever present desire to get that next shot with her, see the next treasure of the Big Easy, or meet that next fascinating local personality.  By the time I got on the plane to go home, that adrenaline had started to fade, and I knew I was in for some major problems.  Anyone who has ridden on a plane knows how cramped it is, so when I stood up to change planes in Atlanta, I was nearly dropped from the sudden tidal wave of excruciating pain.  It took my breath away, and flooded my eyes at the same time.  I tend to wait until I'm nearly the last person off so as not to hold people up, but even still, my ability to walk was severely hindered.  I did it, made it home, and managed a snippet of second-wind adrenaline when I saw the kids.

The next morning, however, brought me right back where I had been the night before.  I was hitting the pain pills before I ever left the house that morning for work.  I scraped my way through work, came home, and was down for the rest of the night.  I paid for that excursion for about 4 or 5 days, but I said then, and I would say now, that in the grand scheme of my life, it was worth every second.

So now, I'm leaving on Friday morning for a long weekend.  Guess where I'm going?  And guess with whom I'm going?  Yup.  The Silent One and I, along with Lucille and Alejandro (our cameras), will be back in the French Quarter on Friday afternoon, shooting.  Our favorite Mardi Gras krewe has their parade on Saturday night, and we will be there.  It means standing outside for 2 hours ahead of time to get a good spot, and then dealing with being jostled and knocked during the parade from the crowd.  From there, we head to Bourbon Street to uh...enjoy the local night life.  We'll do all the same things plus some new ones this year.  We will pack as much fun as humanly possible into 4 days.

And then, on Monday night, I will fly home.

I do this knowing that the rest of next week will be sheer physical agony.  I do this knowing that I will need to use my crutches, take extra doses of my pills (yes, floater doses safely built into the regimen), and be nearly useless after work.  I do this knowing that there is the potential for damage if my knee cannot handle the pressure and I fall.  I do this knowing that there are people in my life who think I am a complete idiot for my choices, and who will roll their eyes and tell me that I am indeed, an idiot.

But the bottom line?

Is that I will Push.

Riding the stress train

For the past two weeks, things in my life have been really stressful.  Like most people, this can derail the best intentions for healthy living, whether it's giving in to the craving for rich, comfort foods, or being too worn out to exercise.  For someone with a disability, this can also mean an increase in pain levels as well.  It's at this time, though, when we really need to be the most careful, by making better choices in food, staving off an immune crash with vitamins if our diet is more off than we'd like, and at least attempting to do some gentle movement and stretching to decrease the pain.

In my particular case, I am not a stress eater.  In fact, quite the opposite.  But while this may appear at first to be a blessing instead of a curse, it does make my usual approach to food much more difficult.  Oftentimes, when stressed, I will have to contend with low level nausea at the mere idea of food.  This renders me unable to eat some of my usual high protein options, instead reaching for simple carbohydrates, which my stomach handles much better.  I do still try for the Greek yogurt in the morning, as I have several medications that I need to have on board every day.  But to take them requires food, so there you go.  Tea is another staple of my life, so I'm glad I'm able to still drink it without it making me sick!

So when stress hits, and we're off our feed, what is the answer?  Let's look at some potential options.

If stress eating is your bane, don't vilify yourself for wanting the comfort foods.  Deprivation just leads to binging, which is pointless sabotage.  Instead, try for some basic modifications to those foods to at least make them healthier.  Is mac and cheese your balm?  Add some broccoli and cauliflower to it, and maybe some ham for protein.  Or how about mashed potatoes smothered in gravy?  Make them with low sodium chicken broth; it'll have lower fat than cream, and more taste, too.  How 'bout that delicious wedge of chocolate cake?  Go ahead and indulge, but make it a slender slice, and top it with a few handfuls of fresh berries, which are packed with antioxidants and vitamin C. 

When stressful times hit, appropriate amounts of rest are vital to everyday functioning.  Don't skimp on sleep, even if it means bailing on some social outings.  If your sleep is interrupted due to the stress, do some creative image meditations, and at least rest your mind and body.  Melatonin can assist in restful nights, along with bedtime routines.  However, medical sleep aids should only be a last resort, and supervised by a physician.

Exercise is tough to do when stress rears its ugly head.  Extra fatigue and increased pain levels suck motivation faster than a Sham Wow on a water spill.  If the idea of heading off to the gym makes you want to crawl into a hole, skip it.  But don't let your body off the hook completely.  Go for a walk to clear your head, pop a favorite dvd into the player and do the treadmill/elliptical/bike.  Lift some weights, concentrating on pouring your stress into each rep.  Or turn on some guilty pleasure music and dance your uh...anatomy...off.  Not that I would ever even recognize the song, but um, let's just say I've heard that stuff like Rihanna's Pon de Replay can be catchy and boppy enough to get you moving.  You don't have to run a marathon or work out for several hours to be effective.  Just move.

Part of our stress can easily be attributed to feeling out of control of our situation.  In keeping control over our basic health, we remind ourselves that we do have the power to achieve our goals of better health.

Cheers!