First of all, let me say I am sorry I have not been posting very much here lately. It's still hard to think about what to say but it is getting better. It's been 8 months since life was turned upside down for my daughter, her son, and the rest of us. There is some semblance of normalcy but that is all it is....it is a new normal. Normal has changed. I did a lot of posting at mylot.com but I am not posting there anymore. It helped to post the trivial stuff there just to keep me writing even though it wasn't of anything really important or blog-worthy.
There have been some change in my life since I last posted here. In the first week of November I ended up with at least one stress fracture in my right foot not far from my ankle. It put me out of contact with the outside world for a few weeks. Along with that, my car seems to be having its own issues which include a tire that needs replaced due to constantly leaking air, and possible transmission problems. If I find out the transmission needs replaced, the car is going bye-bye from my possession. So with the foot problem and the car problem, I haven't been out of the house more than 5 times all winter....until today!
For the past 2-4 days I have been having foot and ankle pain in my left foot and ankle. More in the ankle than in the foot, but it would spread whenever I got up to walk. Not wanting to end up where I was back in November, I thought about what worked back then. I got my crutches and I wrapped up my foot and tried my best to stay off of it as much as possible. It didn't work. It just kept getting worse until today I gave up the fight and had my son drive me to the ER. My Valentine's Day night out was at the hospital, and my gift (which was not given to me free by the way) was another moon boot...those big, bulky, heavy weight foam and velcro walking fracture boots. Now I have a matched set. I thought they came in rights and lefts so I didn't even bother trying the old one I got back in November or I could have saved the cost. But, with my feet the way they have been, I might end up needing both. Oh what a sight that would be!!! Oh, and the wonderful concoction for the romantic evening....not wine....not champaign....not the old strawberry daiquiri's I used to love. Nope. A large Sprite from MacDonald's to wash down a generic vicodin.
One thing this trip to the hospital got me besides the medication to take the edge of the pain off...the doctor has decided I need to get physical therapy on my feet and ankles to strengthen them. This is something I have had to do in the past due to a sprained ankle that never healed correctly. Oh these wonderful crooked legs and all the sprained ankles I have had over the years. But never have I ever had one that didn't get caused by being twisted and falling down. Thank God for that blessing. I don't know how I could handle falling down at this age and size and physical condition. You might have to check to see if I cracked the earth!
As much as I remember physical therapy hurts, I know it is something that I need and with it being ordered by the doctor, I can get it now and get it paid for. Oh yes, and that brings me to the other big change of the winter...I am now retired! Yes! I gave up on the call center job that was stressing me out so badly. With all the other stress I have to deal with daily, I just didn't need that in my life anymore. With the recent raise of the social security, it raised me up to the level I needed to be at to be able to meet my expenses without having the extra income. However, I do not expect to not have any other income at all. I am looking into various avenues, all of which would be of benefit to me, with the ability to control my own hours and income, rather than having the number of hours being dictated to me as a company minimum. There minimum was too much and put me in an income bracket that left me out of good medical care which, as you can see, is important to me.
Other baby steps over the winter have included getting busy again with getting active even though I don't get outside much. Keeping some kind of movement going whenever it crosses my mind, which can be quite often, is something good for me. The Richard Simmons DVD for wheel chair and sit down aerobics is back in the DVD player. It lay in its case sadly awaiting for me to get back to using the exercises. I was just too physically and mentally exhausted when I was working to do the program. Thinking about it, maybe I overdid some of the foot and leg movements and thereby brought on this current injury by that. I can see it happening. Well, it looks like the physical therapy I am going to be getting soon will take care of the leg and foot exercises. I am still going to keep working on the rest of it.
The other area of my life that is currently in the baby step phase is the organization of all my craft and sewing items as well as all the other stuff I have managed to gather together over the past few years since I had to start over again. Thanks to some storage items on sale at WalMart.com I now have just what I need to get things in order. Unfortunately, I have somehow boxed myself out of the area I need to reach....LOL. Ever hear of not mopping or not painting yourself into a corner? Well I have done the opposite. I have placed the items I am sorting through and the storage containers in the wrong location so that I cannot now get back to the area where I want them to be placed once they are filled! I have some thinking and rearranging to do.
So right when I am so excited about these two areas of attention--the increase in exercise, and the organizing of my home--I end up with this injury. I get so tired of having to wait to get something accomplished I want to work on. Hopefully, in a few days, with the help of the pain meds and the lovely boot (did I say lovely?) I will feel able to work on things while keeping both my feet firmly planted on the floor. It is hard to do these things while keeping a sore foot elevated. Thank God for this recliner. I don't know what I would do without it. Although I am focusing on ways to get myself out of it more often so that I am more active.
I am looking forward to the physical therapy. I am hoping that it will indeed strengthen my feet and ankles, and maybe even my leg muscles. I have lost so much over the past few years from being sick.
Like I have said before--just because something happens that looks bad, or feels bad, doesn't mean it is bad. It might be needed to lead to something better. I don't think I could have gotten the physical therapy without a doctor's order. And how would I have gotten the doctor's order? It took the second injury for the doctor to decide there is a problem that needs addressed. Oh, but does it have to hurt so much?????
Showing posts with label Richard Simmons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richard Simmons. Show all posts
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Friday, June 6, 2008
Time For the Next Baby Step To Health
For the past couple of weeks I have been mentally reviewing my changes in eating habits over the past two years since I got sick. As I review I also realize that there are more changes that have to be made. I am thinking about what those next changes should be. Here is what I have done so far.
I am a salt-aholic and a few years ago I realized that I don't like salt with my food as much as I like the taste of food with the salt. Does that make sense? I mean, for the best explanation I have for this, I enjoy the way the salt makes the foods taste. I am not talking about having bunches and bunches of salt added to food. It is just that of all seasonings that there are in this world, it is salt that I like the best. Well, when I got sick, after a few months, my feet and legs began to swell so I cut back on salt. Then I got put on diuretics and I cut back salt even more. This was not something the doctors told me to do. In fact, they never even mentioned it. Curious about that I researched the diuretics and found that cutting salt intake was not necessary with these particular medications. The medications helped some, but not as much as I would have liked. At this point in time, after almost two years of gradually lowering my salt intake, I am happy to say I have not used a salt shaker in a long, long time. I very rarely add any salt to my food and when I cook, I use a lot less than I used to. Indian foods are the hardest for me to stop adding salt once the food is on my plate, but I am working on that. Salt does do a good job of inhancing other flavors. I don't have salty snacks in my home anymore, well, maybe once or twice a year I have bought some salty snacks and brought them home. When I want them I have bought them and taken them to Daughter's house, eaten some, and left the rest there. It works much better that way. The only thing I have in the house for snacks right now is a bag of corn tortillas that I will one of these days cut up and make my own tortilla chips...without added salt. I did that about a month ago and they turned out quite good. Sometimes I have popcorn, but I don't like the microwave popcorn and I would rather make it myself on the stove. I do salt that but only when it is cooking and not afterwards. I think I probably use about half what I used to and I haven't had even popcorn for at least three months! That in itself is a breakthrough because I used to make it almost every night. That habit changed a little over two years ago when I didn't have the access to make it that often. I was buying microwave popcorn here for awhile, but got tired of it because I just don't like it as well as stove popped.
Years ago I cut way back on drinking my favorite Pepsi (or in my case--caffeine free Pepsi). At first I switched to orange juice, and water, then gradually just cut out the orange juice as well. During the time I cut out the orange juice I found out that because I ate a lot of oranges and drank a lot of orange juice, I was keeping another problem in check. That was that my fingers would split after I stopped the oranges and juice. When I would drink the juice, they would heal and not split. Gradually I figured out that I could drink juice once or twice a week and keep it under control. Someone suggested it was actually the folic acid in the juice and oranges that was helping, so I started taking folic acid instead of drinking the juice or eating the oranges. Yes I still buy oranges once in awhile because I do love them. But I don't have them all the time like I used to. Actually it ends up being just around Christmas that I have them. I take the folic acid once or twice a week and don't have anymore problems with the fingers splitting. If I forget to take it, my fingers soon remind me. So, there I cut out a lot of sugar, both the refined and the natural, but still sugar. All I drink now for the most part is water with an occassional powerade maybe once every other week, and home-sweetened koolaid with sweet n low about twice a month. About once a month I might have some caffeine free Pepsi or Sierra Mist. Other than that, I just drink water.
About two months ago, Daughter and I had a discussion about trying to figure out what was causing me to have a lot of bloating and making me feel bad. So with her suggestions, I cut out milk and yeast breads for awhile, then gradually introduced them back. It apparently wasn't either one, but at the same time, I decided to cut back on the dairy and yeast products. So I have been using milk only in cooking. Many times I use non-dairy coffee creamer as a milk replacement for cooking and have done so for years. I can't tell the difference and think the creamer makes whatever I am making creamier anyway. However I don't use cremora because of the flavoring. I just use generic unflavored creamers. Occassionally, about once or twice a year I get a craving for cereal so I will buy that and use milk in that. Don't get me started about soy milk. I tried that stuff and it is horrible! I don't know how anyone can say otherwise. Well, to each his own...
Over the past few months I have been cutting out red meats and for the past two months I have been almost 100% red meat free. I have been trying substituting turkey where possible and had turkey brats this past week. I fried them on the stove, but they were really good and if I didn't know they were turkey I would not have known the difference. On the grill they would be fabulous, and they would not need the pre-cooking if not cooked too quickly. My next goal is to try ground turkey when I make spaghetti. It's too hot to cook right now so I hope next week I will get to do that. My freezer is filled with chicken and fish and some turkey meats. Daughter and I experimented with ground turkey while cooking some Indian foods and the results are in a previous post here. We really could not tell that we used ground turkey rather than ground beef. Now, if you are wanting a plain ole hamburger or cheeseburger sandwich, you might want the real thing. I know for now I do. Thankfully I don't want them much. Even with cookouts I would rather have the hotdogs or brats, and I can have them turkey.
The very best thing I have done so far has just been in the past two to three months and that was that I have cut out all fast food--meaning things like burgers, french fries, and things like that. The last fast food I had was KFC last week when Daughter and I had a quick picnic in the park after shopping. Before that it has been at least two months and it was taco bell which isn't as bad as the other grease filled processed crap. I don't even crave it anymore. I thought giving up McDonald's french fries would be really hard, but it wasn't. Pizza is the next thing that is on its way out of my diet. At least I am not going to have it as often as I was. For awhile, when I was sickest and didn't feel up to cooking, pizza was my main foods. Around here the only thing we can get delivered is pizza or food from one Chinese restaurant. This area is really bad about having delivery foods available. When you are sick and live alone, you get your meals however you can do it. Mine mostly came from the local pizza places. I am so sick and tired of pizza. I think that is why the fast food is out too. When I would go out, just to get something other than pizza I would eat the fast food. I am so glad to not even want that stuff anymore. It sure didn't help my weight while I have been stuck in such an inactive state.
Let me see...is there anything else I have already changed that I haven't mentioned? Yes I have increased my physical activity now that I feel better. I have a LONG way to go in that department though. I have my Richard Simmons DVD of sit down aerobics. I haven't worked out with that other than one time so far. But I still do chair exercises on my own daily for my legs. Also, since I am feeling better I am up and around more and going out more, so I am walking more.
Tonight's blog got rudely interrupted by a tornado warning and I had to leave my mobile home to go to my friend's house where she has a basement. Then when the storm was over, we drove around and looked at the sky, took some pictures I hope turn out well thru the car window glass and flash, and looked at downed trees and limbs. I ended up driving thru what was the worst of the storm. The weather radar showed nothing in our area and suddenly there was the warning so off I went. I am glad we didn't get any real damage here...at least it looks like we didn't. If the pictures came out good, you will find them on my photography blog soon. That is enough for tonight! What an end to a hot day...and to be still hotter over the weekend...mid 90's. Whew!
I am a salt-aholic and a few years ago I realized that I don't like salt with my food as much as I like the taste of food with the salt. Does that make sense? I mean, for the best explanation I have for this, I enjoy the way the salt makes the foods taste. I am not talking about having bunches and bunches of salt added to food. It is just that of all seasonings that there are in this world, it is salt that I like the best. Well, when I got sick, after a few months, my feet and legs began to swell so I cut back on salt. Then I got put on diuretics and I cut back salt even more. This was not something the doctors told me to do. In fact, they never even mentioned it. Curious about that I researched the diuretics and found that cutting salt intake was not necessary with these particular medications. The medications helped some, but not as much as I would have liked. At this point in time, after almost two years of gradually lowering my salt intake, I am happy to say I have not used a salt shaker in a long, long time. I very rarely add any salt to my food and when I cook, I use a lot less than I used to. Indian foods are the hardest for me to stop adding salt once the food is on my plate, but I am working on that. Salt does do a good job of inhancing other flavors. I don't have salty snacks in my home anymore, well, maybe once or twice a year I have bought some salty snacks and brought them home. When I want them I have bought them and taken them to Daughter's house, eaten some, and left the rest there. It works much better that way. The only thing I have in the house for snacks right now is a bag of corn tortillas that I will one of these days cut up and make my own tortilla chips...without added salt. I did that about a month ago and they turned out quite good. Sometimes I have popcorn, but I don't like the microwave popcorn and I would rather make it myself on the stove. I do salt that but only when it is cooking and not afterwards. I think I probably use about half what I used to and I haven't had even popcorn for at least three months! That in itself is a breakthrough because I used to make it almost every night. That habit changed a little over two years ago when I didn't have the access to make it that often. I was buying microwave popcorn here for awhile, but got tired of it because I just don't like it as well as stove popped.
Years ago I cut way back on drinking my favorite Pepsi (or in my case--caffeine free Pepsi). At first I switched to orange juice, and water, then gradually just cut out the orange juice as well. During the time I cut out the orange juice I found out that because I ate a lot of oranges and drank a lot of orange juice, I was keeping another problem in check. That was that my fingers would split after I stopped the oranges and juice. When I would drink the juice, they would heal and not split. Gradually I figured out that I could drink juice once or twice a week and keep it under control. Someone suggested it was actually the folic acid in the juice and oranges that was helping, so I started taking folic acid instead of drinking the juice or eating the oranges. Yes I still buy oranges once in awhile because I do love them. But I don't have them all the time like I used to. Actually it ends up being just around Christmas that I have them. I take the folic acid once or twice a week and don't have anymore problems with the fingers splitting. If I forget to take it, my fingers soon remind me. So, there I cut out a lot of sugar, both the refined and the natural, but still sugar. All I drink now for the most part is water with an occassional powerade maybe once every other week, and home-sweetened koolaid with sweet n low about twice a month. About once a month I might have some caffeine free Pepsi or Sierra Mist. Other than that, I just drink water.
About two months ago, Daughter and I had a discussion about trying to figure out what was causing me to have a lot of bloating and making me feel bad. So with her suggestions, I cut out milk and yeast breads for awhile, then gradually introduced them back. It apparently wasn't either one, but at the same time, I decided to cut back on the dairy and yeast products. So I have been using milk only in cooking. Many times I use non-dairy coffee creamer as a milk replacement for cooking and have done so for years. I can't tell the difference and think the creamer makes whatever I am making creamier anyway. However I don't use cremora because of the flavoring. I just use generic unflavored creamers. Occassionally, about once or twice a year I get a craving for cereal so I will buy that and use milk in that. Don't get me started about soy milk. I tried that stuff and it is horrible! I don't know how anyone can say otherwise. Well, to each his own...
Over the past few months I have been cutting out red meats and for the past two months I have been almost 100% red meat free. I have been trying substituting turkey where possible and had turkey brats this past week. I fried them on the stove, but they were really good and if I didn't know they were turkey I would not have known the difference. On the grill they would be fabulous, and they would not need the pre-cooking if not cooked too quickly. My next goal is to try ground turkey when I make spaghetti. It's too hot to cook right now so I hope next week I will get to do that. My freezer is filled with chicken and fish and some turkey meats. Daughter and I experimented with ground turkey while cooking some Indian foods and the results are in a previous post here. We really could not tell that we used ground turkey rather than ground beef. Now, if you are wanting a plain ole hamburger or cheeseburger sandwich, you might want the real thing. I know for now I do. Thankfully I don't want them much. Even with cookouts I would rather have the hotdogs or brats, and I can have them turkey.
The very best thing I have done so far has just been in the past two to three months and that was that I have cut out all fast food--meaning things like burgers, french fries, and things like that. The last fast food I had was KFC last week when Daughter and I had a quick picnic in the park after shopping. Before that it has been at least two months and it was taco bell which isn't as bad as the other grease filled processed crap. I don't even crave it anymore. I thought giving up McDonald's french fries would be really hard, but it wasn't. Pizza is the next thing that is on its way out of my diet. At least I am not going to have it as often as I was. For awhile, when I was sickest and didn't feel up to cooking, pizza was my main foods. Around here the only thing we can get delivered is pizza or food from one Chinese restaurant. This area is really bad about having delivery foods available. When you are sick and live alone, you get your meals however you can do it. Mine mostly came from the local pizza places. I am so sick and tired of pizza. I think that is why the fast food is out too. When I would go out, just to get something other than pizza I would eat the fast food. I am so glad to not even want that stuff anymore. It sure didn't help my weight while I have been stuck in such an inactive state.
Let me see...is there anything else I have already changed that I haven't mentioned? Yes I have increased my physical activity now that I feel better. I have a LONG way to go in that department though. I have my Richard Simmons DVD of sit down aerobics. I haven't worked out with that other than one time so far. But I still do chair exercises on my own daily for my legs. Also, since I am feeling better I am up and around more and going out more, so I am walking more.
Tonight's blog got rudely interrupted by a tornado warning and I had to leave my mobile home to go to my friend's house where she has a basement. Then when the storm was over, we drove around and looked at the sky, took some pictures I hope turn out well thru the car window glass and flash, and looked at downed trees and limbs. I ended up driving thru what was the worst of the storm. The weather radar showed nothing in our area and suddenly there was the warning so off I went. I am glad we didn't get any real damage here...at least it looks like we didn't. If the pictures came out good, you will find them on my photography blog soon. That is enough for tonight! What an end to a hot day...and to be still hotter over the weekend...mid 90's. Whew!
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Health, Stress, Weight, and The Road Back
Tonight's blog comes with a bit of a warning label. It is long. It can be considered serious, maybe even something of a "downer". But if you read on...it is going to end on a very positive note.
The doctor appointment Monday was a good one, but once again I had gained weight. I was NOT happy about that. So, even though those photos (previous blog) look so good, I am going to have to temporarily keep away from those kinds of temptations. At least until I can tell myself that it is much better to take home a doggy bag...which Daughter and I both did. And it was even better the second heating. As in all things we don't like to admit to ourselves, there eventually comes a point where we say Enough Already! I have said that about my weight many times over the years. And many times over the years I have been able to lose weight. I will again. But this time there is a big difference from previous times. This time there is a different attitude, and a different overall outlook on my life. And the change has been so very gradual as to have, at this point, seemed to creep up on me. What I mean by this is that there came a point here recently where I suddenly realized some things that I just hadn't figured out about myself before.
Yesterday I was talking to someone about these very kinds of things and I told her that there is a phrase sticking in my mind lately. The Road Back. Nothing reveals to you how sick you were until you start feeling better. And I am a person who has spent her entire life in a constant state of denial about certain things--especially when I am focusing all my attention on other things that have to be taken care of to the exclusion of taking care of myself. To be honest, I have never fully taken care of myself in a healthy way, because from my earliest years I was already taking care of myself in the way of self-preservation. I am not going to go into the issues that brought a lot of my current problems to the surface. Just suffice it to say that I did not live in a totally healthy atmosphere for a young child. For the most part it was good, but there was the awful stuff which involved different kinds of abuse. Denial quickly became a part of my life at a very early age.
Then if you look closely at the picture of the little girl on the left side of the blog, you can see that the little girl (me) has legs that just don't stand right. And if you look really close, maybe you can see that even the knee caps seem to be in the wrong place. I grew up my entire life being told I couldn't do this or couldn't do that because I had crooked legs. As I got into the ages of trying to decide what to study in college, the what I coulds and couldn'ts got even bigger. But I am still in denial at this time. I did whatever I wanted to do as a child even if I was being told I shouldn't do it because when I got older I would pay for it. I was clumsy. I fell down a lot. I ran and played with the rest of the kids, but I didn't keep up very well. I hated the orthopedic shoes I was always being told I had to wear. I didn't wear them anymore than I had to. I wanted to be normal just like the rest of the kids around me. In high school and in college, and in my jobs, I always was on my feet. I was warned that the more I was on my feet, the worse my legs would be as I got older. Denial. Not me. I was going to be just fine. I was fine then, so I would be fine later. I wasn't really fine because everything I did was already causing a lot of pain that I refused to believe wasn't the same as it was for anyone else, and I did nothing about it. I had convinced myself I was not in any more pain than the rest of the world was. Maybe since I was in denial about my health it helped to make myself believe that everyone else was like me instead of me trying to be like them.
Another warning was that I needed to keep my weight down because that added to the leg problems. I tried. I was put on my first diet when I was 8 years old. Now at this point, let me tell you a bit about that. Up until I was 7 or so, I was not a heavy child. But in my subconscious I decided that some of the abuse would stop if I were ugly, and I thought being fat would make me ugly. The weight gain all started then and in spite of all my attempts to lose weight, I kept gaining. I would lose some, gain more. The Yo-Yo pattern we all know about today. Dieting actually makes people fat. We need to eat right...eat healthy....but not diet. And not deprive ourselves because we set ourselves up for failure right away. I just have trouble doing all that.
Now we are hearing how stress contributes to weight gain. I don't know all the ins and outs of that and I am not into all the so-called quick fixes about cortosol and stress and weight gain. But, what I do know, and what I am figuring out...what I was talking about here earlier about this "knowing" sneaking up on me, is that stress has played such a huge part of my life all of my life, since earliest childhood and on until even today. I know stress is part of everyone's life. But each one of us deals with stress in our own different ways. Some are good at it, and others are not so good at it. I am one of those not so good at it kinds of people. Actually, maybe that is not true. Or maybe what is really true is that part of dealing with stress for me was my poor coping mechanisms. I eat. And eat. And in addition to all this, I have to deal with all that denial stuffed deep down inside of me. Well, what do I stuff it with? Food, of course.
Well over the years I have done a lot better with cutting back on the eating. I have made some pretty major changes, actually. The problem is, that over the years, as my pain increased, my activity level decreased. I didn't tell people that I was in pain. I am not sure I would have recognized it to be able to tell them...my denial was so ingrained. It was pain...wasn't everyone in pain? So, shouldn't I be doing what everyone else was doing? And due to the abuse in my childhood and teenage years, I believed I was somehow deficient because I was not just like everyone else...not just physically, but in other ways too. So...pain becomes very well acquainted with guilt. If I didn't do something all the way or correctly, I felt guilty. If the reason I didn't do it was because of pain, I erased the pain part...and replaced it with the me who was told I was no good. Now don't ask me to explain how a child interprets things. I don't know. Like in this...why could I tell myself my legs were okay and I was not different...when they were not okay. Yet at the same time, I could let someone tell me over and over again that I was no good and that I believed. I had it all twisted and mixed up. You can imagine what this did as I grew into an adult.
And to feel better about all of it, I ate. To get through problems whether they be with normal every day things we all deal with on a daily basis, or something unexpected that comes into all our lives occassionally, I dealt with them all by eating.
Raise your hand if you have been in this position too, whether it be with food, drugs, alcohol, shopping, gambling, or any other destructive thing we do to ourselves to help us cope.
So, I started this with that phrase "The Road Back". This phrase popped into my head last week sometime I think. I was pondering this realization of how sick I had really been since June of 2006, and that actually it was probably building up before that. I remember how bad I felt. I remember at times feeling like if I took one more step I would die because there were times I felt my heart was just going to explode inside my chest. It wasn't pain...and I never had a heart attack. Even before my atrial fibrillation went chronic rather than occassional, I was sometimes feeling that bad. I was in vocational training classes full time evenings and working full time days. I was exhausted, but it took a stress fracture in my toe/foot to slow me down. Something had to give. Because of the hectic schedule I only had time for fast food in between shifts, so I was eating absolutely horribly unhealthy food. But the old guilt was more powerful than the pain and discomfort. Other issues were also at play in this and the stress level was extremely high. And I stuffed all of it so I could just keep going...like that everready bunny. If I didn't keep going, I was just like I was always told as a child...no good...a failure.
Do you know what a nervous breakdown looks like when it only hits you physically??? Like me the past 2 years. I fell apart physically probably because I was in so much denial that I wouldn't let myself fall apart mentally or emotionally. The Road Back takes a lot of turns. The Road Back covers a lot of territory. And as I am realizing today, The Road Back takes a long time...the sicker one is, the further we have to go to get better. Today when I am disappointed in myself because I can't do something I want to do, I stop thinking about being a failure. Instead I may try to find a different way to do it. Instead, I remind myself that my heart was stressed to the ultimate limit. My doctors feared heart failure and kidney failure when I was at my sickest. Thank God all tests came back normal. But still, the heart is a muscle and if a leg muscle can be strained, cannot a heart muscle also be strained? The heart being what it is as the organ that keeps us alive...that pumps all that blood and oxygen through our bodies, if it is strained, and for a very long period of time, it just goes to figure that it is not going to feel normal again very soon. It needs time to get better. The legs hurt. Oh my do they hurt. But for the most part I can deal with that. The issues still having to do with the heart are what are slowing me down the most. And I have come to think that when the pain is at its worst, it causes another atrial fibrillation episode which is one reason I am on this monitor.
My weight has got to start coming down. I will not allow it to go any higher. Thank you again Richard Simmons for that sit down exercise video. That is going to help me out a lot to keep me from being bored trying to exercise sitting down. Thank you all my doctors and everyone else I have gotten help from, including various counselors for the mental health issues from all of this. Depression is also a big problem for people learning to accept disability. Stress being what it is in regards to atrial fibrillation, especially for me, counseling has become a necessity. In the past, that would have been something that convinced me I was still a failure. But you know what? I am not a failure. I never was a failure. If you are in counseling, or know someone who is, give them your support and encouragement. They are doing what they need to do. In fact...when most of the rest of the world around me was telling me to keep going, and not quit (work that is), and didn't really understand how sick I was, it was my counselors who kept me going. It was my counselors who kept being the ones telling me maybe for the first time in my life, that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing...doing what I needed to be doing...and making the right choices when the world around me was making me feel like I was making wrong choices. I am not sure I would have gotten through the worst part of waiting for the determination of receiving my disability benefits had it not been for the way my counselors kept telling me that I was doing what I needed to do to take care of myself.
Here is the upbeat part you were waiting for...I got my disability benefits, and on the first try. I am working part time to suppliment that income. (How many times do we who receive help from the government we paid taxes to, get ridiculed for being a drain on society...to those who complain about us--get over it!!! That's another blog maybe next year LOL). I have had a lot of the stress-causing issues taken care of in the past few months. I have not been in chronic a-fib now for several months although I still have a lot of periodic episodes that may last up to a day or two...not so much now. I am off of 3 medications. I might get to have one more medication changed for a less dangerous kind if this monitoring goes right. I had shingles over the Christmas holidays--YUCK! I hope I never get those again. But once I got past that, I have been steadily been feeling better every day. I still have days when I feel lousy. But there has been a great upside. For instance, I am quite sure that even 2 months ago I would not have been up to doing these blogs. I couldn't even motivate myself to do a regular journal like I used to do before things changed so. Denial wants to rise again at times because I can feel so good I want to get up and go do something simple only to find out when I try that I am forced back to my chair just to breathe. Weight loss will play a huge part in that also. And figuring out that extra activity that causes more pain than usual, and makes me more tired than usual, triggers another atrial fibrillation episode is something else I have to figure into the equation. So there is the cycle...to lose weight, exercise...to exercise I need to feel better...to feel better, I need to lose weight. LOL But it will happen all in a good, healthy time. No more trying to hurry up and get it done. Realistic goals I have never really set for myself before. But now I have my goals. And I am making new goals all the time as I feel better...but all in good time. I need to lose a lot of weight--no I am not telling how much. It is going to take time. Especially if I want to keep it off. I have been sick a long time. (Denial--I never used the word "sick" to describe my a-fib until this past year and I have had it for almost 14 years. It had to go chronic before I accepted that I was sick.) It is going to take time to get fully better. Like 2-3 years is what I am giving myself. And if I don't make it in that time, I have given myself permission to take longer. I have also given myself permission to reach a realistic weight loss goal instead of trying to make myself look like--well what a model would look like if she were an old granny like me. I want to be healthy, not skinny. If any of you wants to join me in this weight loss journey, feel free. Actually I would enjoy the company.
The doctor appointment Monday was a good one, but once again I had gained weight. I was NOT happy about that. So, even though those photos (previous blog) look so good, I am going to have to temporarily keep away from those kinds of temptations. At least until I can tell myself that it is much better to take home a doggy bag...which Daughter and I both did. And it was even better the second heating. As in all things we don't like to admit to ourselves, there eventually comes a point where we say Enough Already! I have said that about my weight many times over the years. And many times over the years I have been able to lose weight. I will again. But this time there is a big difference from previous times. This time there is a different attitude, and a different overall outlook on my life. And the change has been so very gradual as to have, at this point, seemed to creep up on me. What I mean by this is that there came a point here recently where I suddenly realized some things that I just hadn't figured out about myself before.
Yesterday I was talking to someone about these very kinds of things and I told her that there is a phrase sticking in my mind lately. The Road Back. Nothing reveals to you how sick you were until you start feeling better. And I am a person who has spent her entire life in a constant state of denial about certain things--especially when I am focusing all my attention on other things that have to be taken care of to the exclusion of taking care of myself. To be honest, I have never fully taken care of myself in a healthy way, because from my earliest years I was already taking care of myself in the way of self-preservation. I am not going to go into the issues that brought a lot of my current problems to the surface. Just suffice it to say that I did not live in a totally healthy atmosphere for a young child. For the most part it was good, but there was the awful stuff which involved different kinds of abuse. Denial quickly became a part of my life at a very early age.
Then if you look closely at the picture of the little girl on the left side of the blog, you can see that the little girl (me) has legs that just don't stand right. And if you look really close, maybe you can see that even the knee caps seem to be in the wrong place. I grew up my entire life being told I couldn't do this or couldn't do that because I had crooked legs. As I got into the ages of trying to decide what to study in college, the what I coulds and couldn'ts got even bigger. But I am still in denial at this time. I did whatever I wanted to do as a child even if I was being told I shouldn't do it because when I got older I would pay for it. I was clumsy. I fell down a lot. I ran and played with the rest of the kids, but I didn't keep up very well. I hated the orthopedic shoes I was always being told I had to wear. I didn't wear them anymore than I had to. I wanted to be normal just like the rest of the kids around me. In high school and in college, and in my jobs, I always was on my feet. I was warned that the more I was on my feet, the worse my legs would be as I got older. Denial. Not me. I was going to be just fine. I was fine then, so I would be fine later. I wasn't really fine because everything I did was already causing a lot of pain that I refused to believe wasn't the same as it was for anyone else, and I did nothing about it. I had convinced myself I was not in any more pain than the rest of the world was. Maybe since I was in denial about my health it helped to make myself believe that everyone else was like me instead of me trying to be like them.
Another warning was that I needed to keep my weight down because that added to the leg problems. I tried. I was put on my first diet when I was 8 years old. Now at this point, let me tell you a bit about that. Up until I was 7 or so, I was not a heavy child. But in my subconscious I decided that some of the abuse would stop if I were ugly, and I thought being fat would make me ugly. The weight gain all started then and in spite of all my attempts to lose weight, I kept gaining. I would lose some, gain more. The Yo-Yo pattern we all know about today. Dieting actually makes people fat. We need to eat right...eat healthy....but not diet. And not deprive ourselves because we set ourselves up for failure right away. I just have trouble doing all that.
Now we are hearing how stress contributes to weight gain. I don't know all the ins and outs of that and I am not into all the so-called quick fixes about cortosol and stress and weight gain. But, what I do know, and what I am figuring out...what I was talking about here earlier about this "knowing" sneaking up on me, is that stress has played such a huge part of my life all of my life, since earliest childhood and on until even today. I know stress is part of everyone's life. But each one of us deals with stress in our own different ways. Some are good at it, and others are not so good at it. I am one of those not so good at it kinds of people. Actually, maybe that is not true. Or maybe what is really true is that part of dealing with stress for me was my poor coping mechanisms. I eat. And eat. And in addition to all this, I have to deal with all that denial stuffed deep down inside of me. Well, what do I stuff it with? Food, of course.
Well over the years I have done a lot better with cutting back on the eating. I have made some pretty major changes, actually. The problem is, that over the years, as my pain increased, my activity level decreased. I didn't tell people that I was in pain. I am not sure I would have recognized it to be able to tell them...my denial was so ingrained. It was pain...wasn't everyone in pain? So, shouldn't I be doing what everyone else was doing? And due to the abuse in my childhood and teenage years, I believed I was somehow deficient because I was not just like everyone else...not just physically, but in other ways too. So...pain becomes very well acquainted with guilt. If I didn't do something all the way or correctly, I felt guilty. If the reason I didn't do it was because of pain, I erased the pain part...and replaced it with the me who was told I was no good. Now don't ask me to explain how a child interprets things. I don't know. Like in this...why could I tell myself my legs were okay and I was not different...when they were not okay. Yet at the same time, I could let someone tell me over and over again that I was no good and that I believed. I had it all twisted and mixed up. You can imagine what this did as I grew into an adult.
And to feel better about all of it, I ate. To get through problems whether they be with normal every day things we all deal with on a daily basis, or something unexpected that comes into all our lives occassionally, I dealt with them all by eating.
Raise your hand if you have been in this position too, whether it be with food, drugs, alcohol, shopping, gambling, or any other destructive thing we do to ourselves to help us cope.
So, I started this with that phrase "The Road Back". This phrase popped into my head last week sometime I think. I was pondering this realization of how sick I had really been since June of 2006, and that actually it was probably building up before that. I remember how bad I felt. I remember at times feeling like if I took one more step I would die because there were times I felt my heart was just going to explode inside my chest. It wasn't pain...and I never had a heart attack. Even before my atrial fibrillation went chronic rather than occassional, I was sometimes feeling that bad. I was in vocational training classes full time evenings and working full time days. I was exhausted, but it took a stress fracture in my toe/foot to slow me down. Something had to give. Because of the hectic schedule I only had time for fast food in between shifts, so I was eating absolutely horribly unhealthy food. But the old guilt was more powerful than the pain and discomfort. Other issues were also at play in this and the stress level was extremely high. And I stuffed all of it so I could just keep going...like that everready bunny. If I didn't keep going, I was just like I was always told as a child...no good...a failure.
Do you know what a nervous breakdown looks like when it only hits you physically??? Like me the past 2 years. I fell apart physically probably because I was in so much denial that I wouldn't let myself fall apart mentally or emotionally. The Road Back takes a lot of turns. The Road Back covers a lot of territory. And as I am realizing today, The Road Back takes a long time...the sicker one is, the further we have to go to get better. Today when I am disappointed in myself because I can't do something I want to do, I stop thinking about being a failure. Instead I may try to find a different way to do it. Instead, I remind myself that my heart was stressed to the ultimate limit. My doctors feared heart failure and kidney failure when I was at my sickest. Thank God all tests came back normal. But still, the heart is a muscle and if a leg muscle can be strained, cannot a heart muscle also be strained? The heart being what it is as the organ that keeps us alive...that pumps all that blood and oxygen through our bodies, if it is strained, and for a very long period of time, it just goes to figure that it is not going to feel normal again very soon. It needs time to get better. The legs hurt. Oh my do they hurt. But for the most part I can deal with that. The issues still having to do with the heart are what are slowing me down the most. And I have come to think that when the pain is at its worst, it causes another atrial fibrillation episode which is one reason I am on this monitor.
My weight has got to start coming down. I will not allow it to go any higher. Thank you again Richard Simmons for that sit down exercise video. That is going to help me out a lot to keep me from being bored trying to exercise sitting down. Thank you all my doctors and everyone else I have gotten help from, including various counselors for the mental health issues from all of this. Depression is also a big problem for people learning to accept disability. Stress being what it is in regards to atrial fibrillation, especially for me, counseling has become a necessity. In the past, that would have been something that convinced me I was still a failure. But you know what? I am not a failure. I never was a failure. If you are in counseling, or know someone who is, give them your support and encouragement. They are doing what they need to do. In fact...when most of the rest of the world around me was telling me to keep going, and not quit (work that is), and didn't really understand how sick I was, it was my counselors who kept me going. It was my counselors who kept being the ones telling me maybe for the first time in my life, that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing...doing what I needed to be doing...and making the right choices when the world around me was making me feel like I was making wrong choices. I am not sure I would have gotten through the worst part of waiting for the determination of receiving my disability benefits had it not been for the way my counselors kept telling me that I was doing what I needed to do to take care of myself.
Here is the upbeat part you were waiting for...I got my disability benefits, and on the first try. I am working part time to suppliment that income. (How many times do we who receive help from the government we paid taxes to, get ridiculed for being a drain on society...to those who complain about us--get over it!!! That's another blog maybe next year LOL). I have had a lot of the stress-causing issues taken care of in the past few months. I have not been in chronic a-fib now for several months although I still have a lot of periodic episodes that may last up to a day or two...not so much now. I am off of 3 medications. I might get to have one more medication changed for a less dangerous kind if this monitoring goes right. I had shingles over the Christmas holidays--YUCK! I hope I never get those again. But once I got past that, I have been steadily been feeling better every day. I still have days when I feel lousy. But there has been a great upside. For instance, I am quite sure that even 2 months ago I would not have been up to doing these blogs. I couldn't even motivate myself to do a regular journal like I used to do before things changed so. Denial wants to rise again at times because I can feel so good I want to get up and go do something simple only to find out when I try that I am forced back to my chair just to breathe. Weight loss will play a huge part in that also. And figuring out that extra activity that causes more pain than usual, and makes me more tired than usual, triggers another atrial fibrillation episode is something else I have to figure into the equation. So there is the cycle...to lose weight, exercise...to exercise I need to feel better...to feel better, I need to lose weight. LOL But it will happen all in a good, healthy time. No more trying to hurry up and get it done. Realistic goals I have never really set for myself before. But now I have my goals. And I am making new goals all the time as I feel better...but all in good time. I need to lose a lot of weight--no I am not telling how much. It is going to take time. Especially if I want to keep it off. I have been sick a long time. (Denial--I never used the word "sick" to describe my a-fib until this past year and I have had it for almost 14 years. It had to go chronic before I accepted that I was sick.) It is going to take time to get fully better. Like 2-3 years is what I am giving myself. And if I don't make it in that time, I have given myself permission to take longer. I have also given myself permission to reach a realistic weight loss goal instead of trying to make myself look like--well what a model would look like if she were an old granny like me. I want to be healthy, not skinny. If any of you wants to join me in this weight loss journey, feel free. Actually I would enjoy the company.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Arthritis, Shopping, Exercise, and More.
My daughter and I went out to breakfast this morning with her 10 month old son. Then we went to the WalMart to do my shopping. I haven't been able to get out much this past month because it was just too cold, and this cold doesn't work well with my knees. So, I enjoyed getting out and about. March definitely is a mild lamb today. The sun has been shining most of the day and the temperature is just right for a winter day. With my knees and heart the way they have been the past year or so, I have needed to have help with shopping to get my purchases into my home. So I rarely go to the store alone anymore. Once in awhile I go just to get out, when I know I am only going to get a few things that I can carry in one trip. On those trips I have to really think ahead about what I will be buying and how they can be bagged for the easiest carrying.
Shopping is just one area of adjustment when you become disabled. Like this job I have working from home. It is amazing that technology has come this far to be able to set something like this up in my living room allowing me the ease and comfort to work in my recliner. I have tried over the years to find work I could do from home so I could suppliment the family income while still being home for the kids as they grew up. I have always believed that raising the children is the most important job there is, along with being a full time wife and homemaker. In many ways I have felt that I was born in the wrong time period because it seems that people have placed very little importance on traditional family roles in the last 45 years. Anyway, before I travel light years away from what I am trying to write about today... With all that trying to find something that would work for me, I never succeeded. So, I was an off and on full time wife, mother, and homemaker while I worked in nursing homes and other places over the years. Now I have this job and I can stay home to work. Fortunately I am not still raising kids because I would still need a babysitter to do this job. Working in a call center requires silence in the room around me.
Another area I have had to adjust to the change is that I sit down to do everything. EVERYTHING...except sleeping of course. I do walk as much as I can in my home, and outside. I have a handicapped parking permit which I use, but I walk into the stores or other places, and back out again most times. This has been quite enlightening because I use the store-provided motorized carts to get around the stores and it is interesting how much is out of reach without assistance, or without having to stand up which isn't easy since I tend to stiffen up sitting in the cart seat. Then it feels good to walk again when I am finished with the shopping. Cooking and cleaning up the kitchen is also done sitting down. I have my own chair in the kitchen with pillows on it to raise my height to a better position for the work I have to do there. Not all the work I want to get done gets done regularly simply because of it being out of reach and getting it done depends on how my legs are feeling that day. Hey, guess what! One of my wishes over the years has come true! I get to hire someone every couple of weeks to come in and do the major cleaning that needs done. Not exactly Alice of the Brady Bunch, but it works for me.
Well, with all the sitting down in my life, I decided months ago that once I started feeling better, I would be adding additional physical exercise to my life, including walking when I can, even if it is only a few feet at a time. Believe me, one trip the length of my home is just about all I can handle at one time. Little by little I began adding small amounts of movement while I sat, even though even the slightest movements could cause me chest pain and shortness of breath. Being a former Activity Director in nursing homes had taught me that it is very possible to keep fit or improve fitness while sitting. Gradually, those small movements grew to where I was first able to do half an hour of regular exercise while I was working daily. That has grown to an hour and sometimes more each day while I am working in the call center. Those are mostly leg exercises because my hands are busy with the computer. I finally got the DVD I ordered online a few weeks ago--Richard Simmons--my favorite exercise guru. I had checked his website to see what he had in exercise tapes, etc., and found he had this exercise DVD for people who cannot stand up to do exercises. I got it yesterday, actually, and opened it and played it this morning while I waited on my daughter to arrive. Even did some of the exercises. It is continual exercise all through the video--aerobic exercise. I will have to keep at it to learn his routines, but already I can tell it is going to be fun exercise. I used to exercise with him every morning when he still had his tv show.
My biggest obstacle right now is reminding myself not to overdo it. I am finding that on those days I overdo it and get too tired or too achy or both, the next morning my heart is out of rhythm, which only adds to my general discomfort and prevents me from doing much of anything. The other day when I had my meeting with my long lost cousin, I was really exhausted when I got home. I had not had that much activity all in one day in a long long time, and the next morning I was sick again with my atrial fibrillation. So, this disability thing is an ongoing educational experience, with each day teaching me something new.
Overall, back in the summer when I was fighting to survive yet another financial struggle while waiting to get disability approved, I decided that I would give myself 2 to 3 years to rebuild my health and strength, including losing weight and exercising. I do not want to spend the rest of my life in a motorized cart or staying home if there is nothing provided for the disabled. As it is, unless I am going to a restaurant, church, family home, or friend's home, I stay home. I have to know before I go somewhere where I will have to park, how far I will have to walk before I can sit and rest (can't just plop myself down in the snow), and whether or not I will have to walk once I get there. So, that has limited me to just shopping WalMart most of the time because they offer several carts while the other 2 main stores in town only offer 1 cart each, and the other store offers nothing. This is March 1st and my goal for this early spring is to get stronger so that this summer I can be out and do more. I am really looking forward to being able to go to the park with my family and grandkids just to watch them play, and not have to stay in the car.
You know, it is true and I have experienced this a lot over the years. You just don't know how sick you were until you start feeling better. June 2006 until Jan, 2008 was a rough period. It has only been since New Year's that I have realized that I am really feeling better. I am not going to go back to feeling that sick again. Anyone want to join me?
Another thing I wanted to say before I close this post is that everything I am learing and going through stays in my memory and becomes something I can use later. I think that is important for everyone to do, because if we are going through rough spots and we learn nothing or take nothing with us as we travel life's journey, what do we have to offer anyone else along the way who may be struggling in the same ways we have been?
Shopping is just one area of adjustment when you become disabled. Like this job I have working from home. It is amazing that technology has come this far to be able to set something like this up in my living room allowing me the ease and comfort to work in my recliner. I have tried over the years to find work I could do from home so I could suppliment the family income while still being home for the kids as they grew up. I have always believed that raising the children is the most important job there is, along with being a full time wife and homemaker. In many ways I have felt that I was born in the wrong time period because it seems that people have placed very little importance on traditional family roles in the last 45 years. Anyway, before I travel light years away from what I am trying to write about today... With all that trying to find something that would work for me, I never succeeded. So, I was an off and on full time wife, mother, and homemaker while I worked in nursing homes and other places over the years. Now I have this job and I can stay home to work. Fortunately I am not still raising kids because I would still need a babysitter to do this job. Working in a call center requires silence in the room around me.
Another area I have had to adjust to the change is that I sit down to do everything. EVERYTHING...except sleeping of course. I do walk as much as I can in my home, and outside. I have a handicapped parking permit which I use, but I walk into the stores or other places, and back out again most times. This has been quite enlightening because I use the store-provided motorized carts to get around the stores and it is interesting how much is out of reach without assistance, or without having to stand up which isn't easy since I tend to stiffen up sitting in the cart seat. Then it feels good to walk again when I am finished with the shopping. Cooking and cleaning up the kitchen is also done sitting down. I have my own chair in the kitchen with pillows on it to raise my height to a better position for the work I have to do there. Not all the work I want to get done gets done regularly simply because of it being out of reach and getting it done depends on how my legs are feeling that day. Hey, guess what! One of my wishes over the years has come true! I get to hire someone every couple of weeks to come in and do the major cleaning that needs done. Not exactly Alice of the Brady Bunch, but it works for me.
Well, with all the sitting down in my life, I decided months ago that once I started feeling better, I would be adding additional physical exercise to my life, including walking when I can, even if it is only a few feet at a time. Believe me, one trip the length of my home is just about all I can handle at one time. Little by little I began adding small amounts of movement while I sat, even though even the slightest movements could cause me chest pain and shortness of breath. Being a former Activity Director in nursing homes had taught me that it is very possible to keep fit or improve fitness while sitting. Gradually, those small movements grew to where I was first able to do half an hour of regular exercise while I was working daily. That has grown to an hour and sometimes more each day while I am working in the call center. Those are mostly leg exercises because my hands are busy with the computer. I finally got the DVD I ordered online a few weeks ago--Richard Simmons--my favorite exercise guru. I had checked his website to see what he had in exercise tapes, etc., and found he had this exercise DVD for people who cannot stand up to do exercises. I got it yesterday, actually, and opened it and played it this morning while I waited on my daughter to arrive. Even did some of the exercises. It is continual exercise all through the video--aerobic exercise. I will have to keep at it to learn his routines, but already I can tell it is going to be fun exercise. I used to exercise with him every morning when he still had his tv show.
My biggest obstacle right now is reminding myself not to overdo it. I am finding that on those days I overdo it and get too tired or too achy or both, the next morning my heart is out of rhythm, which only adds to my general discomfort and prevents me from doing much of anything. The other day when I had my meeting with my long lost cousin, I was really exhausted when I got home. I had not had that much activity all in one day in a long long time, and the next morning I was sick again with my atrial fibrillation. So, this disability thing is an ongoing educational experience, with each day teaching me something new.
Overall, back in the summer when I was fighting to survive yet another financial struggle while waiting to get disability approved, I decided that I would give myself 2 to 3 years to rebuild my health and strength, including losing weight and exercising. I do not want to spend the rest of my life in a motorized cart or staying home if there is nothing provided for the disabled. As it is, unless I am going to a restaurant, church, family home, or friend's home, I stay home. I have to know before I go somewhere where I will have to park, how far I will have to walk before I can sit and rest (can't just plop myself down in the snow), and whether or not I will have to walk once I get there. So, that has limited me to just shopping WalMart most of the time because they offer several carts while the other 2 main stores in town only offer 1 cart each, and the other store offers nothing. This is March 1st and my goal for this early spring is to get stronger so that this summer I can be out and do more. I am really looking forward to being able to go to the park with my family and grandkids just to watch them play, and not have to stay in the car.
You know, it is true and I have experienced this a lot over the years. You just don't know how sick you were until you start feeling better. June 2006 until Jan, 2008 was a rough period. It has only been since New Year's that I have realized that I am really feeling better. I am not going to go back to feeling that sick again. Anyone want to join me?
Another thing I wanted to say before I close this post is that everything I am learing and going through stays in my memory and becomes something I can use later. I think that is important for everyone to do, because if we are going through rough spots and we learn nothing or take nothing with us as we travel life's journey, what do we have to offer anyone else along the way who may be struggling in the same ways we have been?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)