Category: Adventures In Healthcare

AGAIN with the Injury

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Point of clarification: I have NOT entered into any major sporting event (yet) (I may or may not have been conned into doing Tough Mudder thanks to Ms. Krieant), I have done nothing out of the usual in workouts lately, and yet I’ve managed to muss up my hip flexor. This doesn’t take any particular talent, other than having a crap-tastic lower back, because (fun fact) the hip flexor runs from your lower back and wraps around the front, down into your inner thigh. F-ing with your hip flexor feels rather like having a pulled muscle right where the cut of your leg is, and I can tell you from personal experience it 1. doesn’t go away after a few days (we’re working on two weeks, here) and 2. it is really awful to get PT for it.

Mind you, my PT is for my lower back (hello, arthritis, so very wonderful to see you there too) but suddenly that felt fine and this other area started hurting. As I associate visiting the PT with a massive amount of whining, I added that in for good measure, and Dr. Dan arched an eyebrow (never, ever a good sign) and started asking questions. Since the 3 people you should never lie to are your doctor, your lawyer, and your self, I told the truth… and found myself lying back on the table and having him digging his hands into my pelvis.

I am not exaggerating.

Because your psoas (aka, hip flexor) is so buried and deep, the only way to get it to chill the *F* out is to dig in between your gut and your hip bone, quite deep, while extending and contracting the affected leg. This feels appallingly like having someone dig into your pelvis to clean out the inside of the bone, much like you take a spoon to the inside of pumpkin mash when making Jack-o-lanterns. It doesn’t SCREAMING hurt, but it is one of the least pleasant things I’ve let another human being do to me.

Today was my second session in PT for this (actually, for the lower back facets issue but apparently this gets grouped under that) and I can walk without limping but I’m still not allowed to run. This weekend I’m off to cub scout camp so we’ll see if a Hobbly Mom is okay.

Advil, take me away…

OW, says the Bobbie

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I can’t tell if it’s actual full-body disintegration or if it’s old age or if it’s bad karma, but I find myself *back* getting X-rays and *back* on anti-inflammatories. This sucks. I was being so good, and it’s not like I signed up for anything crazy or over-trained. I’ve been lifting weights (lightly, nothing more than about 25/30 pounds) 2-3 times per week, and running 2-3 times per week (nothing more than about 2-3 miles), so I should not be dealing with this.

About a week ago the Male Person and I were commiserating on lower back pain, the kind you get here and there that is annoying and you may put a heating pad (or ice) on it and take an Advil and it goes away. Annoying, but live-able.

As of yesterday I had to use assistance (chairs, tables, handles, etc.) to sit down/get up. I went back to my French Canadian Doctor, because it was time for some punishment anyways. The good news: It’s not sciatic nerve stuff! Bad news: it’s probably more degeneration, but we’ll find out. Eventually.

In the meantime, I have purchased a back brace. There is absolutely nothing at all attractive about a back brace. It’s all white nylon and velcro, and reminds me of oversized superhero belts. Today I could be Monochrome Woman, as my grey tank top and black pants mean the white belt just really makes me look … spiffy (insert eyeroll here). Walking around gingerly means lots of people look at you funny. In this case, my walk is something like that of the cartoonish old man – butt tilted forward, therefore abdomen tilted forward, upper body tilted slightly back to help with balance, and a slow, shuffling gait to get places. Combined with my spiffy back brace, I look a prize idiot.

The fervent hope is that between anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxants (night-time only! no wine! um, yay!) things will calm down enough so I can fly out to vacation (yay! Arizona!) and then come back to do my last three days of work for Expedia.

Because I don’t want to make the post about my new job led-in by all of this whining, and because I will have plenty more time to blog on the plane to/from AZ, I won’t get into that here :). You will just have to wait.

(I hate waiting…)

OK, you can have this much: I’m going to work for Sur La Table, in the Applications Dev Team. I’m very excited, and yes I get a discount, and believe it or not no, that wasn’t the biggest selling point.

Urgent (?) Care

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There comes a time in one’s life where one will find oneself in need of Urgent Care, but one is mindful of one’s health insurance and still has some steam, so one goes not to the ER but to, well, Urgent Care.

This is the predicament I and a friend found ourselves in last night, and went thusly to the Urgent Care clinic that is about 5 minutes from her house.

Now, to my mind, and I realize I’m picky, “urgent” means, “right now, or as close to right now as you can get”, and so I would imagine that all things that happen in an Urgent Care clinic happen “right now”, or at least with the attempt to make it as “right now” as possible. Urgent Care to me denotes moving quickly and with purpose, not frenetically but also not languidly.

In their defense, their doctor was very “right now”. My friend got a room, a bed, and within about five minutes an initial evaluation, some trial meds, etc. The Doctor Was Doing Something, and Doing Something Urgently. Check.

The front desk staff (and indeed, the telephone staff I called in advance) were Not Really Into My Definition of Urgent. As in, “Oh, if you don’t know her date of birth/social security number/mother’s maiden name/location of her baptismal socks” we can’t put you on the list of people we expect to see in the next fifteen minutes.”  As in, “Oh, you need directions to the ER we told you to go to? Here let us go to mapquest and wait, print, um, wait while I answer the phone, now wait some more while I attend to someone else, continue waiting as I pull the pages from the printer and carefully, carefully staple them together, etc. — and wait some more”. As in, after the doctor said to pull up and double-park so they could walk my friend out to the car, “wait a second while I look at you strangely whilst you are double parked, then wave in recognition, but continue to not go and get your friend because I totally forgot we said we were going to do that.”

My recommendation therefore is if you find yourself in need of Urgent Care, sick a friend on the front-desk staff and get yourself in front of the doctor. And then try to have the friend find decent parking in front. You know, so she’s not double parked, like an idiot.

Pride (?) of Ownership

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I have once again ventured into the land of Personal Training (receiving end). This is the third time and I hope it works like a charm, as the first one I worked with 4 years ago seemed disinterested (possibly a reflection of my attitude of “I’m paying you so my work is done here”), the second one found all the things I didn’t like and increased them in proportion (I hate kettle bells).

Up until now my ventures into physical activity consisted of the following process:

  1. I need to lose weight.
  2. I don’t make time for the gym.
  3. Unless I have paid for an event.
  4. If I’m going to pay for an event it should be a “big” thing.
  5. Which event has enough credibility and pressure?
    1. Half Marathon
    2. 200 mile bike ride
  6. Register for event.
  7. Feel pumped about event.
  8. Figure training schedule for event.
  9. Skip some days but don’t worry I’ll make it up.
  10. Train in earnest.
  11. Injure myself during training because I didn’t ramp properly.
  12. Ignore or marginalize injury because I’m in denial.
  13. Do event. Maybe whine a lot. Maybe get a little irrational.
  14. Injure myself during event and/or exacerbate injury from training.
  15. Go to Physical Therapy. Go Directly to Physical Therapy.
  16. Have PT person:
    1. Shake head
    2. Remind me of the last time We Were Together, Ask if I’ve Been Doing My Exercises
    3. Hand me New Exercises
    4. Graduate me 2-3 months later
    5. We both know we’ll see each other again.
  17. Celebrate my newfound physical wellness by “taking a break”.
  18. Gain weight. Go back to #1.

The part of this cycle I’m trying to break is numbers 2, 9, 12, and 17.  Hence, Personal Trainer.

My Personal Trainer’s name is Dave. Dave is a former Marine Corps Drill Instructor and acts like it, which is good, but he’s also pretty cheerful at points and is sensitive to the random pains that come with arthritic knees. Dave managed to work me out so hard the first two days that I was actually sore in my armpits. Did you know you have muscles there? I did not… until they were sore. Or there was the time I coughed and my stomach muscles hurt…

This process started about three weeks ago and it’s fairly predictable – while I’m using MyFitnessPal to log all of my food (for the most part honestly), I’m typically tracking more calories than I ought to have, and usually due to the end-of-day meal. I’m also (theoretically) increasing my muscle mass, and since muscle weighs more than fat, my weight hasn’t gone down materially. *

The part that I’m proud of though is that, for more than 21 days (23 as of yesterday) I have made it to the gym 6 days out of each week – at least 3 runs and at least 3 weight workouts. My knees have managed to make it through 32 minutes of running with one, 1-minute break; there’s only minimal swelling and it’s gone at end of day. I’ve also noticed if I don’t run or work out (e.g., that 7th day) I’m a bit of a princess crankypants. I am taking all of these as good signs and hoping the adage that “21 days  makes a habit” is true.

And I haven’t signed up for any events, thank you.

*Actually muscle does not weigh more than fat, any more than a pound of gold weighs more than a pound of feathers, because a pound is a pound is a pound. However, the DENSITY of muscle is higher than that of fat, so the VOLUME required to make 1 pound of muscle is smaller than the VOLUME required to make 1 pound of fat – which is how come the inches go away long before the scale registers anything.

Oh, Wait

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Totally forgot why I’m home and have time to blog in the first place.  Yesterday I got my second viscosupplementation shot.

It was exactly like the first time, only more painful and the Male Person was there with me.

You can read about viscosupplementation here. There are five or six options of what kind you get — in my case, I vote for the 6cc-once-every-six-months version, instead of the 3-shots-every-3-months version. It means that a very large needle is inserted behind my left patella and, in about thirty excruciating seconds, a liquid mass is inserted there.

To address the pain and discomfiture I get to ice my knee for 15 minutes. Then there is a spray-on anesthetic. (Note: topical anesthetic? does zip for the actual needle in the leg thing.) Then there is a vibrator — apparently applying a vibrator to your left femur “confuses” your nerves because they’d like to pay attention to that more than the needle in your kneecap. The Male Person was on hand to hold my leg down, because a bizarre side effect of putting 6cc’s of unexpected liquid behind your kneecap is that your leg wants to stretch out, closing off the entry for the needle; ergo, Male Person. And then there is my favorite method of avoiding pain: making ridiculous conversation.

Last time I was in for this, I mangled reading all of her diplomas (she’s Canadian French, so all of her diplomas are dual-language, and my french is le crap). This time, I carefully studied her anatomical maps, starting from the skull and making it to about the elbow before it was done. I mangled those just as nicely; she laughed at me just as much.

I spent most of yesterday not able to walk properly, and today I hobbled about this and that. By tomorrow I’ll be normal again.

For me.

Braces at 37

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Editor’s note: I did not have braces as many did during high school (or junior high, or elementary school). Instead, I have been graced with them at 37 (nearly 38).

I sat in the office — this is just over a week ago — of my orthodontist with a mixture of excitement and resignation, which is a lot easier to pull off than it sounds. Excitement because I was going to get braces and finally see what the fuss was about, and it also presents an opportunity for colored bands to celebrate holidays. (October’s colors will be orange and black). Resigned because I knew that, aside from the opportunity to accessorize the little metal boxes, I’d be having said little metal boxes on my bottom teeth for about nine months.

The part that I didn’t realize until after they were cemented, one by one, to my lower teeth, is this: your mouth was not made for bits of metal to be hanging out there.

My first night I attempted to eat a salad and discovered you can’t really do that with braces, or at least not for the first week. The little metal bits rub the inside of your mouth in such a way as to give you a very good idea of what it’s like to chew on razor blades; now 8 days later the cuts and ulcerations are almost gone. They give you this little box of wax for you to attach to the exterior of your braces (to mollify your mouth, presumably) which makes you feel like a bulldog or some other jowly creature. My diet became pretty liquid, pretty fast.

Let the record state I’m not really complaining about that, because it totally went hand in hand with my recent weight loss, and I’m now ten pounds down (yeah!).

Other unforeseen things: I have acquired, if I do not take care to enunciate properly, a lisp. This was hammered home on Monday, day 4 of braces, where I had a presentation for several people who have “C” or “VP” in their titles. The job was to let them know about Really Cool Project # 432*, because yes in my job there are fully that many projects that are cool.  It totally sucks the cool out of your project when you lisp, though.

Finally, there is the little matter of dental hygiene. I’m not suggesting I didn’t have it, but the short of it is with braces you pretty much need to brush your teeth after every food event, which, for a grazer like me, means you become one with your Sonicare.

Braces: mildly annoying, purportedly useful, and fascinating accessory.

 

*Really cool project #431 released on Wednesday. You can get special mobile-only deals on Hotels.com! 🙂

Let’s Do the Time Warp Again

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If you think of “warp” not as in Rocky Horror Picture Show, but as in “Star Trek”, it’s the ability to warp space to get from A to B faster. Extrapolated, you can create temporal shifts with enough warp, and then Harrison Ford’s comment “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage” are more accurate than anything he said as Han Solo. I find it funny that there’s more science in Indiana Jones than there is in Star Wars. Ergo, Star Wars = Fantasy, but Star Trek = Science Fiction. And we can put that to bed.

Now that this pop culture mashup has been burned indelibly to your brain, much like a Katy Perry song, for which I should but won’t apologize, I can get to the actual point:

I am suffering from both old age and recidivist youth.

Two weeks ago I had my high school reunion. It was interesting to see how everyone had changed (or not) since high school: the age ranges looked far beyond the purported year we all shared. Some people gained weight, some did not. Some got bald, some did not. The universal take seemed to be, “It’s great to see you all, regardless of how much we liked or disliked high school, or each other for that matter”. I will note that I wasn’t all that enamored of high school, and it was less enamored of me; I just assumed that had to do with my ranking on the social totem pole (somewhere near the bottom). After a few conversations with those I had perceived were at the top, I arrived at the conclusion that no one was really enamored of the ego bruising experience that high school dishes out. At one point or another you’re on the receiving end of it, and we all agreed it sucked.

Studies have shown (is there a more self-important phrase in the English Language?) that people who share a traumatic event are linked at that level for life, like those who survive a car accident or war. I’m not akining high school to war, although there were times it felt like it.

Fast forward twenty years when parts of me seem to be doing very well (I’ve been reassured I have very good skin) and most of me is not doing well. Trips back to the Sport MD for a busted knee have me on anti inflammatory drops (40 each knee, 4x day, 2 weeks), a nitrogen patch (take it off if you feel like you’re having a heart attack, the paperwork says), and more workouts. I have arthritis. A trip to my regular doc tells me it’s time to actually watch my cholesterol, and no that doesn’t mean watch it go up. A trip to my dentist tells me it’s time for braces.

Braces. At 37.

Granted, they are “bottom only” braces, and it’s completely elective, but when I am told it’s my teeth that will age my appearance faster than my skin or hair (which is dyed), off to the orthodontist I go. And so, at 37, I will have little metal boxes on my lower set of teeth, and it will feel like the one damning high school experience I never had.

Please, please do not bring the acne back.

Great Wolf Lodge

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I spent a night at the Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound, WA.

Now, before I left, I had done much reading of reviews and perusal of their site. I knew, much like going to Disneyland, I was to hand over my wallet at the door and let them tell me how much I should be left with.

I had a fantastic time.

Great Wolf Lodge is a place for kids: an oversized, indoor water park with a hotel and multiple eateries and shops attached. The catch is that you must stay the night in the hotel, you can’t go into the water park without a room for the night. I went, not as the typical nuclear family (2 adults, 1.7 kids), but as the typical single mom: 1 adult, 1 kid. This is important to note as it impacts how you operate within a water park (for example — you stake out your table and need to go to the lockers to retrieve something?  You’re both going — there is no other parent to hold on to things.)

At a nominal average price of about $180-$200 for a night, depending on seasonality, you get:

1. Wristbands to let you in to the park. The adults get RFID wristbands that allow you to do things like open the room or charge things to your room. Ergo, your wallet stays in the room and you are not tethered to it.

2. Access to a large water park from 1pm to 9pm on day of check-in, and from 9am to 9pm on day of check out

3. Access to an arcade. (Games cost the same as everywhere else).

4. A relatively nice, standard hotel room.

For $40 more, you get a wand and an interactive game that will take you the whole day, even if you rush at it. It involves climbing a lot of stairs and running around, and I enjoyed it as much as the small child.

Taken together, your total outgo minus food is about $230 for one kid and one mom. GWL has a reputation for being hideously expensive but, I will note that same room would run you about $120 or so elsewhere. The remaining $110 then is to cover the magic game and the water park and the convenience of your RFID tag. (That convenience goes both ways — proffering your wrist to pay for something removes you from the emotional attachment you may have for your cash).

With the magic game prepriced at about $40 (there’s the cost of the wand and the cost of the game itself), you’re left with $70 for two day’s access to a water park for two people. And here’s where the “it’s overpriced” argument fails: 4 water slides, a wave pool, an activity pool, a kids pool, and an indoor-outdoor pool and sunning area, unlimited clean towels, thorough and plenty lifeguards are yours for 2 days for $35pp. That is on par with local water parks — even those without as many slides.

YES, you will pay $10/day for locker rental (you check out at 11am, so if you have things like car keys or cell phones or wallets, and you don’t have a spousal unit out of the water at all times, you’ll need a locker). YES, the food is relatively overpriced (relatively = overpriced for “normal places to eat”. Not overpriced in the context of amusement park food, theater food, etc.) and it isn’t really all that good: but your admission comes with in and out privileges, and there are plenty of local restaurants (La Tarasca, Dicks Northwest Brewhouse) to go to. There is a Starbucks inside the building and it’s priced normally, too.

More to the point, there isn’t a single place in the edifice where you are not responsible for your own child (I regard this as something worthy of kudos). If your child is in the water park, so must you be. There is no day care, kids club, babysitting service, etc. If you want to go play in the spa or the bar, better have your spousal unit watching the kids and trade-off with you — because you, parent, do not get to abscond your responsibility. This, to me, was great. Also, the entrance to each water slide is monitored, and they ask you EVERY TIME, regardless of if they remember you (and they did remember us after 5 or 6 goes) if we met the height and weight requirements. (I’m not 700 pounds yet– that’s another post).

Now, there was one down side to GWL: I blew out my knee going on the Howling Tornado. It’s six flights of stairs to the two largest water slides, and we went on them multiple times. We were both eight years old this weekend — we’d ride down the slide, tumble out of the inner tube, scream “AGAIN!”, run up the stairs, wait in a very small line, and ride down again. After a day and a half of this, my knee has started making audible cracking sounds, and it is rather swollen; I’m going back to Mme. le Docteur next Monday. At least I will have a really fun story as to why it is doing that. I expect I’ll get a bunch of physical therapy, some more exercises, more taping to do, maybe another injection.

Just in time for my next GWL visit! AGAIN!

Lo Fidelity

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I weigh X-3. In order for me to be healthy, I need to weigh X-22. (I was at X two weeks ago).

Having lost 22 pounds (or more) on several occasions — 5 major ones that I can think of, none of them pregnancy related — I know exactly how to do this. The problem is, however, that when I try to lose 22 pounds at 37 years of age, it is significantly different from when I lost 22 pounds at 18. Or 23. Or 27. My body does not react the way it used to.

At 18, I came back from Australia (6 month student exchange) and weighed 37 more pounds than what I had when I left for it. (I had actually just got done losing 15 pounds BEFORE I left). It took about six months, going to the gym maybe twice a week, taking the occasional walk, and eating smaller portions. That was it. Done.

At 23, I was a newlywed looking at my wedding photos, and particularly the rehearsal dinner ones. I had gained about 23 pounds. I remember crying on the floor of my Oceanside apartment, my then husband helplessly watching. I started walking 4 times per week, cut back on the food, and it was off in about 4 months.

At 27, we had just moved up to Washington. That 23 pounds came back. (Do you see a pattern here? Big change = big eating). I joined a gym and ate Slim Fast for breakfast, Lean Cuisine for lunch, and frankly whatever I damn well wanted for dinner. In about 5 months it was gone.

At 32 I was charged with losing 30 pounds, by my doctor. I was in Grad School, my son was a very active toddler and then preschooler, I rarely saw my then husband (he worked nights, I was working full-time and in the aforementioned school). We had friends staying with us who knew cooking and wine, and so I ate and ate. When I got to the doctor she diagnosed me as pre-diabetic, and told me to knock it off. She handed me a 1320 calorie diet, and I had to weigh everything. I also had to work out at least 4 times per week, for at least 30 minutes, and I had to break a sweat. In about six months the weight was off.

Then I got divorced.

Interestingly, the weight didn’t pile on with the divorce. Therefore, it isn’t necessarily negative things that drive my weight gain, but it is big change. Here I sit, with a couple of more Big Changes coming my way (nope, not yet, only 2 more months and then I can talk about it) and I’ve known about the Big Changes for about four months now. Four months of Big Change eating = I am now back to where I oughtn’t be.

I’m currently using an iPhone App called “Myfitnesspal“, which has an online counterpart, and is free. I log everything I eat and it tells me where I’m at during the course of the day not only calorically, but nutritionally. For example: I have learned that one (1) Rainbow Sprinkle Top Pot Doughnut is 2/5 of an entire day’s caloric intake. I have learned that 4 cups of salad (which gets me full) is about 1/12th of a day’s caloric intake. I have learned that white wine is calorically “cheaper” than red, and that on days where I’m “good” the scale will not necessarily be kind to me the next day, but on days where I’m “bad” it will not necessarily be mean, either. (A recent evening that included steak and wine resulted in the scale telling me I had lost a pound. A recent evening that included all of 4 cups of lettuce and some vinaigrette resulted in the scale telling me I added a half pound. It’s vexing.)

I also have fitness requirements, having learned that I need to be committed to an event in order to keep me honest. The difficulty in this lay in my schedule: I have an active boy child, who participates in Karate, Boy Scouts, and Baseball. Somehow the stars have aligned so that Saturday rides now conflict with Saturday games, and Tuesday spin conflicts with Tuesday games. I’ll still do the STP, though. I may do it slowly and I may hurt like hell the next day, but I’m on for it.

It would be really, truly fantastic to just take it off and leave it off.

Say It Ain’t So, Joe

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It has been just over 72 hours since my last PT appointment, and I’m over the psychological moment and can now type about it.

Well, no. It isn’t that bad. I’m headed into my fourth appointment tomorrow, and I am getting the hang of what I have to do: check in, do my “warm up” exercises (which are something of a cross between pilates, ballroom dancing, and the modified shopping cart), “massage” my IT bands (twang!), and then have someone mess with them and then some iontophoresis  (that electrode thingy). Easy-peasy, yes?

Look, all of that is just ducky– the pilates-cum-ballroom dancing is fun –but that IT band messing that someone else does? That is sheer hell.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please meet Joe. Joe was the purveyor of hell on Monday.

Joe is likely my age, because he totally caught my Top Gun reference (he called me Maverick, I told him “negative Ghostrider the pattern is full”). Joe looks like that tennis pro at the club that will totally teach you tennis and take it easy on you and you totally know he’s taking it easy on you.

Joe has sharp elbows. I know this, because part of physical therapy for twangy IT bands? Is to rub them out. With an elbow. Laterally.

This feels something akin to someone giving you a very deep bruise, very slowly, along the outside of your thighbone. After about 2-3 minutes on each side, you are very certain of two things: 1, you don’t ever want to do that again, and 2, that you will be black and blue in seconds.

Joe knows how to not leave marks, which is why we are hoping Joe never breaks out a bar of soap and a sock.

The other negative side of PT (as of late) is because I’m allergic to the leukotape, I have to wait until my skin heals to work out in any way that challenges my knees. So, no Cyntergy, no pilates, no spin class, no running. I am left, essentially, with swimming. Swimming is good — aside from the semi-permanent eau de chlorine that lingers after a session — but it’s gear (and time) intensive. I mean, to get a good 500 calories burned, you go to one (1) 45 minute spin class and you’re done.  You can run some errands in your gym gear, and then shower at home. To get a good 500 calories burned swimming, you need to swim for about an hour, and you must shower before getting into the pool, and then you need to uber-shower when getting out of the pool. Unless you want to soak your car in that same eau de chlorine (there was a time that I did that, to my old ’81 Volvo), you shower at the gym, which necessitates waiting on others who shower at the gym, including small children.  Total time at gym, 2 hours.

All of this, and the Run/Walk/Limp is now officially 8 weeks away, and the STP is about 15. Nervous, me?

No. 🙂