The dew did it

This morning, as I was working out on the eliptical machine, a local morning news program was covering the early morning set-up of a charity race. (I'm not sure exactly where it was or what the race was in aid of because I was, after all, working out.) Watching the set-up folks stride purposefully around in the dusk with a cell phone parked on one hip and a two-way radio parked on the other, really took me back to the days when I used to work in special events. And then there was the dew - the morning dew on the grass, that hinted at a chilly morning before a warm, sunny day. For some reason the dew just transported me back ten, twelve years.

I remember so many early Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings in a Southern California summer, bleary-eyed and chilly, working off of barely any sleep (because I'd been partying the night before), coming off the back of a month of 7-day weeks and 16-hour days, adrenaline pumping through my veins and a constant feeling of being behind, late, in a rush. People pulling at me from different directions, event staff who needed guidance, vendors who showed up nonchalantly late, and a sense of camaraderie with fellow event organizers who were equally as tired and yet amped-up at the same time.

Driving hours in the dark to parks and shopping centers and arenas without the aid of Google Maps and getting lost, walking miles back and forth from parking lots to booths, jumping in and out of 26 foot refrigerated trucks, loading and unloading with the guys, gossiping with the girls, drinking too much coffee and eating way too many donuts. Those were the days when duct tape and zip ties were my friends, when I attempted to dodge calls from my boss at all hours of the day or night - weekdays and weekends - and when I managed things (and people) I really had no idea about and yet jumped in the deep end and did it without a second thought anyway. Those were the mornings where I'd already done a full day by 10am and would find myself sitting in the cab of a truck with yet another cup of that coffee, desperately trying to muster the energy to make it through to the end of the day when we would repeat the whole shebang in reverse.

I miss it. In case you can't tell.

I miss the people I met (one of which was/is my husband), I miss the sense of accomplishment when it all came together, I miss the camaraderie of a team pulling together and working really hard under your leadership, and I miss the events themselves. True, they all started to look the same after a while, but it was cool to be "behind the scenes" and to see an event site come together bit-by-bit before a single attendee was even awake.



It feels like such another time, another place, and another me at this point.

Today's "English" lesson

Every gym has one (or a few)- the know-it-all, middle-aged guy who yells every conversation across the room. The kind of guy who remembers small details about people's lives ("how's that tomato plant doing, Tom?") in order to demonstrate how "popular" he is, uses sports trivia as a conversation starter ("Hey, Tom, how about those Patriots? Did you see Tom Brady's pass? Reminded me of Steve Grogan in 1978!") and the one who talks smack about his physical fitness while simultaneously yanking the crap out of his back on the rowing machine. Yup, that guy.

I usually put on my headphones and drown him out with NPR but today, for some reason, I just wasn't in the NPR "zone" so my ears were open for business.

Today's topic of conversation for Mr. Middle-Aged-Know-It-All, was his daughter's trip to England which she cancelled due to the volcanic ash cloud.

He said (loudly, of course), and I quote: "She was supposed to go to England but she made a change at the last minute and ended up in Mexico instead. The funny thing was that her flight actually managed to land in 'Gul-asa-COW. But 'Gul-asa-COW' was a few hours north of London, so she would have had a three hour drive when she landed anyway."

I was busy doing crunches on my ball but I had to stop for a second to process. What did he say? "GulasaCOW?" What the hell town is he butchering?

It really took me thirty seconds or so to process, going through the list of English airports where I know international flights land (Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham, Manchester), and then finally heading up north to realize that the jackass meant GLASGOW. Ya know, that po-dunk place, population 700,000, that is the largest city in SCOTLAND?

Um... wow. The guy actually made it sound like it belonged in Eastern Europe, adding a "u" out of nowhere and rhyming it with Krakow or Moscow (at least the U.S. pronounciation of Moscow, with "cow" at the end, as opposed to "coe", which is how they say it in England.)

And that's just the pronounciation faux pas. There's the country faux-pas and the geographical faux-pas to also address.

For those Americans who haven't taken the time to study it, here is a quick nationality lesson about my home country.

1) England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland are separate countries. Scotland is not a part of England. Wales is not a part of England. Northern Ireland is not a part of England.

2) "Britain" or "Great Britain" refers to England, Wales, and Scotland together.

3) The "United Kingdom" refers to England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland together. The official term (and what is written on my passport) is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

4) Further, there is also the geographical term "The British Isles", which includes everything in #3 but also 500 surrounding islands, that include The Isle of Man, which has its own laws and parliament.

Ok, I realize this can be confusing but at least grasping #1 and #2 should be standard. Although I lived in England for 21 years before I moved here, I at least understood that, while America was interchangeably called "America", the "U.S." and "USA", that there was a continent called America, that there was a North and South to it, and that the USA didn't refer to Mexico and Canada. You see my point, I hope.

We also have to add to this the geographical obliviousness. Glasgow is about 400 miles from London or a 7 hour drive. Saying that you're going to "England" and flying into Glasgow is like saying you're going to Mexico then flying into Santa Barbara. I'm not sure whether this guy's daughter was equally as ignorant but, if she was, I would have pitied her arriving in Glasgow only to have to drive 7 hours go get to her final destination.

Of course, I was tempted to assert my own superiority in this particular area of knowledge but I don't talk to people at the gym, whenever possible. First of all, it's 5am and my social skills don't activate for at least another two hours and secondly, I didn't want to get friendly with this guy because then I'm stuck with sharing banalities with him every morning from hereon out.

Why I don't bother traveling in the U.S.

In short, it's too frickin' expensive.

I've been spending some time thinking about our next trip and originally I had promised Hubby that this year (after Jamaica, which was supposed to be last year anyway) we would stay closer to home to save money.

Well, that's not going to work.

It's not going to work because 4 nights in Monterey is just as expensive (in some cases, if not more so) as almost a whole week, all inclusive, in Mexico or the Caribbean. So, why exactly would I travel down the street, where I see the same old chain stores and restaurants, when I can get a real break

Vacation deals for $521 - flight plus 4 nights in an all inclusive resort!

Ok, so granted, we could stay in a Motel 8 in Monterey and eat at Subway but, at that rate, I'd rather stay home.

Guess it's too soon to put our passports away for the year after all...

Exactly

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Getting some adult time - Jamaica Part 3

I know - it's been more than a week since I got home and I'm still not done talking about vacation. In my defense, after I stopped my travel reportage for my Belize trip a few years ago, mid-stream, I received a lot of comments from friends crying foul. So this time I am determined to finish up. (Although I haven't exactly received much feedback on the other two posts, so maybe I'm talking to thin air...)

In the previous two posts I talked about the challenges, as well as joys, of traveling with an infant. However, it wasn't all about Ms. Daisy. Granted, mostly, but not all.

Since we had Nan and Grandad with us on our trip, we requested adjoining rooms so that we would have the flexibility to go somewhere and hang out whenever Daisy went down for naps. This meant that, after we put her down at night, we could tip our hat to Mum and Dad next door and head out for a moonlit walk on the beach. This was something we would do before turning in at night when we had visited Negril as a couple and so it was one thing we could hold onto from our previous trips.

The waves are so light in Bloody Bay (the stretch of beach our hotel, present and past, was located on) that you don't really hear the sea until you're right next to it. Even then it is a gentle lapping versus the crashing and rushing most of us are used to on the Pacific or Atlantic coasts. So, at night the beach is pretty quiet, well patrolled by the security guards of the side-by-side resorts, and absent the guests who are mostly being entertained further back within the hotel somewhere.

Despite there being five resorts stretched out around the large bay, there are very few electric lights - just a couple near the guard stations and a few that peek through the palm trees from the resorts themselves. This leaves most of the beach glowing a gray blue with merely the light of the moon. Up above you can see what must be every star in the sky twinkling back at you. On our last night it was a full moon, which was so bright that the palm trees cast shadows on the beach. I wish I was better with my camera settings and had brought my tripod with me as it really was something I would love to have captured.

Sitting on a beach lounger with nobody else around, sand in our toes, and only the sound of the sea licking at the beach, we would talk about our vacations past and present; about how cool it was to share our favorite place in the world (to date) with our daughter and how we looked forward to educating her in the school of life through our future travels. Sometimes we wouldn't say anything at all, just enjoying one another's company and taking in the moment. It's times like this that make me so happy that I married my best friend. It's not like we never argue, disagree or get on one another's nerves (because we do) but, on the whole, we are in-synch, on the same page, and enjoy many of the same things. Those things matter when you travel and they give you moments like we had on our last night sitting in the shadow of a palm tree, cast by a bright blue moon.

Then there was the evening we were sitting on the beach and listening to the live reggae coming from the resort stage. In vacations past we would be perched right in front of the stage, cocktail in hand, getting up to dance once in a while. This year, not so. Entertainment didn't really kick-in until 9:30pm and by then Daisy was crispy-creamed, even with the benefit of the two hour time difference. For a while we were ok with straining to hear the familiar songs from afar and then I heard a familiar bass line from "Welcome to Jamrock" by Damian Marley. It wasn't that big in the U.S. but it sure was in Jamaica. The first year we came to Jamaica, in December of 2005 for New Year and right after we got engaged, they played Welcome to Jamrock at the huge New Year party. Literally every Jamaican in the house - no matter what they were doing, cooking, serving drinks, waiting on tables - dropped what they were doing, rushed the stage and started getting down. And of course, they can all dance. (Why is that!?) Although we'd never heard that song before, they lifted us up with their enthusiasm. It was a very cool sight and we never forgot that song. So, when I heard the familiar bassline, I grabbed hubby's hand and pulled him off the beach so we could hear better.

We didn't want to go too far from the room and so we found ourselves standing on the pathway from our room block, arms wrapped around one another, bopping up and down to the song. Nobody else was around; it was our own private party. Man, I love Jamaica.

We also couldn't end our vacation without a visit to the legendary Rick's Cafe, at the tip of the island - a fifteen minute taxi ride from our resort. Although we saw folks there with babies, having been there before, we knew it was going to be too loud and too busy to be able to coral Daisy there, so we used it as the perfect opportunity to participate in date night.


Me and Hubby @ Rick's.

Rick's is one of those places that is famous for being famous, somewhat, but it doesn't dent the experience any. Perched on the edge of a cliff with uninterrupted views out over the Carribbean and to the horizon, people mainly go to Rick's for sunset. For the two hours prior to sunset and then about thirty minutes thereafter, it's the hottest ticket in Jamaica. As their website says, the crowd runs the gamut from Rastas to Rolexes, making it a great people-watching spot.


Hubby watching the sun set.

There is also a spot for cliff-diving (from tame to absolutely freaking crazy in height) and once every thirty minutes or so some nutty Jamaican dudes show off for tips by diving from a teeny branch of a thirty foot tree, directly into the rocky abyss below.




Here is the lowest spot from which you could dive. On the upper left, where you see the cliff disappear off the shot, is the highest spot. People line up to leap off there, although we saw some folks chicken-out at the last minute. The Jamaican hanging from the tree is above that spot. So yeah, he really is nuts.

Finally, as if all that weren't enough, there is a stage with live music every night. Usually it's the in-house reggae band but on this particular night it was an infamous local female steel drum band that, quite frankly ROCKED.


You can see video of the group in action here - I was having trouble embedding the html in the blog for some reason.

Rick's was the perfect ending to our vacation. On a week that had been all about our daughter, we got to spend some time just being a couple again.

All of that and we still got back to the resort in time for dinner and a bath with Daisy. Perfect!

When "No Problem" becomes a problem - Jamaica Part Two

Man, I've had this past week of to spend with Daisy and I've been pooped by the end of the night, unable to get to a blog post. As for trying to blog when Ms. Daisy is around - FUGGHEDABOUDIT! The minute I sit in front of the this laptop, she starts tugging on my leg and whining. When I don't respond, she begins banging her head against the underside of the dining room table. Yeah, I know, extreme. She has a knack for drama, this kid. Hence, it's taking a while to bash-out these posts. (I guess it comes down to the posts or Daisy's head.)

So, where did we leave off? Ahh.... Daisy pooped. Bag with formula and diapers safely in our posession. Settled in paradise. What else is there to report?

Well, I did a quick post on Lazy Crazy Daisy about Daisy's experience in Jamaica. Needless to say that we fully expect Daisy to turn 18, move to Jamaica, and produce a beautiful mixed-race grandchild.. That aside, I'm left with reportage on things from the parental side. So, let's talk about high chairs.

Yes, these posts are about how travel has changed since we have become parents and the high chair situation in our hotel underscores one of the problems you just don't think about when you're packing your suitcase.

As you can see from this picture, Daisy had a lovely green, plastic high chair which she ate most of her meals on...



Unfortunately, there was only one of these high chairs in residence. Every other high chair in the resort was wooden and not one of them - that's right, NOT A ONE - had a restraint that wasn't broken. That includes no strap around the crotch area.

For the first couple of days, we made do, wrangling Daisy as she twisted and turned in the defective wooden high-chairs. Then, on our third night, while eating dinner, Ms. Daisy arched her back just the right way and went sliding down and underneath the front bar. THANK GOD, Hubby and I were seated either side of her at the time and reacted in unison, grabbing her just as her chin was about to get wrenched upwards on the underside of the bar. A second later and she would have been on the floor!

A sigh of relief was had by all that she was not hurt, although she cried with shock for a minute or two, but from that moment forward we obviously refused to use the wooden high chairs. Sadly, the "no problem" attitude we love about the Jamaicans, extended to their reaction when we told them what happened. There was generally a lack of concern that no suitable high chairs were available and a shrug of the shoulders - "those are the only ones we have" - when we tried to urge them to find something else. Despite our complaints, nothing was ever done to make those high chairs safe or to replace them. In looking around, most other parents either seemed to have lobbied for the green plastic high chair or fed their babies in their stroller (not do-able for Daisy who wants to be at table level.) As my Dad quite rightly pointed out, all he would have needed was some tools and some straps and it would have taken him 10 minutes to jimmy-rig something suitable.

So we resorted to heavily tipping the good wait staff who did seem to give a shit, making sure that the one green high chair (in 5 restaurants!) was set-aside and found for us each time. Sadly, money talks.

In the U.S., someone would have sued by now but in Jamaica I doubt most people working at the hotel have ever seen a high chair outside of the resort, probably think our kids are all spoiled and that we should be greatful they have a special chair at all. I was talking to the lady a the photo desk one day and she told me that just to buy a plane-ole run-of-the-mill umbrella stroller in Jamaica, it costs $200. Yes, $200 for that stroller we can pick up at BabiesRUs for $30-$50. Crazy. Based upon that, I can only imagine how much a high chair would cost.

We do plan to write to the Riu corporate office, however, because those chairs remain a danger. It's only a matter of time before someone's baby gets seriously hurt.

Who moves furniture at 11pm???

The only other complaint we had about the resort was how thin the walls and ceilings were and how loud (Holy Cow LOUD!), the hotel room doors were when they closed. Unless you took extreme care to close it slowly, there was pretty much no way not to close the door without making it sound like you slammed it. And with all the rooms and hallways having tile floors, the sound of doors closing in our block just constantly echoed around the hotel through the day and night.

Usually, when you're traveling without an infant, these are things you notice in passing. However, when you're thinking about getting your baby down for a nap, or keeping her down after putting her to sleep for the night, every noise becomes a nuisance. For the most part, we tried to keep a balance between understanding that people just need to get on with their business and being irritated when staff or guests abused the privilege - such as the turn-down maids that yelled down the hallway to one another at 10:30pm at night. What we learned for the future was to be adament about getting a room away from all major thoroughfares, at the edge of the resort, and ON THE TOP FLOOR. Because...

What we couldn't ignore, was the constant furniture rearrangement that would go on every single night in the room directly above us.

Every night, sometime around 11pm, the people above us would return to their room and would begin playing musical chairs with the furniture, scraping all manner of items across the tile floor for a good 30-45 minutes. After two nights of this, and after Hubby and I returned from our night time walk on the beach, I lost my cool. I flew through our hotel door before Hubby could say a word to stop me, ran down the hallway, flew up the stairs, and knocked angrily on the room above.

A guy answered through the door asking me what I wanted and I asked him exactly when he was going to quit scraping furniture across the floor and allow us to sleep. He opened the door a crack and said that he and his family were just getting out the trundle bed for his kids and were then going to sleep. There was no way on earth that this process would have taken 30 minutes every night and plus why couldn't they do this at 7pm before they went to dinner? Grrr! Unfortunately, despite my visit, this irritation continued throughout our vacation. Fortunately, Ms. Daisy slept through it all, although slightly disturbed from time-to-time, leaving us all to wonder why the hell we bother to creep around after she goes to bed at home. (We now don't, by the way.)

Tomorrow I'll quit the complaining and talk about some of the fun things that Hubby and I got up to, minus Ms. Daisy. Despite this vacation being about initiating our daughter into the world of travel, beach laziness, and reggae, we did find ways to enjoy the "other" Jamaica - the one with just the two of us and a gently lapping Carribbean sea. Ya mon!

Vacationing with an infant is like having sex - Jamaica Part One

OK, not the comparison you were expecting but hear me out....

Vacationing with an infant is a lot like having sex because it's never as perfect as in the movies but, once you let go of that idealized vision and live in the moment, there are an awful lot of great 'moments' to enjoy.

Our week in paradise was definitely not perfect and we had to make some adjustments based upon previous trips: there was none of that idle floating in the ocean and topping off our tan (we barely got a tan); we didn't do any exciting excursions (in fact, we barely left the resort); and we spent more time in our room than we ever have before (3-4 hours a day just for naps). Yet, it was all worth it.

The moment we landed in Montego Bay with our smiling munchkin, a lump swelled up in my throat and I was filled with joy: I said I was going to travel with my baby abroad and I said I would be back to Jamaica... and there we were! Then, as I waded into the calm, aqua-blue sea with Daisy in my arms, I think a tear even escaped my eye. Just under two years ago, Hubby and I left that same stretch of beach in Negril having celebrated making it through my hip surgery, and in month one of trying to get pregnant. The very next month Daisy was conceived. And now there we were with our beautiful daughter, sharing our favorite place in the world with her. There is nothing like sharing the things you love with your kids, I have discovered. Jamaica is just the first of many places I'm excited to show her as she grows.

That car seat saved our sanity


Thank GOD for binkies!

After we changed our vacation dates last December, our flights ended up being a tad cheaper and so we put some of the remaining credits toward a seat for Daisy vs. putting her on our lap. Since she is now walking (vs. just crawling in December) it was the best decision we have ever made. Let me say this now, unquivocally: I WILL NEVER FLY WITH DAISY WITHOUT BUYING HER A SEAT.

Maybe you have a kid that will happily sit on your lap for a few hours at a time and play with you, or snuggle in your arms when he/she is sleepy. If so, I'm happy for you. Save the money and don't bother with the seat. However, I do not. Daisy is a physically active, wriggly, independent and wilfull child. I wouldn't have her any other way but putting her on my (or anyone else's) lap for 4 hours at a time would have been a complete and utter nightmare - for us and everyone else on the plane.

Even with the seat, the most amount of sleep we got out of Daisy (usually an excellent sleeper) was an hour and a half per flight - and that was even with with doing a red-eye! The rest of the three or so hours was spent trying to get her to sleep, reading, singing to her, or walking up and down with her. Of course, it didn't help that, on the way out, we got stuck right at the back of the plane next to the engine (holy noise, Batman!) and right where everyone was coming and going from the bathroom.

Inbetween flights we didn't get much respite either. The two or so hour layovers we had in Atlanta consisted of giving Daisy the much-needed freedom from her seat that she needed to make it through the next flight. Pretty much what this meant was popping some shoes on her and letting her run wild through the terminal, Nanny usually in tow. It was pretty hilarious to see our little 30 inch munchkin toddling through a sea of passengers.

In short, it was hard work. But, for the most part, we avoided screaming fits and melt-downs. For that reason, we're calling the traveling part a success. Ms. Daisy made it through a four hour flight, a two hour layover, another two and a half hour flight, then a ninety minute taxi ride to the hotel and arrived with a smile on her face, ready for a dip in the ocean. A parent can't ask for much more from an eleven month old.

A rocky start

Having made it through the mammoth day of travel, we arrived into our room with a huge sigh of relief. First things first, we set about unpacking and getting all the miscellaneous baby paraphinalia organized - diapers, wipes, formula, bottles, onesies, toys, dolls, books... Except... We were missing a duffel bag. Yes, we had managed to leave the airport and get all the way to the hotel without realizing we had completely forgotten one of our bags. In our defense, we had seven bags and a stroller between the five of us. But, of course, we missed the biggie - the bag with the formula and the diapers in it. The only two things we knew we absolutely HAD TO make sure got to Jamaica because who knows what they use in Jamaica!?

Mortified, I called the airline and they were able to confirm that the bag did indeed make it safely to Jamaica and that it had never cleared security, meaning we had indeed just left it on the carousel. Unfortunately the Delta rep couldn't get a hold of the baggage claim in Montego Bay and couldn't find out if they were willing to deliver it to our hotel - the usually do not but given the critical nature of the contents, the rep was hoping they would make an exception. He told me that the phone just kept ringing, ringing, ringing without answer but that he would put in a request for them to help us out. However, if we didn't hear from them in an hour and a half, he suggested we go back to the airport (a 90 minute, $80 cab ride each way!) to retrieve it personally. This was at 1pm and the baggage claim closed at 5pm. Knowing the laissez-faire, "no problem" attitude of Jamaicans, we weren't holding out much hope for them to answer the phone or deliver the bag. So Hubby took it upon himself to bite the bullet and head back to the airport. After a hair-raising cab-ride and the greasing of some Jamaican palms, he did indeed locate and obtain the much-needed luggage but it meant he was gone for a good few hours on our first day of vacation.

Pooped

Despite missing a Daddy, we headed out to the beach anyway, where we quickly learned that our visions of making sandcastles on the beach with Daisy were unrealistic. Daisy thought that sand made a better snack than building material and she was more interested in picking up handfulls (or bucketfulls) of it and dropping it on her head, than being artistic. It ended up in her hair, her ears, her mouth, her eyes... pretty much everywhere. Which made her mad. But not as mad as she was when we tried to take her off the beack. OMG, that was a doozy of a tantrum.

Oh, and let's not forget how much we DID NOT LIKE being slathered with sunscreen or having a hat put on our head. It took us two days to get her to accept a sun hat and the bucket was quickly relegated to the "too young for that" pile.


A rare moment on day one with our hat. I think she whipped it off shortly after this pic.



After our sand excursion, Daisy finally pooped out on my chest in a darkened hotel room (thank goodness for black-out curtains!) After a while I rolled her onto the bed where she stayed for more than two hours, totally comatose. Bless!



Yawn... more tomorrow...

A shot in the ass

Not the metaphorical kind but the literal kind.

Today, my doctor decided to finally listen to me.

After asking me every week if was "80% better? 90% better?" I finally stopped him and said, "You KEEP ASKING ME THAT! I know you WANT ME to be 90% better - I do too - but I'm not and I don't see any point in lying about it."

That stopped him in his tracks. He ditched his rush-rush attitude, sat on the table and looked at me. I breathed a sigh of relief. Dude, I've been trying to tell you I AM NOT SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER!

I explained the process of how my PT had stopped my previous relief strategies in their tracks when she diagnosed me with the SI joint problem and how that had increased my pain and created new pains because now I no longer had my short-fix, self-help treatments. I told him that yes, indeed, some of that had subsided but the fact remains that I have so many different pains that fluctuate on a day-by-day, week-by-week basis, as well as the original pains I visited him with initially, that's hard to say exactly what percent better I am. Depending on what measure you're using I could actually say I'm WORSE!

His feeling was that I was somehow stuck. I've done so much, had so many different kinds of treatments (CONTINUE to have many different kinds of treatments) and, while I may be progressing, it definitely seems as though something is getting in the way of me making that switch into real recovery.

I was all, like, WELL YES! THAT'S WHY I'M HERE!

In all fairness, I'm a new patient to him. He's been dealing with me since Feb 1, I've been dealing with me and this hip thing since October '05.

So, we skipped the osteo manipulation for today, since I don't think all that cracking was helping anyway. Doc asked me where the majority of the pain seemed to start from, where the worst of it was and I pointed to my right butt cheek - for the anatomically correct, my piriformis area. It pretty much never stops aching, being sore, and/or burning. He pushed in there too and agreed that it definitely felt hard and tight. (Again, I'm all like, YES, THAT'S WHAT I SAID!)

Then he suggested a cortisone shot. At which point my hands began to sweat, I began to hyperventilate and I said something pathetic like "I don't do needles. I don't do needles!" Despite his assertion that I "wouldn't feel it" (when do you never not feel a needle piercing your skin!?) I was still mentally figuring out how to get out of there without getting stabbed. Yet, he made a good point: I've tried everything else and if I want to get better I need to try everything. It could be that I have a chronically tight piriformis muscle and no amount of therapy is going to release it. The cortisone shot could be just the thing to chill things out and allow other affected parts to release, heal, and get better.

I had to admit that he was right and, with Jamaica looming on the horizon, the prospect of some relief for my vacation without hours and hours of working out or icing, sounded very attractive. So, I just made the decision there and then to do it. JUST DO IT! No pontificating or working myself up, get that damn needle in my ass, stat!

As it goes, it didn't hurt that bad. It did hurt though. But, I've had worse. (Obvy... I've had a hip surgery and a c-section.)

Doc said that my SI ligament is VERY tight (pregnancy?) and that this could actually have more to do with my pain than any skeletal misalignment. (I like the sound of that.) So, we're going to see how these cortisone injections work and he's going to do some specific manipulation when I come back, just for the SI ligament. In the meantime, no PT, light stretching and rest for my poor sore butt.

Am I noticing any difference? Sure, in the department of less stiffness/aching but right now my butt is sore from the jab itself, so it might be a day or so before I feel the real benefit.

I also had another Alexander Technique appointment today. Despite my mixed feelings from the last one, I actually felt like we made progress today, finding some key elements to my posture puzzle. Pelvic floor muscles and illiopsoas need to be engaged. This totally connected for me because I've had problems with tightness in these places also. Engaging these areas immediately lifted me off my lower back, made me feel taller, and reduced my heel-fall impact while I was walking. Amazing! Everything started feeling much more natural!

We also practiced standing up, sitting down, bending over, and picking up weights using the same techinques and I immediately felt the difference, as opposed to my back taking the weight. Next appointment, in two weeks, we'll get into picking up less stable weights of like, oh, well, 20lbs. I wonder why....?

God Insurance

Why does religion sometimes leads people to throw all common sense and judgment out the window?

Although this kind of thing may sound like a good idea on the surface, the reality is that one big chronic illness could send this whole thing toppling down and leave someone who is really ill and in need of care, with crippling medical bills. Not only does not having health insurance mean there is no legal guarantee of coverage (or, at least as much guarantee as you have under the current system where insurance companies frequently find technicalities to avoid paying their bills) but it also means that, as individual purchasers of medical services, these people do not have the collective bargaining power to negotiate better rates. So, they're probably paying the highest price for the services they receive.

Add to that the fact that many health providers these days (as I found out during my mother's hip surgery) do not actually take cash patients any more, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Meanwhile, that person will be left with the inability to find private medical insurance that will cover them because their condition will be then classed as "pre-existing" and no profit-hungry insurer will touch that with a 12-foot bargepole.

Now, I don't know about you but, unless God is thinking of planting money trees sometime soon, I don't think faith alone can solve those problems.

A great quote

Today I stumbled upon a great travel-related quotation that I wanted to share.

I don't get to travel as much as I would like to these days. I laugh as I write this because I didn't get to travel as much as I wanted to before I had a baby, or a mortgage, or a full-time job with vacation time to worry about. So now, with all the trappings of the regular family life, it's more difficult than ever.

The reality is that I love travel so much that I have never yet had the opportunity to test my limits or stretch my boundaries. In this, as in many other areas of my life, I often feel like a big elastic band that has only been pulled to 30% of it's stretching capacity. Some days I feel like I go through life on auto-pilot, going through the motions, doing the same things over-and-over again, seeing the same people, watching the same TV shows, eating the same food... Sometimes the comfort of the familiar is nice but, periodically throughout the year, I get a severe case of cabin fever and need a new environment, a break from the norm.

It's been about 15 months since I left this country, and almost two years since I took a real foreign vacation (the other time was to my other home - the UK), so, this quotation hit home today.

"Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken." -- Frank Herbert

Of course, it doesn't just apply to traveling but to life in general. It reminds me to keep challenging myself, to wake-up my mind, and therefore wake-up my spirits.

Something to think about as we head into Q2 this year.

An apology to my readers (should there be any remaining)

I have just noticed that my last six bazillion posts are either about my hip or my weight.

So, this is just a quick post to apologize to any of you left out there who may still be reading this blog and hoping (against all hope) that I will find something new to "rant" about.

At one point this blog was about travel and politics and opinions and interesting stuff like that. Now it's just a sad reflection of what my life has become - a merry-go-round of medical appointments and sulking.

Must do better. In life as well as on blog.

Stay tuned...

Recovery is time consuming

I've been too busy recently to blog about what's going on, specifically with my hips problems, so it's time for a recap.

Last week I had my first Alexander Technique appointment. For those of you who have absolutely no idea what this is and are perhaps wondering if I'm heading for a bionic hip or something, here is a brief synopsis of what the AT is and why I'm trying it.

Using the description from the official website: "an Alexander Technique teacher helps you to identify and lose the harmful habits you have built up over a lifetime of stress and learn to move more freely." So, basically, someone takes a look at your body mechanics, the way you move, the way you sit, your posture, and helps you to be in a more natural alignment, thus helping you to mitigate muskuloskeletal pain caused by your misalignment. This, of course, is a gross oversimplification of what this process is all about but, unless you're really into it, I think that description suffices for the purpose of this post. If you want to know more, you can visit the Alexander Technique website at http://www.alexandertechnique.com.

The Alexander Technique has been around since the 1800s, when it was created by it's namesake, Frederick Matthias Alexander but I learned about it from my friend, E, of The Gurly Life, who has been suffering from the same hip and SI Joint issues as I have. It's not new news to me that my posture leaves a lot to be desired and, after hearing consistently from my physical therapist that I have the body mechanics of a rag doll, I felt the time was right to add Alexander to my treatment strategy.

As I live in the Sacraghetto area, I am not blessed with an awful lot of options when it comes to these alternative treatment options. So, I had the grand choice of one AT teacher within 100 miles. For the purposes of this blog, we'll call him Jim, although that's not his real name.

Jim works out of a granny annex at the back of his home and it did occur to me briefly, as I walked down the residential driveway, that I could be heading into the lair of a sex offender or something. Fortunately, although Jim is indeed 'weird' (at least by my definition of the word), he appears to be safe. Jim's 'weirdness' comes from his posture, general demeanor and the way he speaks. The first thing that bothered me is that he holds himself like a caveman, with long arms that seem to hang limply from his shoulders and large hands that almost brush his knees when he walks. This wasn't very encouraging, since I was there to learn 'better' posture from this guy - developing the gait of a prehistoric cavewoman wasn't on my list of goals for the year. (I know, right?) Secondly, Jim has this presence about him that is very... superior and supercilious, let's call it, but in that quiet and self-contained way that makes you think that he spends all day meditating, eating willow bark, and avoiding any and all stress in life.

I may be over-reaching in my first impressions, but it seems like Jim lives his life in a bubble of calm, peace, and ease, and feels a level of disdain and pity for the rest of us who run around in our complicated lives, stressing ourselves out with roller-coaster emotions, and poor habits. He obviously sees his work as an AT teacher, as a way to preach a better way and I guess that's where I had a problem connecting with him. His teaching felt borderline creepy-religious-cult. I know I'm over-reacting here, because I don't think at all that this guy is dangerous, but I'm just trying to convey the reasons why he irritated me.

Now, I'd like to be clear in this - I don't aspire to live a life of calm, peace, and ease. Really. I mean it. The very thought makes me want to puke with panic. I like roller-coasters, both literally and figuratively. I never feel more alive than when I'm zooming through the air on some crazy theme-park contraption, the wind whipping at my face and adrenaline rushing through my body. I don't want to live my life on a flat-line - I'm ok with ups and downs because the downs make the ups so much sweeter, and the ups make the downs bearable. I recognize that's not for everyone - some people prefer to live life on a calmer sea - but that's me. And for some reason, people like Jim just freak me out. I have a phobia of those quiet, self-contained, calm people. I think part of me fears that they're really just bottling it all up and that, at some point, it's all going to come bubbling over in some major, psychotic breakdown. Emotions - both high and low - are natural and it seems unnatural (and dangerous) to me, that someone can regulate their emotional self to such an extent that they never really display or experience extreme joy or sadness. Ok, psychoanalyze this all you want, it is kind of an oddity I'll admit but not something I plan on stewing over. So let's move on...

The point is that it was hard to settle into the advice I was getting from Jim because of how I felt about him. However, I did get some good nuggets that make sense and that I have been trying to deploy into my regular day.

Our spine (neck to tailbone) is connected, not just in a literal sense, but in a behavioral sense also. Meaning, what you do at the top of your spine affects everything below it, and visa versa. This may sound simple and obvious but it's more than that. For instance, if you let your chin jut and/or down out when you're stressed or thinking, it not only affects your neck and upper back (which is a no-brainer) but it throws off your entire balance because now your whole spine has to readjust to balance your head (which, let's face it, is a big-ole thing on your shoulders) resulting in unnatural load bearing in different areas of your back and the connecting muscles. It's these types of readjustments that result in chronic pain. Your body, over time, unlearns the way to be in balance, the way our skeleton was designed. Our muscles start taking over from our skeleton, to do the job of holding us upright, and - hey presto! - all sorts of odd (painful) things happen.

Personally, my poor habits include hyperextending and locking out my legs when I stand, over-arching my back, curving my shoulders, and (at the same time) driving my heel into the ground ahead of me when I walk. This last one is important because, what this means in relation to all my other body mechanics, is that I am literally driving the head of my femur into my hip socket with force, every time I take a step. OUCH! All the other stuff amounts to me placing too much load on my lower back. What feels like a "natural" or "upright" posture for me, is actually leaning back. When readjusted for 'neutral', I feel like I am leaning forward. It's the craziest thing! So, I have to re-learn standing, sitting, and walking (amongst other things.)

Jim actually told me to watch Daisy walk because, obviously, her body mechanics have not been contaminated by modern life... yet. She walks with her head leading and her body following, almost as if she is about to fall forward at any time. Although this may be an extreme example of what I need to do, the basis for my new posture is right there: lead with my head, not my feet. There's a lot more involved in it than that, of course, stuff about pausing, giving my body directions, "letting my neck be freeeeee!", looking down from my ears (!), and pulling back my ribs to name a few, but essentially that's the primary guiding factor. (And yes, I did feel and look a bit like a prehistoric cavewoman in the "ideal" posture. I think I'm going to have to modify it a bit to suit me, for vanity purposes!)

After all the walking and sitting instruction, I got to lay down with my head balancing on a paperback book, knees up. Again, my instruction was to let my neck be "freeeee" and to lengthen my spine through relaxation. My homework was to do this for 15 minutes a day every day. Something which I just haven't found the time to do. I guess I could be doing it now instead of blogging, so maybe I don't really have an excuse. Drats!

Add this to my physical therapy exercises and appointment, doctor appointments, and other miscellaneous advice about how to move, bend-down, stand, roll-over, sit-up etc... and it's all a little overwhelming.

I've calculated that, if I did everything the physical therapist and Jim tells me to do, I'd spend approximately 4 hours each day just working on my recovery. Who has that kind of time when you have a full time job and are the mother of an 11 month old??? It's like having a second, part-time job!

That four hours breaks down into:

• 20 minutes of physical therapy exercises 3x per day
• 20 minutes of laying down, icing my back, 3x day
• 15 minutes of AT head-on-book balancing 1x per day
• PLUS, at least one hour per day, most days, at appointments for either my doctor (who I see for osteopathic manipulation once per week), my physical therapist (who I see 3x per week), and now Jim (one time per week + 30 minutes drive-time each way.)

All that time comes out of somewhere and none of these folks take appointments outside of business hours, so, I have to take early or late lunches, resulting in things like me eating pre-packed salads in the bathroom while trying to shower.

As I said, this is not to mention the almost-impossibility of trying to remember all the other advice about my general, everyday movements. Trying to go through a 3-step, back-friendly process just to bend down and pick something up off the floor, kind of just flies out the window when it's your daughter reaching for a choking hazard. It's ok when you have the time to remember it but, for the most part, I'm too busy to spend time thinking for ten minutes every time I move a body part. I try but it's an imperfect science right now. I guess I would say that I'm learning to be more aware of what I'm doing, when I'm doing it, which is a start.

Adding to this, I am trying to re-incorporate some yoga back into my routine every day. I know my physical therapist said no yoga but she isn't a yoga practitioner and I think (from what she has said to me) she has a shallow understanding of the discipline, reducing it to all those power-hot-yoga classes, taught by a svelte 20-something, who understands little-to-nothing about proper body mechanics. Good yogis spend years and years refining their technique and understanding of the human body and there are certain sectors of yoga that place strict emphasis on proper posture and alignment, most specifically Iyengar yoga, which is what my friend, E, practices. So, I found a book on yoga and back pain using Iyengar principles and which has a section on SI Joint Dysfunction. On Monday I started (slowly and gently and cautiously) adding some of the positions into my evening workout routine. My other goal is to find a weekend or evening class locally that I can attend, where I can get some one-on-one instruction (which has really helped E) but finding that in the Sacraghetto area is proving to be hard and, anyway, when on earth would I fit it in????

Then there's the cost.

Each doctor's visit is $25, each physical therapy visit is $45 and each Alexander Technique appointment is $70. Add that up and I'm already spending a wopping $230 a week on these treatments! I could literally go broke just trying to get healthy.

It would all be easier to bear if I were feeling any significant difference in my pain but I'm not. The only improvement that I have noticed is a reduction in the shooting, nerve-related pain that was occasionally going down my thigh and into my ankle. I'm still left with a sore low back, a sore right butt cheek, a very, very sore outer thigh (from a tight IT band) and soreness and twinges in my inner thigh/groin, as well as around my hip flexors/psoas.

I keep telling myself that I have been experiencing this chronic pain for years and so it's going to take more than weeks to undo all the damage and compensation and bad habits but, as much as that makes sense rationally, emotionally (and financially!) you need to see results to keep plugging forward on the same path. I've been with this new diagnosis and treatment plan for 5 weeks now and I would have thought I would be feeling more of an improvement than I have.

My doctor seems to bear this out because, every Monday when I see him, he asks me how much better I am doing (as a percentage). Each week he sayes something like: "So, are you 70% better? 80%?" and each week I reply with "No, more like 30%." I get the feeling he thinks that I am being obstinate or difficult but really what's the point in lying? 30% may even be overstating it, quite frankly.

I veer from despondent to hopeful on any day in any given week. My hope comes from my friend, E, who has battled this and come out the other side. My despondency comes from my lack of time to really do everything I need to do, the cost, the slow (if at all existent) progress, and the repeated pattern of pain. It's not an excrutiating pain but, at any time of day, whether sitting, standing, laying down, or walking, I'm experiencing low grade pain (3-4 out of 10) somewhere in my body. After a while it wears you down.

So, after all of this, I'm not sure where it leaves me. Except, it seems, with a broken "J" key on my keyboard. It literally just flipped off, up into the air, and landed on my lap. Not that I use the J key much but every time I tap a key near it, which is I, H, K, M, and N, it flies away again. So, off to order a new keyboard from the IT department...

Quick Update

1. HIP

My swelling continued to go down, my PT said today. I think it's the new anti-inflam because we're not doing anything else significantly different, or at least anything that would affect my inflammation that quickly.

She also tested my flexibility because I was complaining that my leg felt tight, particularly in the quad. Yeah, well... NOT. I'm still hyperflexible. The pain I'm feeling IS nerve pain. It's sinking in slowly. VERY slowly. Each piece of information sits, absorbs, and is added to a previous piece of information.

It's hardly a wonder I'm not religious - if I need 3 weeks of continuous examples, education, and proof that my pain is not muscle/tightness related, think how much proof you'd have to show me to convince me that God actually exists! (This is not a comment on anyone who IS religious, by the way. It's just the way I am. I don't take things at face value. Sorry!)

Talking of which... my PT is a believer and has taken my studious silence during a recent chat with her intern about where she worships, as agreement with the same. Now my PT includes instruction on how to pray for better health and to put my fate in God's hands.

Sorry folks... I don't see God poking my nerve endings. I'm going to stick with trying to fix this one myself.

And lest you think that I am a horrible heathen (which you may very well do anyway), I am at least not planning on telling her that I am a non-believer. She is a nice person who is just trying to help me and, quite honestly, I don't want to have "that" conversation with her (and she is the type that would have "that" conversation.) I respect her right to worship whomever she wants and neither want to be converted nor engaged in a religious debate. So, I'm staying "mum", as wel say in Blighty.

Last note on this: pain is still pretty constant. Not much change there, although I take my friend, e's point, that my overall trend may be slowly downwards by small degrees; it may take a while to register that there's a difference.

2. WEIGHT

Today 147.8lbs and 36.3% fat. So, my tally is 13.2lbs lost and 2.8lbs to go to my target. 6.3% of my bodyfat still to lose. Blech!

On the plus side, with all this physical therapy focusing on strengthening my trunk, I'm going to end up with six-pack abs!

Inch by inch

Today my physical therapist told me that the swelling in my sacrum/low back area, had subsided a tad. It was a small change but the only positive one in the two weeks I've been with her, so we had a mini celebration. (Basically, a quiet and brief "woot")

Who knows what made the difference between Monday and Wednesday? Who knows if it was anything I changed that recently or just accumulative effects of everything I've been doing over the last two weeks.

All I can tell you is what changed:

• On Monday, at my doctor's appointment, he did some osteopathic manipulation on me, cracking my lumbar and hip areas. Not as much as the previous time and I didn't feel any immediate relief, but who knows?
• Doc also gave me a different anti-inflammatory. I was taking plain-ole Ibuprofen in prescription strength (600mg) before and I have been taking that, in one dose or another, for many years for headaches, aches, and pains. Instead I'm now taking an NSAID that is typically prescribed for arthritis patients, Meloxicam.
• I started sitting less at my chair in my office and just less overall. What I discovered was that standing wasn't a whole lot better, either. My back got really tired really fast and I felt as though I was going out of alignment big-time; I would end up standing with all my weight on my good leg and then that hip would start to hurt. Walking around and sitting or laying down periodically seemed to help overall. Basically, not doing anything for too long seems to be the key.
• I've also been cutting back on caffeine and sugar. I've gone down to only one sugar in my coffee and am trying to only have one cup of coffee in the morning. When I was pregnant I only drank one cup in the morning and, in the first 6-7 months of my pregnancy, my hip symptoms all-but went away. I have no idea if this has anything to do with anything, although I do know that sugar and caffeine can be inflammatory.

Any one of these things could be the difference... or not. It's so hard to tell, especially when I am personally not feeling any improvement from the pain and tightness side. In fact, I would say that, without the ability to stretch things out or get massage, I have felt tighter and more pain overall. Not that my pain is a 7 out of 10 or anything but the things I could previously alleviate with self treatment, I can no longer affect, so they persist.

I have been keeping a pain journal but it has only served to confuse me more about what may be making a difference and what may not because the same thing on two different days can produce different results. Plus, my pain is often diffuse, varies throughout the day, and can present differently - as burning, as tweaking, as stabbing/acute, as sticking/popping/clicking, or as aching - in different areas, at different times. There are some constants, of course, but I can't say I've felt any positive improvements in any of them; as I said, I'm actually feeling a bit worse.

I'll spare you the details but my PT has an educated explanation for everything that is happening to me (including the wild fluctuations in case/effect and pain) and so I still have confidence that I am getting the best possible care. So, the journey continues. I'm doing as I'm told: doing the exercises, doing the icing, doing the resting, doing the journaling, doing the change in body mechanics, doing the NSAIDs... I just have to keep in mind that I'm trying to undo possibly 4.5 years of misdiagnosis, wrong treatments, and bad behaviors.

As I said to a friend recently however, hope without proof or progress is hard. At least this little budge in my inflammation is a positive sign we may be on the right track.

This week's mission: no sitting

I have been keeping a pain journal over the last week or so at the suggestion of my new physical therapist. Our goal, of course, is to try and determine what actions aggravate my pain symptoms.

So far it has not been incredibly helpful. My pain levels have always seemed to spike and subside without any real 'event' to pinpoint. The journal is mostly confirming this, although it is beginning to help us hypothesize some scenarios regarding my level of activity.

In short, I generally report better pain levels on days after being active. That is not to say hiking and running around like I used to (oh that would be wonderful again some day, but clearly not yet) but just days where I'm not sat at my desk for most of the day, the way I am M-F when at work. When I'm really busy, like last week, I can get so engrossed in what I'm doing that I can easily sit down one minute and, four hours later, look up to find I haven't moved, eaten, or drunk anything. When I do go to stand up again, my brain begins to clue-into the pain I have been ignoring, presumably because I'm always in some sort of pain and have become accustomed to putting it to one side most of the time, at least mentally, and when my brain is otherwise engaged. I also feel a slight clunk in my sacrum area (probably actually my S.I. joint, but I'm still learning to pinpoint exactly where that is) as if everything is trying to realign as I stand.

The mornings after these kinds of sitting days, I notice that I have more nerve pain (I have begun to differentiate now between nerve and muscle pain) in odd places, like down my leg into my knee, sometimes in my calf and ankle, up into my groin and psoas and often on the opposite side to my primary injury. It's not pain all at once, everywhere, but it's like someone is randomly poking you with a needle from the inside out, at different spots at different times, whether sitting and resting or standing and moving around.

This is not to say that I am pain free on days when I am active, or the day after. I definitely experience some of that same stabbing pain, only less, and some soreness in my muscles of my leg and lower back - more like a soreness, as I said, though, or a dull-ache - not the stabbing neuromuscular pain of other days.

So, my PT is hypothesizing that my SI joint issue is aggravated by compression and sagnation, meaning that sitting compresses my SI joint, putting pressure on it, and that my inflammation is made worse by periods of inactivity, where fluid has time to settle and build.

This would be good news if this was the case because the alternative would be that my joint is made worse my compression, load-bearing, and motion - meaning, sitting and laying down more would be the prescription. As someone who likes to be active and who, mentally, feels like this kind of prescription is a death sentence (almost literally), I am hoping against all hope that the first one is true.

My PT told me the story of a woman who was told by her surgeon that she needed back surgery but that, after the surgery, she would not be able to sit for some time because she would be pulling ont he muscles he cut through and would be hindering her healing. She was, understandably, pretty freaked out by this because the idea of completely eliminating sitting from her life for a while, was pretty daunting. So, she did something really smart: instead of waiting until after the surgery to figure this out, she decided to practice for a month before the surgery, by only laying, walking or standing for three weeks. You've probably already guessed what happened to her - after 3 weeks, she was cured. She had no back pain whatsoever and didn't need the surgery! Wow!

So, for the next week, my mission is to all-but completely avoid sitting. I'm going to stand at my pub table to work on my computer (as I am now) and if I need to rest I'll lay down or I'll walk around a bit to avoid stiffening up.

Meanwhile I'll keep up my walking now the weather is better, as a control, and see how my pain journal looks this time next week.

Of course, if this doesn't work, I'm going to have to try a week of not walking. However, based upon the fact that my symptoms have not got any better on this decreased activity plan that my PT has me on (and, in regards to the nerve pain, sometimes worse!) I'm going to guess (hope?) that it's the sitting thing that is my nemesis.

I'm also going to tape-up my hips while I'm standing and walking, again as my PT suggested. She did this to me last week and I had an instant feeling of relief and decompression in my lower back and sacrum area. (Further proof this is an SI joint issue, she says.)

My inflammation is not down yet but I'm hoping that we can get beyond that this week with this new plan because I've been doing my exercises 2-3 times a day, icing 3 times a day, changing the way I bend down and pick things up, and generally being very cognizant of my back, and yet nothing feels remotely better yet. I need some progress in order to feel like I'm on the right track and even the PT said that I should have started to feel some kind of incremental improvement by now. So, something is still wrong and unaddressed. I hope this is it.

Wish me luck and, if you're on FB and want to send me a nudge every once in a while to be sure I haven't forgotten myself and started sitting down again, go ahead!

On a completely unrelated note....

This weekend I FINALLY met a goal I have had for the last 2 years - I did a one day photography workshop with Penny Silvia, the photographer who has been taking pics of me, Joss, and Daisy since I was pregnant.

Although it was a crash course for amateurs in how to utilize your camera's settings and I definitely cannot claim pro status yet, I already found the information I learned incredibly helpful yesterday when the family went to Tahoe. I think I got some really cute pics of Daisy in the snow, that I am really proud of. Here is one I LOVE here, and you can see more in my photo set on Flickr, if you'd like to provide some feedback! :o)

The nature of love

I heard this on NPR this morning. It's one of the many stories that come out of the Story Corps series that touch my heart and leave me sitting in the car long after I should have got out, with a lump in my throat.

I have thought about sharing many of them over the years but this one was too wonderful to pass up. It speaks to me about the nature of love. So pure, so honest, so authentic. It's the stories and moments like this in life that make it worth living... at least for me.




On a completely unrelated note, I wanted to confirm that I have not given up on FRIDAY MOTIVATION posts. However, since I have been more focused on my physical therapy and trying to follow that plan, losing weight/gaining muscle has not been at the top of my list.

But, I have been trying to keep my weight down, by cutting back further on calories, especially given my decreased overall activity on the new therapy plan. (Something which pains me, by the way, my exercise is for my mental as well as physical health and I'm having a really hard time not "going for it" at the gym and not doing any yoga.)

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that I'm still hovering around 148lbs... if I can at least not put on weight while I'm on this limited activity program, I'm going to consider that a win.

From counter-productive to counter-intuitive

As you know, I have a new physical therapist - Marcia. I've been seeing her for about a week now and it's been a difficult 7 days. Not because of the therapy or the pain (no change there yet) but because of the prescription. Essentially, she is undoing everything I was doing to self-treat for the last 4.5 years; every piece of advice and diagnosis I've received from countless doctors, surgeons, physical therapists, chiropractors, and osteopaths.

It's proving to be not only a physical adjustment but a mental one as well.

In the last few visits, I've had the opportunity to quiz Marcia more about my diagnosis and prescription for recovery; to try and understand it from different angles. I'm not sure I'm 100% in-tune with it yet but, oversimplified, this is what has begun to sink in.

The pain(s) in my hip, buttocks, and leg that everyone has been treating as muscular are, in fact, neuropathy - nerve pain. This is wild to me. Just WILD. Not a single medical practitioner until this point has even mentioned nerve pain. Not one. The continued diagnosis of tight this muscle and irritated that ligament has been such a constant in the last four years that I can't even begin to get my head around the fact that the pain I'm feeling in many instances (obviously not all) is not muscular.

I believe and understand what Marcia is saying intellectually but there is still some part of me that won't grasp it, refuses to grasp it. It's like saying that the last four years, or at the very least the most recent two (since my surgery) have been a lie, a mistake, a serial misdiagnosis. I want to believe and trust that she is right - because she sure sounds like she knows what she's talking about - but to do that I have to have faith in the fact that she, this one person, has looked at the same person, the same symptoms, and come up with a completely different diagnosis. That's hard to grasp.

Of course, once you accept that your problem is not muscular but neurological, then you have to accept that the solution, your treatment strategy, and everything you've been doing up until this point, has been 100% wrong. And, in some cases, even counter-productive. Again, this is tough to accept; it's a big paradigm shift.

The nerve pain is not only made worse by excessive stretching (my previous self-treatment MO) but, my increased or hyper flexibility from the stretching, is preventing my muscles from protecting the irritated nerves and, therefore, continued stretching only serves to make the muscles spasm more, in order to try and protect the nerves. Basically, everything is freaking out, one thing trying to protect the other and actually making things worse. My pattern of stretching, doing yoga, and massaging only served to make my joint more unstable (hello pops and clicks) and my muscles more freaked out (hello IT band syndrome, psoas pain.)

So, yoga, at least for now, is out. (There's another big adjustment.) Anything that involves twisting or stretching my lower back or side-bending, is bad. No touching the toes, no picking things up below waist-height without bending my knees, no sitting straight up out of bed, no turning around in my car seat to grab Daisy's binky. In fact, Marcia taped my back after today's appointment, to help me understand all of the movements I make in a day that can potentially inflame my back. I have 3 layers of thick tape - one vertically to prevent forward flexion, one diagonally, to prevent twisting, and one horizontally to prevent side flexion - and feel as though I have a mini corset on.

For a good hour, the lack of mobility made me feel like I was a zombie. I got used to it as the day progressed, however, and have identified my sitting on the floor, legs crossed, as being the primary culprit, pulling and tugging on the tape. Otherwise, I have found that I do a pretty good job of avoiding any of the offending movements, probably because I have subconsciously been modifying my movements for some time and, also, I admit, because I knew the tape was there. Of course, when you have an active ten month old, avoiding sitting on the floor isn't always the easiest goal to meet.

In addition to the taping, Marcia has got me doing some core strengthening exercises and icing at least three times a day. In fact, I think that ice and rest is going to be a frequent prescription for my aches and pains in the long term. Learning what makes my symptoms flare up and avoiding that whenever possible is the primary objective - but that's in a perfect world; for the real world, RICE is going to be my new best friend.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I have not felt a significant difference in pain or discomfort yet. My pain and irritation usually fluctuates (sometimes wildly) from day-to-day, week-to-week, and so it's hard to determine what, if any benefits, I am getting from the new course of treatment. One thing I am very cognizant of, however, is that my previous pattern has been in place for four years and so it's going to take more than a week to undo the habits and damage done.

Right now I just have to have a bit of blind faith that Marcia is significantly smarter than about 10 other people who were equally, if not more, medically qualified on paper. So far, I have to say that it's hard to stay the course and not jump back into old habits, especially when any benefits from the new plan will be small, incremental, and long term. There is nothing to tell me I'm on the right track yet and for this impatient, results-oriented A-type personality, that's the toughest adjustment of all.

Going backwards

... to go forwards.


That's the highly abbreviated version of the plan my new physical therapist prescribed for me today.


I'll start with the fact that I cried.


Yes. Me. Tears. WTH?


From the moment that Marcia, my new PT, started talking, I began to get a lump in my throat. I think that it was a combination of stored-up anticipation and last-ditch hope being released, as I began to realize that this chick was no ordinary PT. My new doc was right - she is the bombdiggedybomb of physical therapists and, given that she will be PT #5 for my hip, I should know the difference.


Then, when I started to talk (and she actually listened!), to explain my five years of pain and failed treatments, the way my life has been impacted both physically and emotionally, the sense of hopelessness that I will ever find relief, and the simple things that I wanted to achieve by being there, the tears began to flow.

Just from looking at the diagram of my body on the intake form, where I'd scratched angry Zs and diagonal lines to show pain, ache, and burning in various places, she was able to hypothesize 90% of what I was going through and why, before I'd even given her the verbal ins-an-and outs. I knew this because, in a stroke of luck, she was training an intern from Sac State that day and, through her explaining her thought process and strategy for quizzing me, I was able to learn not only what she knew, but also what that knowledge was telling her. Her experience was skipping her ahead, joining the dots almost quicker than I could place them.

She would be examining me and asking me questions and saying things to the intern like, "Typically in patients experiencing xyz, the abc nerve is also inflamed and patients will also describe discomfort doing 123 or 456,"meanwhile I would be nodding profusely, as she named seemingly disconnected symptoms that I hadn't yet described.

Then, she grabbed a life-size skeleton of the pelvis and lower back and began to explain to me, not in lamens terms, but in real medical language that assumed I was an intelligent and engaaged adult, how my SI (sacro-illiac) joint, pelvis, pubic bone, and lumbar spine worked together, where the nerves came in and out, what differnt kinds of nerves produced different kinds of pain and why, how they played off one another, how inflammation played a role and how my surgery had resulted in some problems and my pregnancy in others. It was a comprehensive explanation that I will spare you the specifics of because, although I got the general gist of it, I couldn't even begin to remember 90% of the terminology. However, the fact that it all made sense to her, that everything came together in an explainable story, made me want to jump up and kiss her. I was close, let me tell you.

I also liked the fact that she stopped me a couple of times as I went to bend down and pick something up, or get on the treatment table in a certain way, or try to turn over from front to back. She stopped me and showed me how my movements could be affecting my pain and inflammation right now.

The end-result of all of this is the following:

1. Nerves around my hip, specifically in my SI joint, were/are inflamed after my surgery and never really got the opportunity to calm-down. They're now causing irritation and inflammation in other nerves - in other words, the inflammation has been spreading. This is the cause of a lot of my referred pain and muscle pulls. So, strategy #1 is immediate and short-term: to reduce the inflammation through ice, anti-inflammatories and avoiding activities that irritate those nerves. This includes repetitive motion of my hip particularly with impact (walking), anything that involves bearing weight on that leg singularly (yoga, lunges), and stretching my leg across the plane of motion that replicates the pain (yoga and many of the stretches that previous PTs gave me). I am now icing my lower back three times a day with ice directly on the skin which, she believes, provides a deeper kind of numbing and cooling for those deep nerves that are pissed off in my lower back and hip.
2. My hip and groin on the right side is hyper flexible in one specific plane of motion and impinged in the opposing plane of motion. The hyper flexation is causing instability in the joint overall (popping and snapping and clunking). So, strategy #2 in the short term is to stabilize the muscles all around that joint properly, ensuring a more natural range-of-motion and pattern of movement that will, in turn, begin to alleviate some of the core nerve irritation/inflammation and prevent further injury. I already have some exercises to start me on that journey.
3. Long term, her goal for me after the short-term goals are achieved, is to get me to a place where my physical check-book is balanced. She explained to me that it wasn't that I would never be able to do many of the activities I did before I was injured and that now irritate the injury, but that I would just need to balance those negative activities with the positive ones. So, maybe I can ski again one day but maybe I can only ski one day at a time vs. two in a row and instead, on the second day, have a day of rest and self-treatment. I liked the way she explained this. It made sense to me. Just don't go into the "physical red". I can do that.

So, I'm off on the new plan... stepping back on some of my regular physical activities for a while with the goal of forging forward with renewed knowledge and awareness of my body and what makes it tick (or, specifically for me, click). I already did the icing at lunch time and about to do it again after I publish this post.

Wish me luck...

A sad story about Richard Gereis

There are moments in life that crystalize for you that you are no longer as young as you used to be; that you're no longer the hip, young generation. In fact, you're one of those respectable folks that teenagers would think are grown-up or even, God forbid, old.

Usually these moments are brought on by things like an aching back after a night dancing like a fool at a club too young for you, listening to the DJ and not knowing who the hell recorded half of the song sor why on earth they became so popular, and then the hangover that never now seems to last for the entire week afterwards.

Today, however, Hubby and I had one of those moments in the most bizzaro way. We were at a Starbucks and it involved Richard Gere.

Well, let me explain. Richard Gere wasn't actually there. (Shame, I know.)

We were at a Starbucks in a Target to be exact. We were there doing very adult things like purchasing formula and yet another Congratulations card for a friend who just had a baby. Truth be told we go out after work with Daisy just to get out of the house. We both have about a ninety minute time-limit on how much time we can spend watching her walk in circles around the living room, picking up and walking with the same toys. We're impatient and we hate to do housework on work nights, so we go out somewhere, anywhere, just to avoid all those mundane, responsibility-type things. (Yes, this is why my house does not look like a model home. I'm over it.)

But I digress...

So, we're ordering our mochas and lattes, when the pimply-faced boy at the cash register stopped and asks us if we know who "Richard Gereis" is. He said it exactly like that: Gere-is.

"Do you know who Richard Gereis is?"

It stopped Hubby and I in our tracks, not sure how to respond. Was this some kind of competition, I wondered, where, if we could get the right answer, we got a free latte? You know, sometimes they have those "Question of the Day" chalk boards with a different piece of a trivia for customers to guess? I actually looked for the chalk board but couldn't find one.

"Gereis?" Hubby repeated, being sure to get this "is" part in, for clarification. Of course, we had immediately jumped to he of Pretty Woman fame but, at the same time, were both wondering together, yet without collaboration, if there was some new alternative rock-band or extreme snowboarder who had come onto the scene under our radar and didn't want to appear "out of touch" by admitting our ignorance. So, we hedged our bets. Well, Hubby did, I stayed silent for the same reasons he sought clarification: I didn't want to look stupid.

"Yeah, you know, he's an actor. What movies has he been in?" the Pimplehead asked us. Again, we both looked at one another a bit puzzled.

"Do you mean Richard Gere?" Hubby said now, more confident in putting himself on that limb because the guy had at least verified that the mysterious Mr. Gereis was a movie actor.

"Um, yeah, I guess. Do you know of any movies he's been in?"

I still thought that this was some kind of quiz for a free latte, so I dove in with gusto. "An Officer and a Gentleman!" I almost yelled, determined to save my $3.50. Pimplehead looked at us with a blank expression. I realized with growing horror that he had no idea what I was talking about. "Pretty Woman??" we both offered-up, less enthusiastically.

It took him a moment but he finally seemed to have a flash of recognition. "Oh yeah, I think I remember the guy in that," he said.

You think you remember "the guy"??? Seriously? I was so stunned that it took a while for my old, slow brain to realize that, not only did this kid not know who Richard Gere/Gereis is but that iconic movies that were indelibly inked into my teenage psyche, didn't even exist for him. It was almost as though he was inquiring about some long-gone movie star from the silent era and, worse still, he thought that Hubby and I looked suitably old enough to know who the ancient Mr. Gereis is (or, presumably from pimplehead's perspective, potentially even "was!")

So, there it was. No free latte prize. In fact, the reward for our knowledge was somewhat unwelcome: a sinking feeling that we were old, unhip, and outdated; the realization that someone we considered to be "contemporary" is actually now so virtually irrelevant in popular culture that the "younger generation" (gulp) have no idea who he is.

If you're wondering why he was asking, by the way, it was because a customer before us (presumably someone of a similar age) told the female barista that she had eyes like Richard Gere (which she didn't.)

And why "Gereis"? The only conclusion I can reach is that the customer in question asked the girl if she knew who "Richard Gere is" and she, in all her youthful ignorance, had heard "Richard Gereis".

Sigh... Wasn't Pretty Woman like, just a couple of years ago or something?

Turns out, not so much. Pretty Woman was released a wopping 20 years ago, which explains why pimplehead missed it - he was probably just getting out of diapers. In fact, if I am off on his age by a few years, it's possible that he hadn't even yet been conceived. Worse still, An Officer and a Gentleman, is now celebrating the (gulp) 28th year of it's release.

Hubby and I are somewhat shell-shocked, although we did joke on the way home that it was probably just as well we didn't ask the kid if he'd ever heard the story about the gerbil...
--------

2/3/10 - edited to add

Hubby bought a burger at Carl’s Jr today and the chick working the register commented that his picture on his debit card didn’t look like him. He said “I know, I’m getting old”, and she laughed. Then he said “a young kid asked me who Richard Gere was yesterday”, and she said “who’s Richard Gere?”.

Back on the hip wagon

It's been a while since I posted anything about my hip. Hopefully a long enough hiatus to ensure that you're not all groaning in misery at the mere mention of it - but then, maybe not! ;o)

Anyway, if you've been following my titbits on Facebook, you'll know that I finally decided to make a doctor/PCP and medical group switch, and today was my first appointment with my new PCP.

Since my insurance is an HMO, my medical group is a big deal, in fact more of a big deal than my PCP, ultimately, becuase it dictates which specialists I can see. Long story short, I was originally with Hill Physicians when I first moved up to the Sacramento area several years ago and was very satisfied with all the referrals I received BUT hated my backwater doctor at the time. I switched to a younger doctor, with computer medical records (woot), who I loved (love) but she was a part of Mercy Medical Group - sort of like a mini Kaiser around here. Unfortunately, the "mini" meant mini service and mini options but with all of the same restrictions as KP. I had to fight to get my hip surgery done arthroscopically because Mercy didn't have a surgeon who had done it before (finally having to get a surgeon affiliated with Hill to scrub-in, so I wouldn't have to have open surgery). I then had to go out-of-network and out-of-pocket for physical therapy after my surgery because the Mercy therapists kicked me out the minute I was walking. Finally, to get the Osteopathic Manipulation my doc felt I needed to progress, I had to drive 45-60 minutes each way, to a town called Lincoln, on a 2-lane highway.

Although I loved my doc and honestly believe it is unlikely that I will ever find someone with a bedside manner that so completely suits me, the reality is that, aside from all but the basic cold, flu type illnesses (which I rarely have), she refers me out and so I spent more time with disparate "specialists" than I did with her. And, as I said, the specialists in Mercy are not all that special, in my humble (yet increasingly experienced) opinion.

It pains me to have to start this whole process again for the third time but I've plateaud with my hip in a place that is not acceptable for me at this time in my life. I honestly don't know if moving around like this is the solution but what I do know is that I've got to keep trying. I won't rest until I turn over every rock, trying to find the magical combination of treatment and care that will help me get to a better place.

Unfortunately, I've eliminated "recovery" or "pain free" from my vocabulary these days, as I'm not sure these are reasonable goals. Honestly, I'd just like to be able to get in and out of my car without worrying about twisting or turning the wrong way, pulling something, or clicking or popping something. Not to have to think about every little movement and make adjustments all the time would be victory for me. I want to be able to chase Daisy around the garden and perhaps even ski down a bunny hill with her for the first time - no black diamonds or anything, just a gentle little slope and some amateurish ploughing. Beyond that, I don't know what I'm going to achieve but I know I'm going to work hard to make it the best result I possibly can.

With all this in mind, I went to my doctor's appointment this morning.

The new guy is literally a quarter of a mile up the street. I practically passed his surgery every day without even paying it a second notice! I found him through my health insurance's online doctor site, by looking for another D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathy.) I have a lot of respect for doctors who do the extra time (2-6 years more than a regular doctor) and become a D.O. and, so far, I like their approach to treatment, so it was important to me not to lose that, if possible, in the switch.

Doing a little research on him, I was intrigued. In these days of computerized medical records, where doctors half-listen to you while they busy themselves with typing on a keyboard or fighting with an "F" button of some sort, he is an old-fashioned type doctor with an old-fashioned family practice. He "specializes" in total health care, from infancy and childhood, through adulthood, everything from pediatric to women's health, dermatology, nutrition, chiropracty, osteopathic manipulation, in-office minor surgical procedures and physical therapy - all in his surgery. (I KNOW!) I met with him briefly before I made the switch and he bristled at the very mention of referrals. "We like to take care of as much as we can here," he said. "For us, it's about continuity of care." Although I know this could either be a blessing or a curse, it was different enough to make me curious. The PCP >>> referral route hasn't served me too well as yet, so a truely different approach is probably my best chance yet at a different result.

Not that old-fashioned equals "old" or out of date, at least where it matters. No, he doesn't have computerized medical records and has had his local practice for 20 years but he's a fit, energetic, attractive, 50-ish man, the chief physician for the local Hill Physicians region and is involved in academic testing on the California Osteopathic State Board. These things tell me that he stays up-to-date yet is experienced enough to know what's what, especially within his own medical group - and knowing how to negotiate the system is an under-valued quality in a doctor, I am finding.

In person he turns out to be the typical "A-type" personality. A short, brusque, multi-tasker, who knows what he's doing and likes to get to the point. He is constantly on the move with purposeful energy, walking around his surgery simultaneously signing-off on charts, texting on his mobile phone, making and answering calls between patients, and conversing in harried-tones to his staff. He takes notes by verbally recording his voice on his smart phone, presumably because he doesn't want to take the time between patients to sit down and write (or type) something. He moves from one task to the next fluidly and his staff orbit around him in the kind of practiced way that makes you realize that he demands a lot of them but is admired by them; they've also obviously been with him as a team for some time.

His bedside manner isn't touchy-feely and sitting in front of him to explain the reason for your visit is an exercise in summation and verbal bullet-pointing - state your needs up front and remove the unecessary words; get to the point! He's a jolt to the system if you've been used to someone chatty and sympathetic, as I have. And if you're looking for someone to talk about how you're "feeling" non-medically... this guy is not for you.

But, I think I'm going to like him. He's definitely an adjustment for me but one I can easily make with my "get on with it" personality. Although I like to think of myself as a fairly friendly individual, I have come to value expertise and capability over friendliness. I've had friendly and look where it's got me. I go to the doctor to get "fixed" not to socialize, so I can look past this if I get results.

Within five minutes, we'd moved beyond my long-winded hip history (which he rushed me through) and determined that there wasn't much point in looking at what had already been done: Surgery - check; Orthopedists - check; Physical Therapists - check; Osteopathic Manipulation - check; Results - notsomuch. What did I expect to gain from seeing him? he asked me. I couldn't provide a concrete answer because I don't know what it's realistc to expect. It's an open-ended objective, really. We settled on someone different doing something different for, hopefully, a different result.

He immediately whisked me away to his manipulation treatment room where he cracked (and I mean popopopopopopop) my back, my ribs, my hips and pelvis in 3 swift and yet painless movements that took less than 30 seconds to perform. He then told me that I hadn't had really good physical therapy until I had been to a local lady, just half a mile away. He said she was the (and I quote) "best in the west" and if something was "fixable" to any extent possible, she would be the one to fix it. He told me she wasn't within my medical network but that he knew her well enough over the years that he his patients had a special cash rate with her of just $45 per visit (only $20 more that I would have to pay with insurance anyway.) He scribbled illegibly on a pad to refer me to her as we walked out and back to the front desk, mentioned a follow-up appointment in two weeks and said goodbye as his receptionist took his cue and had three appointment times/dates ready for me to pick from.

Not ten minutes after I had first shook his hand, I walked out of there, having been assessed and dismissed in short order. It was like being at the Dennys of doctors: good, solid food you can rely on, dished-out quickly by a busy and well-practiced kitchen. (I like Dennys, by the way. If you don't have a favorable opinion of Dennys, just replace with your favorite fast-and-yummy diner-food joint.)

Of course, as we say in the UK, the proof is in the pudding. Meaning, the results will speak for themeselves. But right now, I'm just happy to be on a different course.

I called the Physical Therapist, by the way, and have an appointment for 8:15am tomorrow morning. So, more after that...

It occurs to me...

... that the expectations of the political process in this country are ridiculous.

1) At the local level, we elect individuals to represent us in Congress based upon, what we believe to be, shared beliefs, values, and policy positions. We send them off to Washington to deliver on those promises and then, over the next two to six years (depending on whether they are a Congressman/woman or Senator) we judge them on their ability to deliver what they promised during the elections.

2) We do the same thing at the Presidential level. We pick one person based upon what they represent, to get things done.

3) As a citizenry we then spend the next two to six years complaining because these people as a collective group do not "meet in the middle", "compromise", or "work together".

4) #3 requires that the people in #1 and #2 give up something because, let's face it, no matter what words you use to make it sound nice, compromise requires the person on each side of an issue, to let go of/give up something. This, by default, means that some of the things that the people in #1 and #2 promised, cannot be delivered upon, at least to the extent to which they were promised.

5) We make the President a separate branch of government that has really little or no real influence on what goes on in Congress, thus making it all but impossible to affect any real change because he/she needs to persuade a group of more than 500 people fighting at the local level for their own constituents vs. the greater good, and/or playing partisan politics and infighting for their own professional gain.

6) We give the minority in Congress the ability to filibuster bills that the opposing party brings to vote, thus ensuring that the minority can scupper the efforts of the elected majority, and preventing the very changes that the majority of voters mandated by electing the party in the majority in the first place.

7) We then criticize the people in #1 and #2 for not doing what they promised to do, although when they actually do #3, they can't deliver on a lot of what they promised, and when they don't do #3, the opposing party does #6 and kills it anyway.

It's like putting a CEO in charge of a company and then asking him/her to lobby all the employees to create, vote-on, and enact his/her company decisions! No company could ever be run that way. Why do we expect that our country can?

Now, let me be clear: I am not a fan of many of the people in Congress, even on my side of the aisle (I am also not one of those people who thinks it's as simple as saying that everyone is corrupt and/or worthless either). But it seems to me that the system is set-up to have you be damned if you do and damned if you don't.

We say we want change but our system of government is set-up to force centrist policy-making which, more often than not, reinforces the status quo.

I voted for President Obama because he stood on a platform of change but, honestly, I have to say that never ONCE did I think that the system we have in place in this country would actually let him affect much of that change. I'm not surprised that the health-care bill is all-but dead. I never expected it to pass. That's why I haven't been getting all excited this past year about it on this blog. It was dead before it started.

I think it's time to get real in this country. Either you want something to happen, in which case you have to accept that not everyone will agree with the outcome and that's just life (get more votes next time, folks!) or you agree that everything's mostly fine as it is and harmony (or the effort towards it) is more important than results. (Quick pause while I vomit.)

Yes, it is true that you can argue that the current system prevents radical shifts and thus ensures that change, overall, can be incremental. BUT it also discourages big, sensitive issues from being tackled at all - like health care, like social security, like tax reform - all of which have been broached numerous times but always without result.

Although it is a noble goal, it's just not possible to please everyone. We are not kindergardeners playing a "no win/no lose" soccer match. We are grown-ups and the reality of life is that, for change to be enacted, some people are going to end up happy and some people are going to end up pissed off. That's life.