Tag Archives: health

feelings

I think originally this was going to be a post about being depressed. When I described how I felt to my therapist after the weekend in July that’s what she said it was. That led to some good conversation but minimal improvement until this week.

Actually it was a couple of weeks ago that I started to improve. I got a guitar lesson and did better with my exercises (PT). I look at my posts over the time before that and I see ‘reaction’, ‘more reaction’, ‘killed’, ‘reality’, ‘legacy’, ‘work’ – pretty bleak.

And that’s just what I actually wrote. It’s a lot less than I wanted to write and it’s not as bleak as what I was thinking.

Anyway, last week I took my guitar to the Fall Semester’s first meeting of the Skyline Jazz Band. There were many familiar faces and they were all glad to see me. That felt good. I was able to follow the charts reasonably well so I decided I would try to stick with it.

Now tonight is the first night I have at home this week and I had great plans but I happened to look at my work email and discovered some things that could not be ignored. Aargh! Now I’m all pissy again.

I whined and got tomorrow off so hopefully I can recover. I have work Friday and Saturday days only then two days off. Next week is the Gala opening for the Symphony so there is much chaos at Davies Symphony Hall.

I’ll try to post something more coherent tomorrow.

more reaction

In my post titled ‘reaction’, I remember thinking about my reaction when I started it but ended up doing mostly just a news story about the weekend. Jeremy and Ashley left on Tuesday morning and I’ve been low ever since. Actually I’ve been low ever since that Sunday when I got home.

It hasn’t helped that I’ve been working way more than I’d like to be. in the 13 days since that Tuesday, I’ve worked 11 with 2 other days being evenings only. I thought I’d be ready to get rolling right away after but that has not proven to be the case. Part of the problem is that JJ’s wife went in the hospital last weekend and I ended up working three extra days to cover for him.

I hate to say no in a case like that but at some point I’m going to have to. We are scheduled for maintenance work all this week and next followed by a week of shows followed by possibly more maintenance work followed by the Symphony Gala week. There are a couple of holes in that schedule but not enough. JJ was supposed to be in today but he bailed to care for Amy and now he won’t be in tomorrow. I feel obligated to stick it out to help him so it’s hard. Maybe I can get out of next week . . .

I got a call from Teresa today just checking in. That made me feel better. Also I saw Dr Perry tonight so that helps as well. Onward! (Still using sleeping pills, tho’. Tried a couple of times to go without but that didn’t work.)

Physical therapy & exercise

I had to look it up: I started physical therapy on June 3rd, not even a month ago. Why was I in PT? I had noticed for some months how my right foot was dragging a little more than it had before. I was concerned because that was the leg that had the numbness stemming from the herniated discs. More to the point, it was my right big toe that had no feeling. Kind of important for walking, I think. I mentioned it to my regular doctor who sent me to PT. She didn’t feel there was any need for MRIs or the like to check the discs.

OK, whatever. PT was one of the first things suggested (by a different doctor) back in those dark days of 2011. I dutifully went to several sessions but never felt it was doing much good. Of course I was in quite a bit of pain at that time, to the extent that I was off work for two months.

In the end, massive doses of ibuprofen smoothed things out & ever since, ibuprofen has been my drug of choice for back pain. I’ve mentioned my ibuprofen use to every doctor I’ve seen since then and they all said the amounts I am taking are no problem. (I’m not taking anywhere close to the maximum any more.)

So what do I do in physical therapy? The sessions at the clinic are mostly review. I have simple exercises to do at home every day that take about 5 minutes. A couple of stretches, some leg lifts; that’s it. Oh, I’m supposed to do some simple stretches throughout my day if I think of it.

Why is this all newsworthy? Because for some reason I have needed much less ibuprofen in the last two weeks than any two week period since 2011. I don’t imagine it’s a miracle cure; I have to keep up with the exercises, I’m sure, and no one is saying my herniated discs will go away.

But it’s heartening. My relationship with exercise has been interesting over the years. As a teen and young adult, I was very active riding my bike and playing sports. I never felt the need to do exercise for exercise sake.

As work became more time consuming and I got married and started a family, biking and playing baseball fell away from my common activities. I remember at one point rationalizing that I got enough exercise on the job so I didn’t have to do it any other time. In the last 15 or 20 years it’s just been habit.

I think Zach was still at OSU when he told me he was doing yoga. He was never judgmental, but I thought I would try it and bought a starter kit. It’s still in its box. One of these days . . .