A ReNewed You's Year End Reflection

I was going going to write one of those kitschzy year end posts about all I have learned this year and everything I hope for in the year to come.  But it all seemed too droll and pathetic.  It all seemed too selfish and self-centered and too, me, me, me.  And while I am no saint, I like to think I am at least somewhat genuine.  And a post about my rough year and better times to come would just be the literary equivalent of flinging bullshit.  Because when I think about it, I really don't anything to complain about.  I really don't.  Yes, I had a bad accident, but in the grand scheme of things, what happened to me was relatively minor.  And I was inspired by some folks in a much worse position than me.

This got me thinking about the various levels of injury-illness and their corresponding recovery.  Now these aren't scientific, medical, or even tested.  They are just how I view and categorize how likely people are to return to 100%.  Here goes:

1. Bad accident or injury but 100% recovery probable.  This is where I fall in.  These are the younger folks with ACL surgeries or rotator cuff surgery or even a bout with cancer that was caught early.  It could even be a broken hip or pelvis but either age, genetics or determination will deliver them back to 100%.
2. Possible return to 100%.  This is hip replacement or knee replacement that requires a lot of time, effort and luck to get back to 100%.  It might happen; it might not.  Age plays a big part but diet and other inexplicable factors are at play too.  This also includes those unlucky folks who fix one knee, only to blow another.  Or fix both knees, get in great shape, and then blow out a shoulder.  The odds keep getting stacked against them.  This could even be heart attack survivors who decide to make serious changes.  Or a cancer survivor who was able to able to be treated back to complete health.
3. No chance of a return to 100% but not immediately fatal.  These are the Multiple Sclerosis (MS)  patients or sufferers any other chronic disease. 
4. Illness or injury is fatal and time left is unknown.  Pick your disease but I think you get the idea.  Cancer seems to be the most publicized one one but there are many others.

In thinking about this post, I realized I made a lot of assumptions about recovery.  There are some people that want to recover but can't.  I have spend a lot of my time writing to and about people in levels 1 & 2.  And I did so because that's what I knew and that, frankly, is who I am.  I can't write intimately and personally about levels 3 & 4.   But I can write about what I have seen and perhaps, from the outside, what I might do if I was ever in their shoes.

As I have written before, recovery is as much a mental game as anything.  And the desire to keep living when you have something that is whittling away at you, has to be the biggest battle of wills.  In level 4, your timeline is uncertain but your fate certainly is.  In level 3, your timeline is longer but everyday you might get beaten down a little more, a little more life sucked from you.  So what do you do? 

I suppose there are several approaches.  You could booze and party and live like it doesn't matter.  But because the timeline could be long, I suppose that would get old and, in the end, not very satisfying.  I suppose a better option is to get as healthy as possible and beat the disease as far into the corner as possible.  Magic Johnson comes to mind as someone who has done this and as a result limited the impact of HIV on his body.  Another person close to me who has MS recently lost 50 pounds.  Now a 50 pound weight loss for anyone is inspiring but for someone with MS is even more impressive.  To me, it says that she wants to live and that she is not her disease and that as long as you keep fighting, you keep living.

Now the 4th level is, well, the heart breaking one.  You might not be able to do anything to survive or improve.   The disease has you in the corner and you are taking punches everyday.  You feel like Gerry Cooney, day after day after day.  I would hate to go out like that.  Just kill me with a heart attack in my sleep when I am 95.  The metal and emotional anguish of never knowing but knowing it is soon would be more than I could stand.  These are the true tough guys and gals.  Forget about sports.  Try and live like you are dying.  Tougher than anything.

So for the 3rd level, thanks for showing us to keep bailing water when there is a hole in the boat.  Thanks for showing that you can live perfectly imperfect.  Thanks for still smiling and laughing when you fall and can't get out of the snow.  Thanks for inspiring us and reminding us that while a hip fracture with 3 screws seems big, it could be worse.

And for the 4th level, thanks for showing us true grit.  Thanks for caring about everyone but yourself.  Thanks for getting up everyday and doing what you have to do even though it may not help.  And to the big guy in Cedarburg, WI, thanks for introducing me to Vince Lombardi, that picture is forever burned in my memory.  For you I wish love, peace, and hope - and really only one thing in 2013: a Packers Super Bowl win.  You know Vince wants the trophy back home.

Happy New Year to all.

Thanks for reading...

Do Dogs Create Big or Small Piles of Shit?

What do these things have in common?

• Broke hip
• Daughter had Pneumonia
• Wife had surgery while husband was on crutches
• Someone shattered car window and stole wife's purse
• Had a property dispute with new neighbor
• Toilet didn't work in new house
• Refrigerator smelled in new house
• Bike was stolen from work

The only thing they have in common is that they happened to me this year.  And I am not putting it out there to get some sort of sympathy or for everyone to feel sorry for me.  I am putting it out there to make a point and dispel a common held belief. 

I believe most people believe in the notion that we have bad days and bad weeks and bad years.  And these bad periods of time are made up of a series of connected "bad" events.  Somehow the world conspired against us and we are stuck in a runt where no matter what positive we do, something negative is going to happen and continue to happen to us.  Everyone has had them.  The kids get sick and then the dishwasher breaks and then you are low on money and then you can't take a vacation and then and then and then and then.

To me that is just non sense.  It is true that sometimes that things happen in succession or in 3s, just like deaths - as my grandmother said.  And when coupled together they become the bad days, months, or years.  In reality, there is no good luck or bad luck.  Yes some people are more or less fortunate than others but good luck in terms of success is more based on hard work than anything else.

If you take the things that happened to me, they all probably would have happened with or without the other.  With or without my hip injury, my wife still needs surgery.  With or without any of our surgeries, we still would have had the challenges with the house as we had our offer accepted before.  Those challenges were waiting for us.  My bike was stolen because I happened to have ridden to work that day.  And before the accident it would have been even more likely because I rode more frequently.

So you have an accident or are struck down with illness and then have a series of unexpected events occur after, don't mentally pile them on top of what you are going through.  Mentally and emotionally separate them and take some (strange) comfort that they would have happened with or with out your injury.

Injuries are tough enough on their own.  Don't make them heavier by placing a bunch of non sense on top.  Yes shit happens but dogs don't always shit in one spot.  They usually spread it all over the yard.  Thus your injury is just one pile.  Perhaps it is the biggest pile but the others have nothing to do with that big pile.

Sorry for a long winded metaphor but I think you get the point.  Deal with your injury and deal with everything else.  Just because you have an injury doesn't make you ill fated for the rest of your life.  Instead keep a positive outlook, do your daily gratitude, and roll with with it.  Go Zen.  Go Christian.  Go with whatever makes you happy.  And take peace with that is how life is: sometimes it is great and sometimes it sucks.  And then it is great and then it sucks.

If you take the right attitude, however, you'll know that shit happens.  And if you roll peacefully down the river, you'll know sooner or later the shit is just going to float on by.

Thanks for reading...

Gimme Something (or Someone) to Believe in

Aside from my own experience with a hip fracture, one of the inspirations for this blog has been my mother.  And it is not one of those my-mom-raised-me-and-9-siblings-on-her-own stories.  Instead, she is one of us; she is one of the bruised and battered.

After years of suffering from knee pain, my mom finally had knee replacement surgery last year.  But even after a year that included a few months of PT, she wasn't walking any better than before the surgery.  In fact, she may have been walking worse.  On the bright side, her knee pain was better - but her hip mobility was awful, her legs ached, and she was wobbling around on cane like a woman 20 years her senior.

After my positive experience with Pilates, I suggested she find an instructor in her area.  And somewhat to my surprise, she did.  Even more, she has stuck with it for the past 4 months and seen incremental improvements in strength, mobility, and pain.  What she really gained is something more than I would have anticipated - and perhaps something she needed more than what physically Pilates can give you.  Now I can tout the value of Pilates or any other form of exercise until the cows come home and I can say how much better you will feel but only an interpersonal relationship between two human beings can describe what my mother has gotten out of Pilates.

Her real benefit: someone who believes in her.  As we all know, recovery is a long, lonely road.  Even for those of us who have lots of friends and family, we can feel like strangers in our own homes because of what we are going through.  No one really understands.  They don't really understand what progress means to us and what a lack thereof does to set us back mentally and emotionally.  My mom, now, has someone who remembers what she could do when she first started and what she can do now.  She has someone who gets excited when she reaches a milestone.  And those are all very important things.

The most important, however, is the confidence it brings her.  Recovery, by my own experience, has a way of bringing about a serious crisis of confidence.  My mom suffered from bad knees for more than 10 years so her confidence, and true belief, in her ability to really get better was probably very, very low.  Now she has a friend who believes she can get better, she can recover, and she can live a better life.  And that is what someone like her Pilates instructor can give.

So I know we can't all afford private trainers but if you can find one or two people to aid in your journey, the mental and emotional benefits will be enormous.  If nothing more, you can use them as resources to answer questions and help you along.  For me, my Pilates instructor and massage therapist has been a great help to me.  Not only has she helped me recover but she has become a friend.  There have also been a few others who I have nothing more than an email relationship.  But it is these big and small touches with humanity that keep us going and help us believe.  We humans are resilient and it is really the interaction we other caring individuals who will carry us through.

So do your best to find someone.  If you are in Minneapolis-St. Paul area, email me and I can make some recommendations.  Or heck I will do it myself.  I am willing to help anyone who is recovering and even just needs someone to lend an ear...

Thanks for reading....

Treat the Pain You Can Treat

I think my lack of recovery days put my immune system in  a difficult position and now I have a cold.  It has been a strange one, kind of up and down.  As soon as I think I am better, the next day I am worse.  Today I was able to rest for a while so hopefully I am beginning to mend.  I really don't want to be sick for the holidays.  Been there, done that - and it is no fun. 

One of things I notice when I get a cold or any flu like symptoms, is how much my nagging little aches and pains tend to get more achy and painful.  All in all after suffering an injury such as mine, I have been pretty fortunate to the overall amount of pain I have.  By and large, my hip does not hurt very often.  I have some soreness on the inside of my leg but even that comes and goes.  My low back will get stiff but only after long bouts sitting in a car or a meeting.  And my only other area of pain is my elbows, in particular my right one.  I have written about this briefly before, as it was caused by doing daily pull ups and dips while on crutches.  I have been off crutches for almost six months now and haven't done any pull ups since, but the elbow is still aggravated. 

I don't think I can do much about the hip and leg pain beyond what I am already doing.  The strength training and massage have the hip and leg improving so I am not overly concerned.  The back will continue to get better and get less stiff as the leg and the rest of the core get better.  The elbow, however, is where I have made some dumb mistakes.  In order for it to heal, I really need to rest it and lay off any exercises that aggravate it.

I have continued to to do heavy presses and this has put some strain on the elbow.  It doesn't hurt when I press but it bugs me a bit the next day.  And this is just plain silly.  I need to avoid any exercises that strain the elbow and work around it.  It is pain that I don't need to have and can reduce stress on the body.  I can't entirely control when the hip and back will get better and in some regards I can't I control when the elbow will get better but I can control doing activities that will make it worse.

And I am sure I am not the first person to make these counter-productive decisions.  How many have run on a bum knee or sore ankle or lifted with a bad shoulder?  And just because we can't miss a workout or are afraid to gain weight or getting out of shape.  But letting injuries that linger for months become more of a liability to resurface when we get older. 

That's the thing about pain, it may never really be over.  You can get it better but the longer the pain existed in the first place, the better chance it has in coming back as you age.  Thus, if you have pain, treat it right away and try and help it heal as quickly as you can.  Remember, in the end most of us aren't professionally athletes but all of us are going to grow old so if something is painful when 20, 30, or 40, it is going to hurt like hell when you are 70.

So if you have pain in the form of a "bum" knee or "bad" ankle or whaetever it may be, take the steps you can to make it better.  You will thank yourself years down the road.  The goal is not to set athletic records but to live a long healthy life with energies devoted to our work and our loved ones.  So don't make the mistakes I made.  And I am going to lay off the presses for a while and maybe in a few months I hope I will have one less nagging injury.

Thanks for reading...

Just Take It Easy...And Do Less

As my life has become busier and more complicated, I am astounded by the benefits of doing less.  And expecting less.  What I mean is that if you are recovering from an injury that it is just one more thing that you have to fit in a tight schedule.  You already (presumably) have a job and maybe a wife and kids, and other activities.  So to find time for PT appointments and doctors appointments and some exercise and figuring out how to change your diet and all the other things we need to recover, can be quite stressful.  In fact, it can be downright overwhelming. 

So, in response, we need to do less in other areas of our life.  We need to simplify anywhere and everywhere.  Below is a few things I have done.  Some may seem silly but they all focus on reducing stress and helping me find time to recover as well as continue to keep time spent with my family as my number 1 priority.

• Work From Home.  Immediately following my accident, I worked from home out of necessity.  I simply could not get into the office.  Even if I drove to work, the 2 blocks to get to the office on crutches were too much.  Towards the end of my period on crutches it was easier but I only did it when I absolutely had to.  Since then I have biked into the office 2 to 3 times a week but only when I want to.  If I feel tired or don't feel well, I stay home and make it easy on myself.  It also makes it easy if I have a massage appointment or am meeting with the doctor, or whatever I have to do.  I know this isn't a luxury everyone has and I feel very fortunate that my employer is very flexible.  But I do stress that trying to simply your commute is a great way to save time and money as well as take it easy on your body.  I can't imagine how stiff, tired, and moody I would feel if I had to sit in the car for 2 hours everyday.  It is not healthy for a normal person and it is hell for the bruised and battered.
• Do Less (PT) Exercises.  PTs, and some Pilates instructors, are know for taking us through a long battery of exercises and giving us several pages of print outs to do on our own time.  My philosophy is to find what exercises give us the biggest bang for our recovery buck and focus on those.  A long list of exercises is overwhelming and, in the end, not as beneficial as focusing on just a few.  Personally, I believe that, for me, at this stage in my recovery, kettlebell swings, Turkish Get Ups, and Goblet squats are really all I need, along with some mobility work and stretching.  And some biking for enjoyment.  More isn't always better.
• Focus on (Good ) Family and Friends.  I should preface this by saying that friends and family can be a blessing and a curse.  They can be helpful and bring all kinds of joy.  Or they can be a total pain in the ass.  When you are recovering, hang out with the easy ones.  Hang out with the mellow ones.  Hang out with the helpful ones.  Avoid the stressful, painful, annoying ones (as much as possible).  And you don't 15 different friends and have a party.  Just a couple good friends can be all you need.  For me I have found a few that I enjoy and we go and grab a movie or chat on the phone from time to time.
• Simplify Where Possible.  There are many things we can do to around the house to reduce stress.  A silly one I have done is to reduce the amount of clothing I have and focus on a few key items.  This way when I get up in the morning I don't have to "figure out' what I am going to wear.  I pretty much know.  I don't want promote getting back to the days of uniforms but combing through dozens of items and putting an outfit together is a lot less work when there are limited combinations.  Other ways to simplify are to clean out closets or storage, or even the car.  Give away stuff if you can.  It is an extremely cathartic experience.  Moreover, you can simplify your diet.  You only really need to eat fruits, vegetables, and some meats, so focus your meals around those 3.  the rest is just fluff.
• Park the Ego in the Garage.  I personally have felt the urge to make myself as great as possible in other areas of my life since my accident.  Until recently I have felt that moving my career forward and getting more and more responsibility would make me feel better about my hip.  I also have felt that if I can as lean as possible and look as good as possible would make me feel better about my hip.  And to some degree it has but in some ways it is just another stressor.  More responsibility is more stress.  Taking your diet to the extreme make you worry if you have a cookie or two.  Therefore what I am saying is that recovery is a job in and of itself and you don't have to make up for it in other ways.  It is okay to put some parts of your life on auto pilot.
• Keep a Clean House.  This is tough one, especially if you have kids.  But clutter creates stress so the more organized and picked up, the better you are going to feel.

I could keep going, probably, but I think you get the point.   Recovery takes attention and many of us don't have attention beyond our already stressful lives.  Thus we need to shrink the stress from other areas to allow us to focus on getting healthier.  If we don't, the stress of the recovery is going to build upon our already challenging lives and our recovery is going to be infinitely longer, more difficult, and more painful.

Thanks for reading...

Journaling, Global Warming, and Taking the Long View

One of the regrets I have is not starting this blog sooner. 

I should have started it right after the accident.  It is quite cathartic to put these things out there, even if read by a just a few.  Or, at least I should have kept a journal to describe how I am feeling on a daily basis.  Without it, now, I am subject to comparing how I feel today versus how I felt yesterday or the day before.  At the most, I can compare today to a week ago.  My memory just can't back far enough to know exactly how I was feeling any more than that.  I often end up feeling like I am stuck and I haven't made any progress at all.  Which isn't true.

My own situation, for some reason, makes me think about Global Warming.  Not to get political but sometimes I wonder if the planet warming is only a brief period of warming in the history of the planet and in 200 years we will be in another ice age.  Or something like that.  Another thing I think about is the stock market.  If we watch the line graph on one day the stock looks like a loser but it you spread out the graph over 5 years, the view is totally different.  The stock is continually up.  That one day was just small insignificant blip. 

What does this have to do with recovery?  It means that what really counts is the long term progress we make and not the fact that we have a bad day or week or month.  If we are progressing, then a slow, painful day doesn't really matter.  It is a just a day.

If we take the long view then the short term decline in our progress is just a short term decline.  It is temporary.  It doesn't mean anything.

And if I were new to an injury or about to get a knee replacement, I would start a journal right away.  It will help when several months out and you are having a bad day.  You will be able to see that you have made a ton of progress.  Because progress is never linear and it goes up and down.  But as long it is heading upwards, you have nothing to worry about.  It just takes time.

Just keep the long view and keep your eye on the prize.

Thanks for reading...

Gimme a Break!

By the way, the title is supposed to be sung.  And sung with all the enthusiasm that Nell Carter did. 

I say so because breaks from rehabbing an injury, exercise, work, or any routine activity are necessary.  Not only do we need weekends and days in between to recover but sometimes we need a longer period of time.  It is like a vacation from recovery.  I know I have been saying that the most important thing is to be consistent and stick with a program or routine but...

Sometimes a little rest is the best thing for us. 

Personally I don't think I have taken more than 3 days off since the day of my accident.  I spent 3 months crutching to the garage everyday to do pull ups and dips - and I ended up with a sore elbow and haven't done many pull ups and dips since.  A little more rest and I wouldn't have had a problem.  And since I was cleared to walk I doubt it has been more than 2 days off.  So between the kettlebells, Pilates, biking, and other activity I am beginning to feel tired and worn out.  I mentally and emotionally have the blahs as well.  I think I am also getting a cold.  Maybe not, I just know I woke up this morning feeling like could just go back to bed.

I know I need/should/must take 5-7 days (maybe even 10) off from everything.  And this time I will.  Even before my injury I was never very good with taking the right amount of rest.  Very often, I paid for it.  I would bonk and get hurt or sick.  Now, with my new found respect for my health, and an overarching goal to live pain free with my energies not dedicated to being superhuman in the gym or on the bike, but to my family, I think rest is the best thing for me.

Nevertheless, intuitively, it is a hard thing to do.  I want to keep pushing and pushing until I am 100% and I can show everyone how completely and quickly I have recovered.  So this will be a mental battle for me but one in which I will thank myself after the week is over.

The one thing that keeps coming to mind is the movie, What About Bob, where Bill Murrays' character says he is going to "take a vacation from his problems."  While recovering we need to do the same.  Remember, if we give ourselves more time, a week off is insignificant from recovery period perspective but it will make us feel better about the process and in the end may actually speed things up.  Rest, not just sleep, is the forgotten X factor.

So when you have been pushing for several months and you begin to feel drained, it is time to slow down and relax. 

You'll come back with enough energy to belt out a few high notes like Nell Carter... 

Or at least you'll feel better, even if you didn't spend the week at Lake Winnipesaukee...

Thanks for reading...