Using exercise to heal

I've worked out almost all of my life. After my son Paul died I became almost obsessive about. It just seemed to help me get through the pain.

Here's another poem that will appear in my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On http://www.LuckyPress.com/madelinesharples.html. It was one of the first I wrote in Jack Grapes method writing class.

Making It Hard

The bright room is almost full.

All four walls of mirrors reflect women and men

in baggy shorts and sleek black tights.

The music is so loud

the woman in front of me stuffs earplugs in her ears.

Lisa G says, “work from the core;

your workout relates to your real life.”

I want to get on with it.

I don’t come here at 6 a.m. to listen to a lecture.

The neon sign on the wall says “sweat,”

and that’s what I want to do.

The woman behind me complains.

I don’t know her name, but here she is every week

always in the same spot, always complaining, always in black.

Black tights, black sports bra, black thong leotard,

black headband on her head of black hair.

Even her lipstick looks black.

A drill sergeant in baseball cap and high-top aerobic shoes,

Lisa begins her litany.

“If it were easy, everyone would be fit,” she shouts,

“Don’t come here and expect it to be easy.”

She doesn’t know my name. I like it that way.

I like the feeling of being anonymous here.

I don’t know anyone and no one knows me.

No one knows about Paul, that he died

or any other thing about me either.

Being anonymous is a benefit.

It keeps me in shape, calms my mind,

gives me the space to be myself.

It’s a mini-vacation from the horrors of my life.

So I thank Lisa G

for getting me moving,

for making it hard,

for making it hurt,

for showing me how to

trade one pain for another.

The wonder of "room air"

It’s been quite a week. From Bob’s first day home until today we’ve been on a roller coaster ride. He was very weak at first and experienced shortness of breath just walking on his crutches from his bed to the bathroom – a few feet away. But by the time he went to his cardiologist on Tuesday, his second day home, he was like another person – with it, no shortness of breath, and moving quite agilely on either his walker or crutches. And when his doc concluded, after an EKG, chest x-rays, and a controlled test of Bob breathing “room air,” that Bob no longer needed oxygen, Bob’s attitude and mood changed in a flash. By the time we got home he was ready to go back to using his scooter to avoid the wrist and underarm discomfort he felt with the crutches. No more worry over oxygen tubing gave him the confidence.

We both began to feel so confident about his health and mood that we talked again about attending a family wedding in San Diego – a two-hour drive away – this weekend. But we would go only for one night, the night of the wedding, and miss the planned festivities for tonight.

I even took his tux to the cleaners and asked the owner to undo the right pants seam about ten inches from the bottom so he could get his big foot into the pants.

However, yesterday he began complaining about pain, the first time all week. He had been controlling it with Advil every 24 hours so he knew this pain was different. We got an emergency appointment with his foot surgeon who agreed there was something to this new unusual pain – we had done the right thing by coming in. When he took off the bandages and dressing he found a slight infection in one of the two incisions he has in his foot. So now Bob is on two antibiotics and a pain medication.

And 24 hours later he is feeling much better.

We still think we’ll go ahead to San Diego, but we'll make a final decision tomorrow morning. I’ll hate to miss it – I have a new dress for the formal occasion, but it wouldn’t be the first or last thing I’ll have missed in my life.

I must say thanks to all the help we received this week. My friend Marlene brought in lunch and took us to the cardiologist on Tuesday, my niece Dara took care of him so I could go to my own medical appointment on Wednesday, Ben came over countless times and helped his dad take his showers, our massage wonder-woman brought over her table and gave us both massages last evening, and she and her mate are bringing us dinner tonight. Plus we had two visits from home heath nurses and a physical therapist. It’s been a hectic and heartwarming week. We are very blessed even in light of this bumpy time in our lives.

I left Bob for a short while this morning to walk downtown Manhattan Beach to the grocery store, and I couldn’t resist taking a look at my ocean while I was out. It rained heavily last night, and the sky threatened more rain today even though the sun was bright and warm. I never tire of taking photos of my beach – it is just one more blessing in my life.

Saturday morning about 9:00 am

Small stones January twenty-three to thirty

One more day left -

Jan 23: Thick black clouds rose into the sky and dissipated into the blue. And I don’t know where they came from.

Jan 23: Packing boxes, putting fragile ware out of harm’s way, throwing out detritus, and running up and down the stairs until we’ve completed the prep work for our wood floor renovation this week, I wonder, is it more trouble than it’s worth?

Jan 24: So tired and it’s only eleven thirty in the morning. But I’m pushing on.

Jan 24: I walk from my car to the gym in the dark cold morning, holding my jacket closed to the chill. But I refuse to park closer. The cold wakes me up and the walk gives my workout a jump start.

Jan 25: The plane’s loud hum doesn’t disrupt its smooth dissent.

Jan 25: White snowy peaks rise just above the cloud-line.

Jan 26: The clear lake like a mirror reflects the pine trees standing green and proud along its edge.

Jan 26: One hundred year old vines, thick, gnarled, bent over like old men, stand in long straight rows ready to produce full-bodied, peppery, deep red zins for their masters until death.

Jan 26: A Ganesh beckons me from the window. Heavy cement rubbed in a deep ochre patina and enveloped by heart shapes around its base.  Could I make it mine? it's too soon to tell.

 

Jan 27: I found the old Knight Foundry, created in 1873 just off downtown Sutter Creek’s Main Street. And I made a piece of art out of its shelves of tools all rusty and dirty and superfluous in the time we live in now.

Jan 27: How can I treat my husband so he’ll look at me and think I’m a better person than I am right now, tonight?

Jan 28: The cold wind blew right through me as I walked up Post Street this morning. Even passing those up-scale shops didn’t warm my bones.

Jan 28: The painted heart statue on the corner of Union Square shows the San Francisco Bay and its famous bridge.

Jan 29: Waiting, waiting, waiting for our flight to LA. What else can you do with a gimpy foot on a misty day?

Jan 29: I’ll do anything to get my step tally for the day – even walk in boots with heels high enough to cause the sides and soles of my feet to burn.

Jan 30: Back home at last, watching the rain pouring down in the bright and clear sunlit day.

A change of pace

I've decided to lighten up on the subject today and write about my exercise program. Sometimes I get to thinking it's a heavy subject because I'm so obsessed about exercising (I do some form of exercise everyday), but it really doesn't comes close to some of the other subjects I've been writing about lately.

On December 13, 2007 I posted about the Health Miles program that I particpate in at my gym. (http://us.virginhealthmiles.com/pages/home.aspx) So if you care to read more information about the program please go there. 

The main thing I want to say about it now is that I've re-upped again into the Health Miles program for another year. My reup date was January 17, and since that date came and went and I'm still participating, it means that for the next year I'll be exercising at my usual pace yet again.

Every year I go through the same thoughts. Should I keep going or should I give myself a break? In 2007 I posed the same question and that was after being in the program for only one year. And I ask myself the question every year because staying in the program is very hard work. 

But it’s not all bad. It’s my self-challenge. No one is telling me that I have to wear a pedometer all day, every day and download my steps and record my daily exercise accomplishments. No one has told me that I have to pay the $10.00 a month for Health Miles to maintain a digital track of my every exercise move. I’m completely at choice. And, it’s all to the good. In exchange for the $1200 a year that it costs, each year that I’ve participated I’ve earned $250.00 and several hours of personal training sessions. I think I come out ahead in the long run. Plus I’m motivated to exercise. The pedometer is a huge motivator. And I think that anything that motivates me to exercise is a good thing. Plus I like the results.

I’ve been in this Health Miles program for over four years now, and in total I’ve amassed over 19,161,878 steps – an average of over 13,000 steps a day. And that doesn’t count Pilates, Yoga, and weight exercises.

Of course every year I say it’s time to slow down. I tell myself it’s okay to take a day off once in a while. It’s okay not to amass so many steps every day. Well, I haven’t followed up on that yet. Will this be the year that I slow down a bit? I’ll let you know.

Small Stones fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen

Jan 14: Rotating and moving my ankle back and forth seems to have erased the pain.

Jan 15: I am unable to lift my mood out of its blue funk since last Saturday’s shooting in Tucson.

Jan 16: Flip-flops, spaghetti straps, shorts all in sight on this unseasonably hot winter day.

Jan 17: I’m being very lax today: late to rise, late to workout, late to get to my desk. And it’s all quite okay.  

Jan 18: The line at the post office reached out the door while impatient customers coughed, shuffled their feet, and beat their fingers on the ledge as they waited for the one postal employee to call “Next.”