Y
MCA
It's fun to stay at the YyyyyMCA-a.
Or at least work out there.
And now that I write it, perhaps "fun" isn't the correct word.
Regardless (not irregardless. Irregardless is not a word; stop using it.)
Regardless (and really the song is just a convenient lead-in to the blog today), the Man and I have joined the Y here at the Presidio, and are engaged in working our Major Muscle Groups.
My work-outs are complicated by the injured foot and the clogs I have to wear. Ever worn clogs to the gym? Let me rephrase that -- are you NOT Scandinavian, and yet you have worn clogs while working out at the gym? Do you feel my pain?
Since I'm not allowed to put undue pressure on my foot, my current areas of activity include:
- The recumbent bycicle
- Various machines for exercising arms and stomach muscles
- The swimming pool if I don't use my legs and feet much. Fun!
Recumbant bikes are sort of cool, actually. About half the recumbent bikes at the Y are attached to computer screens allowing you to surf the web or watch a television program while pedaling.
"While pedaling" is the operative phrase.
Stop pedaling and the screen goes black.
The web-TV access is supposed to act as an incentive to continue exercising.
But I wind up feeling like one of those gerbils or hamsters in an exercise wheel, forever running to catch something I can't have, while scientists evaluate my behavior.
"Look at that woman pedaling during the Julia Child re-run," they say behind the big glass wall, making obscure notations on their clipboards. "She's working so hard; does she really not know how to boil water? Do you think she'll ever learn? And what's with the clogs?"
The arm and so-on machines are easier. No real pressure on the Clog-encased Foot, and I can feel very virtuous about the lat pull-down and the tri-cep extension. Passers-by are sometimes startled when I announce "Twelve!" in the midst of complete silence, but then they notice the Clog and adjust their expectations accordingly.
The swimming without using my legs and feet is a toss-up.
- Plus, I don't have to wear the clogs.
- Minus, I'm automatically the slowest person in the lane.
- Plus, no one really notices the quiet counting of strokes, as if I'm a crew chief on the Thames.
- Minus, I forget not to use my feet, go underwater for a couple of mighty frog kicks, and come to the surface in pain, knowing I've just set my recovery back by another day or two.
Yesterday, I tried to adapt one of those styrofoam floating kick-boards to my work-out instructions. You know the ones, an elongated half-moon shape that people hold with their hands and arms while kicking like mad to get across the pool? Well, try clamping it between your thighs while using only your cupped palms to reach the other side.
They think the mirrors are only one-way, but I could see the scientists with their clipboards watching me. "Doesn't understand use of styrofoam board," they note on my permanent record in indelible ink. "Uncoordinated swimmer, slowest in her lane. Counts outloud."
"And where are her clogs?"
Counting neuroses
I confess I'm an unconscious counter.
I arrive at the top of a staircase and announce -- seemingly apropos of nothing -- "22!"
I'm as surprised as you are. I thought I was talking to you, or thinking about the State Of The World Today or "Do we have enough garlic cloves in the house?"
But somewhere in my soul, where the foot bone connects to the counting bone, I was communing with the steps.
My husband, on the other hand, is a conscious counter. An unrepentent conscious counter. He chose the flatware in our wedding registry because he loved the way all the different pieces hung in perfect proportions on the cool silver thing. Frankly, I liked it too, but I was unaware of the darker portents to come.
Now that we're married and keeping house together, I've discovered he Counts Things, much as does Kanga in the Pooh adventures. I'll hear him down in the kitchen, cosseting the pasta boxes, and then suddenly he'll walk into our bedroom, fix me with a gimlet gaze and say, "One of the spoons is missing."
Often, something's not in its place because I'm using it.
Occasionally, something's not in its place because I left it who knows where. I'm the woman who has placed car keys and library books in the fridge, simply because they were unnoticed in my hands while putting up the groceries. I confess this frailty willingly and with a heart open to change.
But sometimes, and O! the glory of it, something's not in its place because King Richard the Counter has left it somewhere.
I come to you tonight, full of a small triumph, which are often the best kinds.
The Man, like a terrier with a bone, has been worrying around the house about a missing glass. A large-ish, 16-ounce drinking glass, which lives with its seven brothers on the second shelf of the upper cabinet immediately to the right of the sink. It's been missing for more than a week, with plans in place to be featured on a milk carton.
At various times of the day and night, in various rooms of the house and locations in The City, Richard will mutter accusingly, "That glass still hasn't shown up."
There has been no need to articulate my blame in this matter. Of course I'm responsible for the missing glass. God and God alone knows what I might have done with it, and where I might have left it. Silly woman, she probably put the glass in the recycling bin, or sent it off with the returned library books.
Picture the scene then, when he came to me last night.
I'm sitting on the bed, folding some laundry.
He appears in the open bedroom door frame, one hand behind his back, leaning half-in and half-out.
An inscrutable look is on his face.
"How much do you love me?" he asks.
Thinking he's serious and caught quite off-guard (I was folding his boxers), one hand goes towards my breastbone as I say, "Darling, more than I can say."
He steps fully into the room and silently reveals the hidden hand, clasping the missing glass. It had been hiding on the top shelf of his closet, behind some sweaters, where he had inadvertently left it.
He's been very good to me today.
Foot bone connected to the Knee doctor
My foot doctor is named Knee.
Dr. Alicia Knee, podiatrist and adjunct professor at UCSF, specializes in sports injuries and ballerina's feet.
And yes, I asked if she had thought about specializing in knees, if for no other reason than the delicious irony of being "My knee doctor Doctor Knee."
She laughed with much good humour and said, "Actually I considered it seriously, for that very reason, but two more compelling things sent me further down the leg professionally. Feet and ankles are more interesting than knees, and I love dancing. And as a podiatrist, I get to work with a lot of dancers."
She examined my foot, frowned over the extremely flexible, light-weight running shoes I favor, and sent me for X-Rays. I might write a separate blog devoted to the experience of the X-Ray tech asking me if there were any chance I was pregnant. A lifetime of single-adult-celibacy (waiting til Mr. Right came along) always meant "No." As the word was leaving my lips I stopped, quite startled, looking at the wedding ring.
Anyway, when the results came back, Dr. Knee showed me the fracture - really, a network of small breaks - in my foot.
Earlier, she had warned me that I might have to wear a cast. It all depended, she said, on the location of the fracture along the bone. And the cast, if required, would stretch from just below my knee all the way to my toes. Ugh.
"Your break is far enough up the bone to give us options," she said brightly. "The cast is still the guaranteed, fastest treatment. It's a big cast, will require crutches, and bathing is hell. But the bone heals more quickly.
"Another choice," she continued, "is the Expensive European Clog. Dansko makes a clog with an extremely rigid sole and a great natural footbed. You'd have to wear it constantly -- no running shoes, no heels, no going barefoot on the beach or at home. The clog becomes your removable cast, and you only take it off in bed or the bath."
I chose The Clog.
Then, she began the lifestyle interview.
Do you smoke, drink alcohol, drink caffeine, play sports?
No, yes, yes, yes, I answered.
"Good on you for not smoking, bad on you for the caffeine. Here's my regimen for you -- go shopping and get at least one pair of the Dansko clogs. No caffeine you can possibly avoid, lots of red wine, and only the physical exercise that doesn't put pressure on your feet. And no walking on hills."
I did a double-take. "You know where we live don't you?"
She smiled, "Yes, and I know it's impossible, but don't walk on hills."
"And why red wine versus white?"
"Red wine helps your heart and blood more than white wine does. Caffeine and smoking constrict your blood vessels, and I want as much blood flowing through your feet speeding the healing as possible."
She tilted her head and smiled at me. "It's not a bad prescription, you know -- red wine and shopping for expensive shoes."
So, I left the orthopaedic clinic, picked up Richard, and went shoe shopping with him. We selected a version of the shoe pictured at the top, picked up some decaf coffee beans, and went home to drink red wine.
"Just one more glass, dear; it's for my foot."
Stress fractures my life, or at least my foot
Well, so here's the truth according to the medical dictionary: A fracture is the breaking of a bone into two or more pieces.
Anyone who was not surprised when I developed a stress-related ulcer during my first year of pastoring, also will not be surprised that the fractured bone in my left foot is, yes, a Stress Fracture.
Ballerinas and professional athletes usually develop the sort of fracture I sport. Alas, I am neither. It was, though, a sports related injury. While in physical therapy for injuries received when run over by a Nissan Armada while riding my bycicle, I broke a bone in my foot.
There was this machine they use for Olympic skiers, see. You leap sideways from one foot, land on the other, and then slide (in a sideways crouch) along a slick surface while wearing cloth booties. Extra points for doing it eyes shut and not falling, and it strengthens your feet, ankles, knees and sense of balance.
The repetitve landing and sliding on the left foot caused the outside bone to begin to fracture and break.
I finished the therapy with good marks and a massage, wondering why the hell my left foot hurt when I walked or ran. I just iced it down and took the dogs around Rice University.
Look at a convenient naked left foot -- your own, someone else's, or the ones pictured above. The bone that runs along the outside of your foot, connecting with the little toe, is the one in question, known in august, learned circles as the 5th metatarsal.
Mine flares out abnormally as it stretches back towards the ankle, because it is broken. But did I realize it was broken?
No.
Did I see the doctor back in July and August, when it started hurting?
No.
Did I see the doctor in September and October, when walking or jogging with the dogs brought me home limping, in great pain.
No.
I went through my wedding, outside, on 3-inch sandal heels, trying not to limp.
I moved to San Francisco and took long walks up and down the hills, pretending my foot didn't hurt.
Finally, The Man noticed the increasing limp, and began to lobby for a doctor's appointment. Then, one evening while jogging up and down the logs on the beach cliff trail (see previous blog: The 244 Steps), I limped home in tears.
Richard sat next to me, "What's wrong?" he asked tenderly.
"My foot feels like it is breaking," I said, breaking being the only description that seemed to fit.
He removed my running shoes and socks. The outer edge of my left foot was swollen, hot and red.
Gentle probing brought more tears, as well as a doctor's appointment.
Next time I have a recurring, unexplained pain, I'm just going to go to the doctor and save myself 6 months of making things worse.
New Year's Resolution, #4.
Wonder how long until I break it?
:-)
Buon giorno, 06
Dinner was Italian, of course.
A nice little place down in the Mission.
Then a drive downtown where we walked through Union Square, looking for the big street party and fireworks. The Plaza was roped off and guarded by cops, with only raucous private parties along the side streets in swing. When did the Bush Administration come to The City?
After a really fun time hoofing it around town, we drove home and rang the new year in privately. We found out later that the public celebration had moved to the Embarcadero, with fireworks out over the Bay.
Next year, count us in.
Today's first meal will be cornbread, greens and black eyed peas, and a prayer for the future.
And butter.
Many blessings are sought for this year, this city, this family.
Ciao!
