Health is everything. Losing it in some way shape or form - especially if you are kinesthetic like me - has a way of sucking the joy (not to mention momentum) out of life.
When I think of of my current aches and pains though - which I'll tell you about in just a bit - I can't help but think of my husband's stepsister, Sandra, who died last year of a rare soft cell sarcoma. Sandra was a vibrant, smart, and glass "full-to-the-brim/overflowing" kind of gal.
We spent a long weekend with her and my husband's family along the coast of Germany were we laughed, walked, biked, talked and teased (her a lot about the existence or not of alcohol free wheat beer.) Parting ways - I still remember how much I looked forward to spending time with her again. She was diagnosed shortly thereafter, and for the next two years or so, we watched her pore every ounce of energy and will she had into staying alive. She was 32 years old when she lost her battle, and we lost all our futures with her.
I don't know how she did it. I'm sure she had her moments - but it was rare to see her without a smile on her face. She was - and is in my memories - a woman who was filled with an inspiring, positive can-do-energy - no matter the odds - and the odds, in the end, were never in her favor.
This is all a long way to get to where I am today and to why I haven't blogged since last year. No - I don't have cancer. Nor am I fighting the kind of battle that Sandra valiantly fought and many are fighting today. But I have, since November of last year, been plagued with a number of back-to-back health "setbacks" - for lack of a better term. All requiring some kind of diagnostic testing and multiple doctor visits. (and this for someone who up until now has prided herself on not requiring anything more than the occasional annual preventative check-up).
Has middle age come a knocking? Is this what this is all about? When I kicked this blog off last year - I talked about "redefining health and fitness in a middle aging body" as something I anticipated doing as part of living an "invested life". When I wrote that though, I thought I meant learning how to modify nutrition and exercise habits to accommodate hormonal changes as I get older. Never in a million years would I have thought it would include addressing blood showing up where it shouldn't, immune systems attacking, or childhood falls coming back to haunt me in the form of a whacked out disc in my lower back. But then - this is life.
That last one though - my back going out on me - is the one that has me thinking of Sandra. The first time I threw it out was smack dab in the middle of the World Series playoffs that the SF Giants would go on to win. Sure I was laid up a bit - a great excuse to lie on the couch - cheering Buster, the Beard and their fellow teammates on. But I figured I'd get back up to speed on my own. I'd work out my core, which truth be told - I'd been neglecting. I'd get back into yoga. And I'd ramp back up into my weight training routine. And I did. Slowly but surely - get back into some semblance of a work out routine. Not as much as I'd been doing before - but I did. And as I did - the serious pain ebbed - but it never went entirely away. It continued to nag. Mostly in my lower back and hip.
In retrospect - that constant low level chronic pain took a toll not only on my physical health, but on my emotional well being too. Chipping away at full joy. Making me feel limited. Making me cautious and guarded with what I committed myself physically to. Subtle - but a toll. Low level pain became my "new" normal. I got cranky. And that became normal. My poor husband. I knew I didn't want it to be this way - and held out that at some point I would feel better if I just kept doing what I was doing. It just never seemed to get any better.
Maybe I'm lucky that I live with, among others, Charlie, the cutest cat in the universe. Charlie loves sitting on laps, but as the runt of the litter, he's incapable of jumping up on them himself. Instead, he'll signal his desire to be lifted onto your lap by sitting close and looking up at you in that adorable and expectant way he does. I'm lucky because if I hadn't have leaned left to pick him up, I wouldn't have experienced the tiny pop in my lower back. I wouldn't have woken up the next morning incapable of moving because my back was locked tight, and I wouldn't have gone to the doctor, gotten the MRI, or gone through the eight weeks of physical therapy that followed. I might still be trying to do it myself, experiencing the same minimal results.
I wish I could say I was 100% again, but I'm not. I have an inkling of hope though - having experienced a day or two of 0 back pain, and I have a lot more tools and learning than I had before I set out on the healing journey. I'm learning, the hard way, what triggers a setback. I'm on what I hope is the tail end of a second setback. Over did it activity wise at home a few weeks ago. Learning to take "back breaks" when I feel it tightening up. The pain is back to about a 3-5 on a scale of 10. Not great. Chronic. Eating away at joy.
And then I stop. I think of Sandra.
I think of all those days she had to wake up with the knowledge of the cancer eating away at her. I think of how she held on to hope and fought so hard to find a cure. I think of the pain, discomfort, and emotional fear and upheaval she
must have experienced - day after day, week after week, month after
month, year after year. I think of how she threw herself fully into living - not just enduring her treatments - but taking classes and experiencing as much living out of life as she could.
If she could stop cancer from taking that beautiful smile off her face - than to honor her - I'll be damned if I let a little back pain rob me of mine.
Wherever you are girl - this one's for you.
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