Progress reports
I am continuing to do things that are good for me.
Wednesday morning I went to the AquaFit class. I went to level one, but I may want to try level two. I also learned that you must have aqua shoes for this class. When you're just swimming, your feet don't touch the bottom of the pool all that much, but in water aerobics you are in shoulder-deep water with your feet on the bottom. It's like 40-grit sandpaper. Also there is a lot of kicking and so forth where unprotected toes can smack the bottom. After class I drove to five different stores before I located some Speedo aqua shoes that I think are probably last-year's models since I can't find them online. They are black with pale pink stitching in decorative stripes.
Thursday morning I went and spent an hour and a half at Linda Mar beach, talking to my pastor about a variety of things that have been troubling me. She was wise, understanding and helpful.
Thursday afternoon I went back to the Y and had a session with Don, the personal trainer. He set me up with a circuit of exercises on all the various fitness machines. There are a couple I can't do because my arms simply do not rotate far enough, thanks to my having broken both elbows 15 years ago. H showed me some exercises I can do with free weights to cover the same muscle groups those machines would have worked. The Y has a little fitness calculator thing that keeps track of all you do in a session (so long as you log into each machine as you get to it.) At the end of your workout, it tells you how much you've done. I lifted over 3000 pounds today. *grin*
Thursday evening I met up with my Japanese class buddies, and we went out for dinner and beer. We went to Gordon Biersch, which is a fabulous local brew-pub that has, evidently, gone national in the last couple of years. But Palo Alto Gordon Biersch is the original. I have some very refreshing hefeweizen (wheat beer) which, given that it was over 100°F/38°C today, was most welcome. We ended up going for frozen yogurt with strawberries after dinner, and then to a bar where Tony and Erik drank single malt scotch, and the rest of us just enjoyed the company.
The plan for Friday is I'm going to the AquaFit class in the morning, then to meet Anet for sushi. Then we're gonna bleach my roots, so my hair will stop looking so disreputable. And I'll hang out with her all afternoon and admire her new kiln.
This means I haven't been getting much writing done, but I am enjoying being able to spend time with people I haven't seen much of lately. And face-to-face really does make a difference. Hugs are amazing. I'd missed hugs.
So far the exercise is tiring and I'm a bit sore, but it's not terrible. I am terribly weak in the upper body. That I need to really work on.
Oh, and I talked to the doctor about the failed procedure. Evidently the scarring on the outside of my colon from the endometriosis has made it so twisted and inflexible that they were afraid that if they'd kept trying with the endoscope, they'd have torn a hole in my colon. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds, as it happened to a friend of my aunt's. It was very serious and she was in hospital for weeks. So while I was complaining before about them not finishing the procedure, now I understand why they couldn't.
The doctor also said he wasn't at all surprised I've been in extra pain since that attempt, as it was rather traumatic to my poor insides.
The down side of all this is that I now have to do another bowel prep on Monday night, and another procedure on Tuesday. The prep is the worst of it, though; the Tuesday events are very William Gibson-esque: I swallow a capsule camera, have sensors placed all over my abdomen, and carry a recording device all day. At the end of the day I give them the data recorder (the capsule camera is mine to keep, though I'm not so sure I'm all that anxious to attempt to retrieve it >.>) Then in a week they get an analysis of the data and have nice pictures of my insides.
Overall at the moment I'm exhausted. The exercise is tiring, but rewarding. The reason I'm getting all this gastrointestinal investigation is still causing some problems. And I miss my people online, and writing with you.
Thankful for: the beach, rev. terri, my japanese class friends, tasty wheat beer with a squeeze of lemon, the red-tailed hawk I saw at the beach, comfortable pajamas, my rats, personal trainers who encourage you, having enough, air conditioning, clean sheets on my bed
Wednesday morning I went to the AquaFit class. I went to level one, but I may want to try level two. I also learned that you must have aqua shoes for this class. When you're just swimming, your feet don't touch the bottom of the pool all that much, but in water aerobics you are in shoulder-deep water with your feet on the bottom. It's like 40-grit sandpaper. Also there is a lot of kicking and so forth where unprotected toes can smack the bottom. After class I drove to five different stores before I located some Speedo aqua shoes that I think are probably last-year's models since I can't find them online. They are black with pale pink stitching in decorative stripes.
Thursday morning I went and spent an hour and a half at Linda Mar beach, talking to my pastor about a variety of things that have been troubling me. She was wise, understanding and helpful.
Thursday afternoon I went back to the Y and had a session with Don, the personal trainer. He set me up with a circuit of exercises on all the various fitness machines. There are a couple I can't do because my arms simply do not rotate far enough, thanks to my having broken both elbows 15 years ago. H showed me some exercises I can do with free weights to cover the same muscle groups those machines would have worked. The Y has a little fitness calculator thing that keeps track of all you do in a session (so long as you log into each machine as you get to it.) At the end of your workout, it tells you how much you've done. I lifted over 3000 pounds today. *grin*
Thursday evening I met up with my Japanese class buddies, and we went out for dinner and beer. We went to Gordon Biersch, which is a fabulous local brew-pub that has, evidently, gone national in the last couple of years. But Palo Alto Gordon Biersch is the original. I have some very refreshing hefeweizen (wheat beer) which, given that it was over 100°F/38°C today, was most welcome. We ended up going for frozen yogurt with strawberries after dinner, and then to a bar where Tony and Erik drank single malt scotch, and the rest of us just enjoyed the company.
The plan for Friday is I'm going to the AquaFit class in the morning, then to meet Anet for sushi. Then we're gonna bleach my roots, so my hair will stop looking so disreputable. And I'll hang out with her all afternoon and admire her new kiln.
This means I haven't been getting much writing done, but I am enjoying being able to spend time with people I haven't seen much of lately. And face-to-face really does make a difference. Hugs are amazing. I'd missed hugs.
So far the exercise is tiring and I'm a bit sore, but it's not terrible. I am terribly weak in the upper body. That I need to really work on.
Oh, and I talked to the doctor about the failed procedure. Evidently the scarring on the outside of my colon from the endometriosis has made it so twisted and inflexible that they were afraid that if they'd kept trying with the endoscope, they'd have torn a hole in my colon. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds, as it happened to a friend of my aunt's. It was very serious and she was in hospital for weeks. So while I was complaining before about them not finishing the procedure, now I understand why they couldn't.
The doctor also said he wasn't at all surprised I've been in extra pain since that attempt, as it was rather traumatic to my poor insides.
The down side of all this is that I now have to do another bowel prep on Monday night, and another procedure on Tuesday. The prep is the worst of it, though; the Tuesday events are very William Gibson-esque: I swallow a capsule camera, have sensors placed all over my abdomen, and carry a recording device all day. At the end of the day I give them the data recorder (the capsule camera is mine to keep, though I'm not so sure I'm all that anxious to attempt to retrieve it >.>) Then in a week they get an analysis of the data and have nice pictures of my insides.
Overall at the moment I'm exhausted. The exercise is tiring, but rewarding. The reason I'm getting all this gastrointestinal investigation is still causing some problems. And I miss my people online, and writing with you.
Thankful for: the beach, rev. terri, my japanese class friends, tasty wheat beer with a squeeze of lemon, the red-tailed hawk I saw at the beach, comfortable pajamas, my rats, personal trainers who encourage you, having enough, air conditioning, clean sheets on my bed