Pain In My.....

A few weeks ago, I was offered a chance to work with my old OLY coach again, except it would be more like personal training since I can't do a lot of stuff with weights anymore because of my shoulder.

I was so torn. I LOVED working with my coach and I loved being at the CF gym, but how would it be going back and not being able to do anything that everyone else was doing? What about my friends who aren't really my friends anymore because I left? 

In the end, it was an offer I couldn't refuse. I've pretty much only been doing spinning and while it is a great cardio workout, it's nothing like what I really enjoy. Of course, my limitations make working out like I used to impossible, but I know my coach wouldn't let me do anything to hurt myself, but would push me just the same.

Last weekend was my first time back. I was sore for DAYS. By the time I was walking normally again, it was time to go back. I'll only be going on Saturday and Sunday mornings (there goes my one day to sleep in) but during the week, I'll repeat a workout on my own so I'll get 3 days in.

The discomfort of being back almost a year later was gone by the second day, despite the fact that the gym is now in a totally new location, there are lots of new people I don't know, and it's just not the same as it was. So far, I'm not upset about seeing others do things I cannot, but I know that's going to come soon enough. For now, I'm just happy to be back and happy to get great workouts in, despite being left sooo sore! (Interestingly, my legs are the worst!! I thought they'd be ok since I do so much cycling, but nooooo. OUCH!)

It's crazy to think that it's been almost a year since my surgery. I have days that my shoulder feels fine and days when it hurts. The cold weather makes it ache some days. And I can move just the right way sometimes and it'll be sore for days. A couple of times I didn't realize I couldn't do something and ended up getting hurt, but it is what it is. I try to be careful, but life happens. Hopefully I'll be building the strength back up and it will help. (After I attempted a weights class and ended up in pain for months, I stopped doing weights altogether because I was too scared of hurting myself.)

And my old CF coach was more than happy to have me back, even with the special arrangement. I love her. I feel like I'm back home and like I've never left.

The Big Black Dog

Caffeine: My Loyal Friend

In  the last year, I have gained 25lbs.

There. I said it. Twenty-five pounds. It makes me want to puke just thinking about it.

During one of my therapy sessions, my shrink asked if I've had my thyroid checked lately and I wanted to scream. EVERY new doctor I've ever had wants to test my thyroid. And every time they have, everything has come back perfectly fine and not even close to being an issue. Instead of screaming at her and telling her it wasn't my fucking thyroid, I politely told her that my doctor had checked it last time I had a check up and everything was fine.

Except she didn't check it. Oops.

I have been increasingly tired over the last few months. My hair has been coming out, almost like postpartum hair loss. Yikes. I have my period every 3 weeks still. I sleep like crap. I could go on with everything that could be thyroid related, but let's just say, I've had a lot of symptoms. But each one I could justify happening because of whatever other reason. I'm a mom, of course I'm tired all the time. Right?

So when it came time for my annual checkup, I told the doctor everything. First thing, she said she wants to check my thyroid... and looked and found that we did not last year after all. Sure enough, I get a call later and she wants to start me on a low dose of meds.

I've heard that some people notice the meds working as soon as a few days into it, however, my info said 1-2 weeks. Today was the first day I think I actually notice a little bit of a difference and it's been a week.

I woke up this morning and instead of having my 800 cups of coffee, I had a glass of iced tea and that was it. I accomplished SO MUCH today. I feel like it's been forever since I've gotten that much done! I still hit a wall a couple of times, but definitely wasn't dragging all day like I have been. Granted, I didn't workout today, so that may have had some impact. But I did have a diet coke later in the day because I was dragging. Of course, that's not abnormal at all. I live on caffeine.


Maybe this will be a good thing. I hope this is a good thing.

Waiting Game

Application has been submitted. Personal narrative has been written and submitted. Letters of recommendation are in progress. Now I wait to hear if they think I'll be a good match for the program.

I don't like waiting. I'm nervous. I've already been losing sleep over this.

Brain Overload

It looks like going back to school is going to happen. There are several details that need to be worked out, but everything is lining up in one way or another.

My head has been spinning all day.

Strange Things Are Happening To Me

Until a week ago, I thought the idea of ever going back to school was preposterous. The husband has mentioned on occasion that he thinks I should go back to school if I want to. Since he is a professor, he found that I can take 6hrs per semester if I'm enrolled in a degree program. (So no taking classes in this dept and that just to see what I like.)

Still thinking he was crazy, I talked to a spinning teacher at the gym about the Kinesiology Dept. She assured me that it isn't all gung-ho CrossFit people, so I checked out the website. After looking around, I know Kinesiology wasn't the right fit for me, despite my love for working out.

What I did find by clicking around was a Master's in Public Health. The program has four areas of focus including Public Health Physical Activity. The other areas include food safety and biosecurity, infectious diseases/zoonoses and public health human nutrition.

On a whim, I called the department and on Monday I have an appointment with the department head to discuss the program. The more I read about the program, the more excited I become. There are classes that don't sound as thrilling as others, and classes that sound dreadful (biostatistics). But all in all, it sounds intriguing.

I'm actually EXCITED about speaking with the department head on Monday! I'm forming a list of questions to ask. It would awesome if this is a great fit for me!

I worry I'm getting too excited about it.

Obviously, I have to take into great consideration the impact it could have on my family--both positive and negative. I could write out all of the pros and cons, but I think I'd be getting ahead of myself. Right now, I'm going to simply get more information and go from there. One step at a time.

Here I Go Again

I've never posted numbers of my weight here and I'm not going to start now. But let's just say that I'm up too much. I HATE the way I look in pics. I feel like such a failure.

One way that was really beneficial for me before was to post progress pics. So here we go again. BLAH.  :(

Range of Motion Progress

After a friend asked me how high I could reach now with my hurt arm, I decided to take some pics so that I can see how much progress I am making. Today is a normal day, not doing great with it, not doing bad. Some days I can reach higher (going forward), but all the other pics are accurate of what I can do consistently.

No smiles.. These are very uncomfortble for me to do still. You can see that I've gained weight. And you can see my oh so lovely arms. Should've worn a long sleeve shirt. Oh well. Just shows why I want plastic surgery! And another reason not to smile!

Straight forward, arms up:

Arms up, out to the side:

External rotation:

And reaching behind my back:

This is 6wks post surgery. I go back at 12wks to check progress again.

Progress!!

Yesterday I did some major cleaning. I helped the kids clean their terribly messy rooms, and even rearranged their (very light) beds. I put a bed skirt under the girl's bed, which involved lifting the mattress. By the end of the day, I was not feeling all that great and had to take half a pain pill before bed.

This morning I did more cleaning, including lots of laundry (no folding). Then I went to water aerobics and was able to do a bit more than I could last week, but had to stop b/c of pain. A couple of hours later I had physical therapy. To be honest, given everything I'd been doing the last 2 days, I was seriously considering canceling!

I got to PT and had to warm up with a pulley thing and was about in tears. I did several new exercises and even used 5lb weights to do kickbacks and bicep curls, as well as 15lb rows. I did lots of other stuff without weights.

My shoulder... omg. It's tired, but there is no pain. It feels like it's had a good workout, but again--no pain. I even just put my hair up in a pony tail that wasn't at the nape of my neck! (I've been able to do a low pony tail with some pain for a week or so. Prior to that, I couldn't lift my arm enough to even do that!)

I'm thinking that by next week I might be ready to join the other gym and do some real workouts!! I'll probably keep doing water aerobics for awhile so that I can get some arm movements in that are easy on my shoulder.

This is the first time in so long that I feel like I'm moving FORWARD instead of backwards or in limbo!

Small Town Crap

On Thursday, I found out that my shrink goes to the gym where I plan to join. And goes to the spinning classes I plan to take. What's that, you say? She may not go to the same ones as I do b/c she works and I don't? Ha! Oh no no no! I'm not that lucky! Because of her flexible schedule, she goes to the every classes I would go to--either the 6am or the 9am. I could join another gym, you say? Ha! This is by far the best option I have in this town. This is the gym I opted out of joining and went to CrossFit instead. The only bright side I can find is that if ever asked how I know my shrink, I could say from the gym instead of therapy.

For the time being, I'm doing water aerobics, water jogging and the recumbent bike at the school Rec Center. The range of motion in my shoulder isn't where they want it to be at this point and still hurts a lot. So I'm not quite ready to "really" workout, though I'm getting quite sick of this nonsense. I'm guessing I'll join the new gym in the next week or two. The Rec Center is nice, but I just can't handle working out with 18 year olds.. or 80 year olds. It seems like it's one extreme or the other.

I thrive on group classes. It's nice to commiserate with others who are going through the same class as you are. I've formed awesome friendships at the gym. Not that I think that I'll necessarily make friends at every gym I try. But it happens. Of course, with my shrink going to the same classes I will go to, I'm kind of concerned about what that will mean.

First Workout Post Surgery

I had my first workout today since about a week before my surgery. A friend teaches a water aerobic class and it sounded like a good way to get moving again. The jury is still out on whether or not it was a good idea.

On one hand, it was good to workout. And it was good that I know the instructor and she knows my surgery and knows what I was capable of doing once upon a time. On the other hand, I feel like a loser. I couldn't do a lot of the stuff. I left in tears b/c it hurt--my shoulder and my ego.

It's been 3.5 weeks and I don't expect to be able to do everything I once could, but come ON. It isn't like I had a major surgery!!

I'm glad I saved some of my pain pills because I'm heading to take one now and go to bed.

Sit Back and Relax... This is a Long One

I've been waiting for weeks to finally be able to write this post without feeling like I'm going to be handling everything wrong. I can't say that I'll be able to do it "right" but I need to go ahead and get it all out.

Last March, my shoulder began to hurt when doing some exercises, mainly pull ups. After my accomplishment of learning how to jump onto a box, I decided that my next task would be to be able to do a pull up. I just wanted one. In January, I'd listed it as one of my CrossFit resolutions for the year. I had started doing assisted pull ups with the most resistance possible, almost. Basically, I sucked. In my defense, pulling up my body weight isn't an easy task, but it was something I desperately wanted to be able to do.

Around the same time, I fell in love with Olympic style weightlifting. For awhile, I thought I'd be able to do both CF and OLY and be OK, but I realized that my body just couldn't handle both. Let's face it, I'm no spring chicken. And I don't exactly have a history of working out prior to a couple of years ago. My body has taken a lot of abuse over the years from being so overweight for so long.

I gradually started doing more and more OLY and less and less CF. But I still worked and worked and worked (and worked and worked and worked) on my pull ups. I progressed slowly, but kept plugging at it, hoping that one day I'd meet that goal of JUST ONE unassisted pull up. That's all I wanted--just one.

At one point, my OLY coach reasoned with me about my shoulder pain and convinced me to see my doctor. I did some physical therapy and it helped a little... enough so that my pain went away for awhile and I was able to compete in my first (and only) OLY meet. It was that meet that made me want to never do anything but OLY ever again. Even CF, which I loved. Even Zumba, which I hadn't done in forever. I would've been happy only lifting heavy shit and nothing else.

But the pain came back. Eventually, I went back to my doctor (at the insistence of my OLY coach again) and got a referral for a sports medicine doctor. I did more physical therapy again... didn't help much, so the Dr told me to stop. We tried a cortisone injection--didn't help. I had an MRI, which was the most expensive nap I've ever had--and showed absolutely nothing abnormal. I had an MRI, which was the most expensive nap I've ever had--and showed absolutely nothing abnormal. We tried another steroid injection, that time using an x-ray to make sure the medicine was injected into the bursa (fluid sac). That helped briefly.

The pain kept getting worse and worse. It got to the point that I wasn't able to pick up a bar without pain. I was doing only lower body stuff and the pain kept getting worse. I wasn't able to snatch or c&j or do anything overhead. (I'd long given up my quest for a pull up.) I gradually got worse going from weight on the bar to only the bar (33#) to the training bar (15#) to only a PVC pipe to not being able to go overhead at all.

I knew it was serious. I didn't complain that much about the pain. Here and there I would, but I didn't let on just how bad it was. It got to the point where now only could I not snatch or c&j, but I couldn't even squat... just holding onto the bar was painful... just holding onto a PVC was painful to try and squat as well.

The doctor had been clear with me from the beginning as to what steps we'd take. He wanted to avoid scoping my shoulder to see what the problem was if at all possible, but the time came when that was the last option available. By that point, I was more than ready to have it done. My workouts were next to nothing and seemed pointless. I was learning creative ways to get somewhat of a workout in thanks to my coaches, but it still wasn't enough.

I've mentioned several times that I'm an emotional eater. It's not something I'm proud of, but it's a reality for me. During this whole time, my eating kept deteriorating. I got to the point where I met with my CF coach about how I should be eating for my type of working out. We did a body analysis and she told me how to eat properly while doing lots of weight stuff. The timing was terrible. It was just before the holidays. I was OK for a bit, but the more pain I had, the more I ate poorly.

As much as it pains me to admit it, I think that for the last 2 months now I've gotten my "nutrition" mostly from junk. I'm talking serious junk. Not just foods that aren't the best choice, but junk. Cookies, chips, ice cream. I've gotten to the point where I've even been hiding it from my husband. Obviously, my depression has been kicking into high gear.

So anyway. I had my surgery at the beginning of February. While the doctor was in there looking around, he figured out what was going on. My bursa was hemorrhaging and he had to remove it. In the process, he had to shave down some of the bone to make sure I had room to move my shoulder around without grinding bones together.

The pain from the surgery is like nothing I have ever experienced. It was worse than when my epidural stopped working when I was having my son. I'd rather give birth with absolutely no pain medication than go through the pain I've had with my shoulder b/c of the surgery.

Last week I had my 2 week post-op appointment. I knew what my doctor would say, but I had to hear it. I asked what the surgery meant for exercise for me in the long run. He wouldn't look me in the eye and wouldn't tell me that I "couldn't" do anything in particular. It was obvious by his body language what he thought. I'd already decided what I was going to do, but he confirmed that I was making the right choice by no longer doing OLY or CF.

He explained to me that because there was no longer the cushion in my shoulder, if I continued to workout like I had been, I was looking at majorly screwing up my rotator cuff. I knew that if that were to happen, it would be way worse than anything I'd experienced with this shoulder surgery.

I left and cried. And tried to wash my blues away with food. It didn't work. I spent a few days wallowing in self pity and thinking about how everything was going to change for me. CFMK had become my second home. For Christmas, my CF coach gave me a keychain with the coordinates of the gym on it... so I'd always know where to find my second home.

I've thought (and cried.. and eaten poorly) a lot over the last few days about what it all means. Reality is that when you're no long a part of something, your friendships will fade away. It's a horribly sad reality, but one that is true. Especially given that the type of exercise we were doing was one of the few things I had in common with so many of my friends there. In fact, not many of my "friends" have taken the time to check in with me since before the surgery. I realize everyone has his/her own life and definitely do not think that the world revolves around me. But when you're out of sight/out of mind with some people, you notice where you stand.

Two friends in particular helped me tremendously when it came to talking through everything. I couldn't be more thankful for those friendships, especially right now.

What I'm about to write is going to offend some people. It's not my intention to do so, rather, I just want to voice my opinion. I have chosen not to blog about this for so long b/c I don't want to alienate friends with my opinion. But you know, I'm entitled to it, just as others are entitled to their opinions. I hate making generalizations, and I realize that what I'm about to write is just that... I do, however, recognize that it is not a "rule" and does not mean that everyone is like this.

It is very rare that I say anything negative about CrossFit. While I disagree with the way some things are done, I respect that each person has their own beliefs and each person is responsible for his/her actions. That said, overall CrossFit has a superiority complex. They refer to themselves as "elite" athletes and many times, look down their noses at others who do no do CrossFit. It isn't enough that people exercise and enjoy it and are overall healthy people. Runners? Pshhhh... What do they know about being fit? And Zumba? HA! (Seriously though.. I would challenge ANY of my CrossFit friends to take a Zumba class from my instructor in TX.. holy shit can she kick some ass.)

It is that very attitude that makes me wonder what some of my "friends" will think about my decision to no longer do CF or lift. When I switched to only doing OLY, I felt some of that. But now... now I know it will be there more so. I see posts on Facebook.. I've heard comments from people... I know what many think... They think that because they can do things that others cannot, they are "better." Reality is that anyone who thinks like that is NOT better than another person, period. There are MANY CrossFitters who think like I did about it... It's cool as hell to be able to do that stuff! But it does not make me a better or worse person for what I can or cannot do physically.

So knowing that many of my friends from the gym feel this way makes it hard for me to accept that we can continue being friends. What will they think of ME for real? Will they think I'm a quitter? Will they think I'm less of a person b/c I'm choosing to do another type of workout? Do I give a shit? Sadly, in some ways I do. I do care that people who I've invested my time, energy and emotion into could possibly toss me aside and think less of me because I choose to take care of myself. I KNOW I've made the right decision, but it doesn't make it easier to swallow.

The pain of my decision will eventually fade. Maybe one day I'll find something that I love as much as I have loved OLY. (I can't even get that short sentence typed out right now without the tears starting... I'll so very much miss the feel of the bar in my hands and the rush of lifting something heavier than I ever imagined I could.)

People closest to me, as well as those who barely know me realize how huge it is for me to have to quit. And sadly, "quit" is the only word I can use for what I am doing.

(My next thing to "quit" will be eating so terribly... we'll see how that goes.)

Shoulder Surgery

Last Friday I had shoulder surgery. I've been wanting to blog about it but have been rather out of it. I wanted to blog about it BEFORE but was way stressed out about it.

And now I'm going to write only this in hopes of being harassed for details (in order to MAKE me blog about it) by people who are just finding out. Sorry!