Walking Anew….into a new community

Well, I am getting used to the Matrix TH-3 "moving very fast" pavement.  It is so much easier on my knees.  The weight-training is coming along.  I am getting stronger.

It amazes me as life would promise new opportunities and people into it for reasons and purposes that only time and effort can decipher.  I have met many people in the gym.  There are a handful of whom I have come to long to see every time I go work out.  I could not utter a single reason as to why at first.  I am not their family, not really friends yet, not colleagues and I don't really "need" them at all!  So why?

I have been wracking brain about it so I can write this blog.  In the quiet of the night, the wee hours of darken morning, I finally figured it out.  This community of "gymites" help lighten my burden.  What is my burden?  The burden is a figure of speech--it is practical the effort, sweat, driven-determination to work my body into a frenzy, sweaty, and muscle-burning state.  These people are there for the same reason.  They have all made the decision to put out the same effort and they experience identical physical exertion.  And this is only on the surface.

We go there to do the same thing with various reasons, but we go and we work out.  And in this very process a communion of spirits, thoughts, and lives are united.  Bonds formed and friendships forged.

A wonderful lady told me her continuing battle with breast cancer, which is now in her liver and she has a port for chemo as she was riding on the ecliptic bicycle.  She has been on chemo for over a year and she works out like a champ.  I told her my story and we promised to pray for each other daily.

I mentioned in my last blog about an ex-boxer who is so kind and is always on the look-out when I am on an apparatus to make sure that I am OK.  He trains me whenever I need it.  He shares his story about his three children and grandchildren every time we see one another.  The proud is gleaming in his eyes.

Pastor Dan continues to praise God and rouse up the gym room and he lifts all our spirits.  He is a gift from the heavens.

One lady talks the entire time and has a readily audible voice.  I counted that by the third sentence into each work-out the subject of "food" enters into the conversation--she brings it up.  So much humor that one time I had to get off the treadmill because I was laughing uncontrollably.  She is also a Sacramento King's fan and jokes galore.  She is the jest, bar none, and I need the humor!

One young mother comes during her lunch break everyday to get about a 40-minute work-out to keep up with her 2-year old.  She always looks perfectly groomed and has the coolest gadgets.

One young Chinese lady--out of college--looking for employment and she comes because of all the stress of looking for a job.  She used to own a Chinese restaurant but decided to find another gainful employment.

Then there is Fran---watch out.  She is a dynamite--about everything, and we are having an Presidential Election year here in USA.

All these people and I have in common are our faith and our dedication to physical fitness.  We share both every time we see each other.  It is a spiritual feast with sweat, so to speak.  We carry our burdens into the gym, we open our bags and then we share.  That is the reason I long to see them.  They GET it!  And I love it.

When I found out I had avascular necrosis in both of my knees.  I was sunken.  It is practically a death sentence for my poor knees because I will HAVE to replace them someday.  That will be brutal.  So I isolated myself so I could brood.  So I brooded and reluctantly re-joined the community gym for good measure.  It took a lot of will power to get dressed and get myself in the car to a "strange" place for a new routine.  I was not anxious, I was angry.

It was sheer will power for several weeks before I started to chat with other "gymites".  I watched them talk and laugh and giggle so I just had to have some of that.  The rest is history.

The feeling of having people around you, not just anybody, but people who GET it, to work out with feels like the words in the song "You raise Me Up" sung by Josh Groban--"You raise me up to more than I can be….".

Walking on Modified Pavement….and a bit more

I have engaged myself in the past few weeks physically, mentally, and emotionally to a modified walking routine plus the new regimen of weight-training exercises.  All resulted as the knee MRI revealed avascular necrosis in both knees.  I was very disturbed to see image upon image the "black holes" in the bottom of both femurs on the MRI.  I no longer have words for news and images of this sort of my own body.  Numb is often the initial reaction.  And then there is this "forlornness" and deep sorrow for the losses I have yet to learn to accept.  

Nonetheless, there is also a rainbow after the storm.  We live in an area called South Natomas in Sacramento and there is a small but efficient work-out room in the South Natomas Community Center.  For $15 a month I can walk on their treadmills and use the weight machines all I want.  I used to be a member there when it was $5 a month--how inflation creeps up.  I joined this place because it is run by Sacramento City and Recreation and I know that the money I pay goes to the sustainability of my own city--instead of going to some huge profit-making, fancy gym.  Local is good.

Walking 30 minutes on Matrix Th3 model treadmill, with an incline of 15--the highest and  the pace of 3.5 to 4 miles a hour is optimal for me.  I start my work-out with the 30-minute walk.  And then there are 8 different weight-training and body building apparatus that I can use to build all the muscles on my body.  I usually do 3 sets of 10 on each.  There is also a abundant set of free weights--from 1 lbs to about 250 lbs, which I never touch.  After going through the body-building process I return to my Matrix pavement and walk another 30 minutes with the same intensity.  The total distance is usually around 3.7 miles per work-out.  I do this routine on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays--rain or shine.  Oh well, it really does not matter since I am indoors.

I dreaded this change in the beginning, not because of the money--for those of you know me you know how thrifty I am--and yes, $15 is still $15.  I joined because I ran out of options and alternatives.  Lupus pain returned with a vengeance and since I could no longer be on regular street pavement--the hardness and unevenness are not safe, I desperately needed another way of making endorphins.

I joined the beginning of February and since then I have met some very inspiring people/friends in the gym: a very young couple who have been working out a year and both lost 150 lbs each.  Speaking with them and sharing their pain in their lives help me cope.  I met a Pentecostal minister who single-handedly turned the room into a worship service while everyone is working out!!  I so enjoyed talking to a pair of retired-boxers who were in the Navy and went to Vietnam.  Their stories fill me with awe and are most intriguing.  Another patron and I share the same orthopod and he has 2 replaced knees and a replaced hip.  And then there is Fran.  The woman you do not want to mess with, under any circumstances.  I could go on.  

The common thread to all this is that human and social interactions are critical to ridding my gloominess and maintaining my well-being.  They give me perspective and purpose.  I want to see them and talk with them again as soon as I leave the joint.

This even surprised me because I LOVE to be alone.  I find that my work converts and forces me to be an "extrovert" and that when I come home, I am totally drained.  After teaching 5-7 students I am literally hollow.  I need retreat.  Fellowship is my strange bedfellow, especially when I work out, so I thought.

Thinking back to my childhood days when I was under the "control" of my 2 older brothers and other older cousins, I'd prefer to be alone so I would not do anything that would appear stupid.  And this has framed my temperament as well as my outlook on sociality.  "The smart one always just listens".

Tomorrow is my regular work-out day and I am wondering if they are not all going to be there!  Each person walks in to that little work-out room with an interesting story and dignity that I respect.  I have learned from the ex-boxers on weight machines and more proper stretching techniques.  They have also taught me how to hold my head and neck for proper sit-ups.  The preacher prayed for my illness and encourages me in every step to look to the Personal Savior for refuge.  Fran and I talk about just anything with an animation that surpasses winning a "presidential election".  The young couple really opened up yesterday and shared with me the horror of alcoholism they are enduring with their father.

These personal interactions are gems.  In my entire life I have only a handful of people with whom I share my life in totality.  And yet these "strangers" are so genuinely welcoming and they share openly their lives, their struggles, and their aspirations with me--no strings attached. 

I am grateful to them.  Lupus does not have to be the central point of my work-outs anymore, neither is my pain. I have found other kindred souls and I am in great company.  The rainbow is absolutely gorgeous at the moment!

Walking Interrupted…..in a funk

I am in a huge funk.  I want to lugubriously scream to my bones!  I want one of those embryonic stem cell teams to inject me and help me grow new bone.  OK.  Enough ranting, time for the story.

It was 17 days ago.  I set out for a 6-miler on an early Wednesday morning--with walking hoodie and all.  20 minutes into the walk my left knee was yanking at my chain and I was in pain.  Since I was walking with someone I finished the walk as decorously as I could and thought I needed more stretching once I got home.

When I opened the door to my house all I could do was collapse onto the front chair in excruciating pain in the left knee.  It was so intense that I had tears on my face--so rare an incident that I even surprised myself.  This pain level 10 remained for for 3 entire days.  I told Byron to go ahead and shoot me already.  Canes and crutches were utilized to get around.  I did not walk or exercise for 2 full weeks.

The very next day x'rays were taken at the doctors.  Suspecting some kind of meniscus tear because the x'rays looked fine to the family practitioner and me.  Made an arrangement to have an MRI the following Monday to rule out the dreaded avascular necrosis, AVN--meaning bone death (reason for my prosthetic hips) and the exact tear/s.  I thought for sure the MRI would reveal a small tear and that was it.

Obviously I was NO prophet.  By Wednesday the results came back.  MRI results were OK--soft tissue irregularities but no tear.  Literally two minutes later my doctor sent me the more in-depth results of the x'rays via e-mail after a radiologist looked at them more carefully.  I have multiple bone infarcts and edema in both knees--AVN has been in both knees for quite a while.  Little pieces of bone in the knees have died and an infarct per each fracture is the result of each micro-stub.  The prior Wednesday's 6-miler must have giggled and triggered a break inside the left knee that such severe painful symptom occurred.  Another little piece of bone had died that day.  Another loss.

Now, like Monk always says, "Here's the thing."---"You mean I can't even go walking anymore?"  I was brooding in sorrow and anger.  I went into a funk.  The difference between a funk and depression is simple to me.  A funk is something one is entirely in control of and is also aware of and know that it is healthy for the heart to feel troubled and even broken.  Time will heal most wounds--both physical and emotional.  Depression is when one simply falls into it without realization (most of the time) and one is fighting to get out without success.  I am not fighting to get out of my funk.  I LET me grieve.  I need to feel the loss and work it out so I can face myself, strategize a Plan B, and to accept my new reality.

I like my funks.  I spoil myself with my funks.  I need my funks.  What do I for myself when I am in a funk?  I do all the work that I am supposed to--teaching, choir directing, playing for church, going to all necessary meetings, cooking, washing, shopping, cleaning, self-hygiene, etc… The biggest difference is that I spend a great deal of time by myself--reading, resting, watching Youtube and Chinese soaps.  And I give myself love and permission to do all that!  I am licking my wounds.

Actually writing about it is a sure sign that the end of this funk is near--well, may be a couple of more weeks.  So what made me realize I needed to end this funk?  I joined a gym.  My pavement is now Matrix TX-10 (fancy Nordic Track-type treadmill made by Matrix).  The sliding mechanism is much easier on the knees.  Actually I am supposed to wait 6 weeks for the bone to heal but since there is almost no pain (just a little twitch here and there) I decided to work out since my lupus pains had returned due to lack of endorphins.

Thanks to the years of listening to my athletic son, I am finally taking up weight-training and a little of body-building.  This Walking Butterfly bravely stepped on the Matrix pavement 2 days ago and tracked 2 miles, then topped it off with 40 minutes of weight-training.  Today the same routine.  I intend to keep this up for a few months--every other day.  Never looking back, my 6 or more miler days might be over, I am not sure at this moment.  So I am going to get some muscle on them bones finally.  Some day soon I won't have to listen to the medical assistants telling me, "If I were you, I'd get some more meat on them bones." every time they take my blood pressure with a pediatric apparatus, so annoying, really.

I realized this blog started out as a blog about my walking.  I am still walking, yet there's more to just walking now.  I am re-sculpturing my body in addition to walking.  I hope to regain more strength in the knees by staying on the Matrix pavement longer and longer.  Whatever and whenever that is going to happen to my knees will happen and I will probably be in another funk, possibly even in a bigger one because they will have to be replaced in the future.  I am Ok with it.  And I hope you are OK with it, too.

Wherever there is knowledge and hope, fear can never penetrate. I am still on top after 26 years of lupus.  Not once have I stayed down--still in the ring!!!!  

The Walking Hoodie…

How can the sun and I co-exist?  This is a serious question and dilemma for me this past 25 years and for future years to come.

I cannot ever imagine myself walking in the dark for many reasons:  the primary being safety, and then the issue of falling due to not seeing well.  Since I have very expensive hardware inside my body (prostheses), falling poses a very dangerous medical complication that I would rather not take the chance.  Yet no matter how early I start walking in the morning, the sun greets me with vim and rigor every time.  My lupus skin does not approve.

My dermatologist found 2 small lesions on my face and of course, I was admonished.  My son joked with me about getting me a Burqa!!  I started asking around but wearing a Burqa might subject myself to another set of possible unpleasantries.

A funny bone tickled me.  I thought of the ski masks that bank robbers use in the movies and started wondering where I could get a hold of one--not going to rob a bank, promise.

Last week I thought all the cyclists I run into during my walks and how their faces are always covered underneath their helmets.  Then I thought about costumes like Spiderman and Batman.  I walked into Sports Authority and asked to see face masks and face hoodies.  I was directed to the cycling section.  There they were----so many different types: from a skull to Spiderman!!  There were at least 30 different prints and several types of fabric.  I chose a plain light fleece fuchsia hoodie that covers the head, the neck, and the entire face with a slit opening for eyes.  There were only 2 colors, black and fuchsia.  I thought the black one looked ominous so I chose the latter.

With proper medical creams and ointments the facial lesions are abating and my face is all but covered during my walks.  In the summer, there are tube-like spandex headbands that can cover my face from the cheeks down and a wide-brimmed visor would cover the forehead and eyes.

This is beginning to be a boring blog even for me to write.  The point about this story is not so much the process of finding proper cover for my skin and my face.  This blog is about the mere fact that I can't even co-exist with the early morning sun for even a couple of hours without fearing for my life.  So many of us take so many things for granted.

When I was a little girl my mother made sure I was in the morning sun everyday for at least half an hour.  She was adamant about vitamin D and sunshine.  Now I take vitamin D in a pill and cover my entire body when I greet the sun.  What an irony!

Each time I lose a normality due to lupus, I grieve just a bit.  Over the years I have learned to grieve less and less.  Nonetheless, grief is real and painful.  I have learned to use humor to redirect my thought patterns.  I have coined a funny name for each of the medications I take and I call my fake hips "hardware".  However, underneath all that "jazz", I am too painfully aware of the limits lupus has placed on my life and on the quality of my life.

Walking in my hoodie is both warm, and cool:)!  I am the only one!  People look at me, stare at me, and a couple of Muslims guys did a double take (wrong color for Burqa).  Yet I am rest assured that the sun and I are friends again and we can most certainly co-exist.

Walking….full circle

There is one more day left in 2011.  As usual, I bundled myself up like a penguin (white jacket and black leggings) and was on my 7-miler route this morning.

The streets were calm at 8:30 in the morning, not much traffic, semi-hybernating/partying week: the week between Christmas and New Year.  I started to retrace my steps in 2011 as I was stepping forward in a fast-paced power-walk mode.

Where do I start?  let's start with my lupus--a very good place to start.  2011 has turned out to be the year of my regular and on-going visits to UC Davis' Cancer Center for leukopenia--low white count.  As I have grown almost too painfully accustomed to bad news, it was a bigger blow than usual.  The sight and the smells, the patients and their ashen countenance proved to be a grueling exercise to walk in there and not be "moved".  A lovely East Indian hematologist greeted me and now we are fast friends.  She is young, warm, engaging and the best of all, encouraging at every turn.  Just as we thought I needed hormone treatments, my blood would do an about turn and the white count would be inching up.  Then down, up, down, up….and then the red count would take a nose-dive, then up, down, up, down....  My red count and white count have been playing on a swing all year--24/7--it does not seem to abate.  And so I have learned to live with yet another medical routine, and another doctor in the docket. 

Another lupus issue in 2011 is this pain predicament.  The very reason the walking and this blog started.  Please do read my past blogs to get more details.  Yes, I started to fight pain with walking (very painful at first).  Honestly, I can say I have traded one type of pain with another.  Power-walking leaves me extremely sore whereas lupus just tortures me with unrelenting pain everywhere in the body. 

June of 2011 marked a significant time for me and my entire family.  Our son graduated from high school and decided to go to Berea College in Kentucky in the fall.  We became empty-nesters and I am loving it.

My walking has turned into a time that I guard and treasure.  I recounted this morning my journeys to Montreat, North Carolina in June, then Berea, Kentucky in August, and the countless drives to Daly City, California visiting my mother.  I can declare that I am walking to think,  I am walking to calm, I am walking to quell pain and most importantly, I am walking to be sane.

I calculated that by now I have set my footprints over 350 or so miles of pavement.  Every footprint is intentional and purposeful.  My legs became re-aquainted with the former marathon runner (moi) and the muscles are back.  There is more a spring in my steps, there is power in my stride.  And it is high time to consider "walking" a marathon in 2012.  

My heart is full and my legs are pumped! 

Walking Wounded

"I have a pain in the butt!" I said. "And I will BE a pain in the butt if I don't rest up now!"

My husband is used to hearing these words from me.  My sciatic nerves are shot from the trauma of the two total hips replacements and hips revisions.  The pain in the buttock is no laughing matter when it comes to walking or simply being just upright.

A month ago I decided to give it up and called the doctor for another slow/long-acting epi-dural injection of steroids.  This Friday morning I am going in to be poked.  Hopefully this will ease up the protestation and the revolution in the behind for a another couple of years.

It is an archaic attempt to live with pain anymore, by all technological and medical standards.  By that I mean that the medical establishment has created, invented and then re-created and re-invented so many solutions and drugs to pain-control that anyone choosing to live with pain is either a martyr or a moron, so I thought.

Well, I live with pain, non-retractable, relentless pain.  So I am either a martyr or a moron.  I am both.

I am a martyr not by choice, but by my genetic make-up (now the pandora box of genes is open).  Mother nature has predestined me to a life of lupus.  A life that is full of pain.  Mother nature has also designed my digestive system to only accept certain foods and chemicals.  When my stomach finds certain pain meds repulsive and starts a revolt, I am back in pain.  When my body continues to ignite and inflame itself, I am in pain.  So the martyrdom is half self-inflicted without cognitive agreement.  The moronic part is the way I have chosen to make my own pain relief--by walking.

Due to limitations to what I can do physically to make endorphins, I chose walking.  When I walk at least 2 hours a day, my pain is tolerable with help from Tylenol.  It is super time-consuming.

I do have another choice.  The choice of lying around and doing nothing--much like many other lupus patients.  I have given this choice a lot of thought.  At times this choice is so alluring that I am actually "good" with it.  The unacceptable drawback of this choice is:  ONE WILL HAVE NO LIFE.

Life to me is immensely more than pain or lupus.  Life is more important than May Tucker or Walking Butterfly.  Life is a philosophy that echoes a footprint in the sand: it shows that someone has made an impression on this earth, however ethereal.  My footprint is only one in billions.  But it's mine.

I want to step out and be counted.  I want to feel the ocean hitting the shore with my feet.  I want to build my own sandcastle.  I want to bask in the sun and feel its warmth.  I want to taste the salt of the sea. I want to swim and laugh.  I want to party with my friends and family.  I want to have a picnic and then some.  Lastly, I want to have my corner on this earth and make an impression with the writing from my heart.  Nothing, not lupus, not anything else can take that away from me.

So I am the walking wounded.  And woundedly I walk.    

Walking and the homeless….

As I walk on the beautiful American River bike trail most mornings, I see uncountable homeless families staying in tents along the river bank.  My heart goes out to them, especially to the children and the elderly.  Last Wednesday I counted over 150 tents.  And there I was walking, holding a very nice water bottle and keeping my distance as if they were going to hurt me.  How absurd is that?

Walking is supposed to ease my pain, not add to it, I thought.  I could not help but had my eyes and heart opened by the plight of these folks and families down on their luck.  So many are hurting in so many ways.  The beautiful scenery of the river is compromised by the shivering adults and children I witnessed.

It would be inhumane to do nothing.  Yet what can I do?  These folks have their daily routine down to a science: big brunch at Loaves and Fishes and then shower, children go to Mustard Seed School for the homeless where they are fed again, and dinner is up for grabs.  Most of them have an address with the county welfare office so they can receive food stamps (it comes like a credit card now) to buy additional food and other needed items.

I understand my limitations yet I decided to do what I can, in the capacity that would allow me to be charitable without risking my own safety.  My church has a food closet that serves thousands of people every month.  The South Sacramento Interfaith Partnership Food Closet opens for 3 hours a day and is run by mostly volunteers.  The mission of this organization is not for the homeless but is geared towards the marginalized folks who live in homes and have addresses but do not not enough money to buy all needed food for their families at times.

I donated 200 pounds of potatoes 2 days before Thanksgiving--it was like a drop in a bucket.  I felt so helpless because I wanted all of them to have plenty yet reality was different…..

I learned something in the last a couple of weeks as the weather has turned cold at night and in the early morning.  I am blessed because I can eat all the food I want, I have a beautiful and warm house, and I don't lack anything.  I walk to fight pain and yet I saw another type of pain.  The pain of the rawness and bleakness of the homeless and all the complications that go with it.

As I continue to walk, I hope my soul would remain open and be vigilant to the people I encounter.  There are more than my own pain and my own endorphins.  There are the misfortune and challenging survival of many whose pain I have yet to know.