Health

Out of Warranty

/ Michelle at The Green Study / 33 Comments

canstockphoto5050400There’s been a lot of whining lately here in The Green Study. My eyeballs are still apparently eroding and last night in taekwondo, I chipped my front tooth in a poorly-executed back roll. I feel like an old car groaning down the highway as various parts keep falling off. These are seemingly minor incidents in the big scheme of things (although exposed, burning eyeball nerves, not so minor), but it seems to be one thing after another. I have been feeling rather depressed and demoralized.

I found out over the weekend that a high school classmate who survived a car wreck at 16 that killed her best friend, died years later at the age of 41. She was beautiful and athletic and popular. She was everything that I was not. As a teenager I simmered with envy. So I’ve been walking around all weekend with this mantra in my head: “Well, at least I’m not dead.” I know – I’m missing the point, if there is one.

Since I value my beauty not, I got a haircut yesterday at one of those $11 franchise places. I wasn’t in the mood for chitchat and luckily the woman who cut my hair didn’t feel the need to make conversation. Apparently there was a contest for the surliest demeanor and surprisingly, I came in second place to the gentleman next to me.

Grumpy Gus had the misfortune of getting the perkiest hair cutter this side of the Mississippi, who grilled him with well-intentioned, but invasive questions. He wants to leave the state, since he’s retired. His kids live on both coasts and none of them want to come home. “They can do whatever they want. I’m not going to visit them. They chose their own lifestyles.” I’m guessing that it was any lifestyle that meant they didn’t have to be near Daddy Eeyore.

I walked out with a weird haircut but an inexplicable good mood. Hysterical people make me deadly calm. Grumpy people apparently make me happy.

There’s no way around this aging thing. I’ve been incredibly lucky thus far, but the chickens are coming home to roost. Taekwondo is getting to be too much of a contact sport. After a black eye last year from a misplaced head kick and various pulled muscles, I’m wondering how long I can continue. It’s not the injuries – it’s the recovery time that has changed. It takes me longer to recover and my desire to put myself in harm’s way is lessening.

So, there is a lot of sighing and pondering about the meaning of life and how I’d like to continue living it with as little pain as possible. I know that more things will happen – more medical events, more funerals, more disappointments. They will happen more frequently with fewer breaks between. How I react to them will determine my quality of life – the psychological war of being human is one that you can lose early on, like the man at the hair place.

Life is shifting gears. No longer can I waste time worrying if my butt is too big or my smile not white enough. Vanity is a luxury of youth. Now I must wonder how lifelong nutritional deficiencies will reveal themselves. I wonder if all that smoking in my twenties will eventually kill me. I need to pay attention to cholesterol and hormone levels. I need to recognize my limitations. Some limitations I’ve accepted graciously, but others aren’t going down without a fight.

There are friends fighting for their lives. There are friends with lifelong disabilities that make ordinary activities difficult for them to perform. There are friends who are gone too soon. Like most things in life, there are people in worse and better shape. I know, though, that it is spirit and perspective that determine quality of life. My spirit is struggling right now, but change is uncomfortable and it would be Pollyanna to suggest I would slip blithely into perkiness when things hurt that didn’t hurt before.

Perspective is understanding that the human experience is universal. None of us are getting out unscathed. We each have to decide how to deal with pain, both physical and emotional, and how much of our essence we will give over to it. I look at my daughter and know that someday, I want to be a mother she’ll want to visit. I want to know that no matter what trials and tribulations come my way, my spirit will triumph and my perspective won’t be a dark cloud that rains on everyone else.

I haven’t mastered graciousness in the face of troubles, but I’ve been getting a little more practice. It’s the warm up act, the opening band, the practice run.  I’m luckily still alive for the challenge. A purposeful life in the face of adversity is no meek endeavor.

When Your Body Betrays You

/ Michelle at The Green Study / 17 Comments

I’ve been sick with a flu/cold/plague for the last week. When I get sick, I feel very, very sorry for myself and I say this, knowing full well that there are people suffering from much more serious and long term illnesses. I do have some perspective, but not necessarily when I’m hacking up a lung or blinded by a sinus headache.

My family of origin tends to be healthy as horses, mental disorders aside. For many years, I felt a level of disdain for complaints of sore throats, backaches and migraines. Part of it was being young and healthy, the other, an arrogance derived from never feeling the betrayal of one’s body. Karma can be a great teacher.

Following my child’s birth, I went into a postpartum funk, related to hormones and to the fact that delivery had gone completely the opposite of what I had imagined. It was the first time my body let me know who was in charge. I had read all these wonderful books on natural birth. Some of the anecdotes spoke of the experience being nearly “orgasmic” (hear loudly my snort of derision). I worked with a midwife, but in a hospital setting. I was 37, so it seemed like a nice middle road.

I will not go into the torment that was the nearly 20 hours of labor, except that I spent most of it “naturally” (if it’s natural to gasp swear words while sitting on a yoga ball), and the last 4th induced by a cocktail of drugs and 1 hour completely, blessedly stoned. Things went awry in a big way and a team had to be brought in, with lots of equipment. The word “distress” was tossed around. I ended up having an emergency Caesarean and staying in the hospital for five days. My husband, who was conscious throughout, was traumatized.

When we returned home, fortunately with a healthy and loud baby, I was depressed. Recovery from a C-section versus “an orgasmic experience” was like being warm and cozy and then having a bucket of ice water dumped on you. It was painful and shocking. Meds made me sick and I was trying to nurse my new baby. I cried a lot.

It took me a little while to figure out that I felt ashamed that my body had failed to do its thing naturally. Yes, on the scale of life events, this was minor, since the end result was a beautiful baby girl. But there’s no accounting for emotions and hormones.

It was the beginning of physical understanding and dare I say, compassion for the trials and tribulations of the human body. I also gained a huge appreciation for modern medicine and health insurance. My daughter and I would not be here, if it weren’t for the machines and doctors that could navigate through this particular crisis. I would not have been able to work from home part time and be with my daughter, had it not been for the insurance that covered 70% of a whopping $22,000 medical bill.

I was one of those people who considered the body merely a container for my brain. The disconnect started in my teens with typical gender issues that made me not like or even remotely appreciate the work my body did for me. In my 20s I abused it mightily, but it recovered with the same bounce in its step, regardless of hangover or sleep deprivation or junk food intake or firsthand cigarette smoke.

In my 30s, it started to require more attention. I quit smoking and drinking. I became concerned with cholesterol, triglyceride and blood pressure numbers. I started reading up on homeopathic remedies and exercise and nutrition.

Now, in my 40s, my body is the crystal ball into my future and I’m paying close attention. It needs more motion, better nutrition, and more sleep. I’ve developed more compassion and respect for its limitations. I’ve had three fairly painful, serious injuries in the last three years. My frequent exposure to elementary aged beasties has challenged my immune system.

These days, I have to pull myself back from running when I have bronchitis and from doing taekwondo when I have a pulled quad. I try to stay focused when I do yoga, so that my mind and my body feel united, so that I honor how it moves me through my day, holds my child, types these words. The greatest lesson is not what my body can do for me, but how I can take care of and respect it. This is where compassion for the physical challenges and illnesses of others starts to grow – when you learn to honor your own.