Challenge - Day 21 (Taking In Stride)

My hernia has been hurting so badly that I have had to take a break from the fitness side of my challenge.  Daniella actually caught me crunched over my desk at work wincing and groaning in pain because of it.  It takes a lot for that to happen.  She didn't really like seeing me like that.

I am not good at doing anything except lying down while putting pressure on the lump to hold it in.  If I am upright it really fucks with me quite a bit.

The nature of the matter has slowed me down with my fitness challenge.  I can handle the pain, that’s not the real issue.  It’s not the same as something like arthritis.  That shit’s no big deal for the most part.  Yeah, it hurts like crazy, but it doesn’t really injure me so-to-say.  I just gotta toughen up, and then keep going.  

Of course my body has the ultimate veto on everything with my arthritis-y stuff…or anything for that matter.  Having lost so many years worth of time, I know that as well as anyone.  I can push through unimaginable depths of that pain and limited function though.  It isn’t even that hard even though it takes everything in me to do.  A hernia is different though.  I know that with a hernia I can easily rupture or burst it, and if that happens I am in trouble.  If it bursts I’ll have shit going all over the place inside that shouldn’t be there and it can cause all sorts of problems.

Having my hernia hurt bad enough to have me crunched over my desk at work wincing in pain told me I should slow it down a bit with my fitness stuff.  I wasn’t happy about that at all.  I have had really great momentum and it has been feeling good, not just in my body, but also in my mind.

I was on hold for several days.  I was pretty upset about it at first, especially having lost a bit of time early on and having to work so hard to crawl outta the holes I put myself in.  

I was psyched to get myself back level with everything, so falling back down even worse was not something that felt good.  I’m so hard on myself too that I instinctively started beating myself up for failing myself.  It ate at my mind and ate at my mind; and the more it did the more I got pissed off and let down.

Every time I would move around my pain would just elevate and elevate.  It took over my conscious because of not just how it felt, but how it was sabotaging my challenge.  I was pissed!

The fitness end of my challenge has been eating all of my time though.  It has been the only thing I do at home when I am not at work.  I have definitely neglected a few home life chores and such because of it.  One thing I did do, even though it kicked my ass, was cut my grass.  I had to do that with one hand on the lawnmower and the other holding my guts in.  It was a tough one, but I got ‘er done.

The extra time that freed up though gave my mind a bit more freedom to think of other things.  This inevitable caused me to go into a bit of reflecting upon the beginning of my challenge and the quick changes I experienced, as well as all the unforeseen little lessons…like how removing plastics can drastically reduce sugar from ones life.

I started to look at the time when my right hand and wrist were going through the changes to inevitably end up with permanent damage.  When that was happening, I was desperately trying to do a single push-up against my kitchen counter while standing.  Not a chance!  I bought a 2lb dumbbell to try to do some curls, and I couldn’t even come close.  The frame of my wrist was so bad I couldn’t handle two stinkin’ pounds!

It is in times like this that I can use the history of my body to show me where I am at and appreciate what I have in the simplest form.  

Yeah, my busted up guts have slowed me down and hurt, but I’m still so much further along than so many times in my life.  That should be worth something to be OK about.  

Thinking about that I started to ease up a bit on myself rather than being so hard on myself.  My concern then became whether I was using this as an excuse to justify taking a break because of the pain.  I didn’t like that thought though because I felt it did have some merit to it and began to hold some weight in my mind; so now I was faced with how to proceed.  How was I gonna make everything OK?  

I wasn’t about to stop the fitness end of my challenge, but my belly was so sore it was hindering everything.  The option I came up with is to mellow out in my mind a bit, and do the best I could for what I could do.  After all, it is my challenge!  Who said I have to stop anyway?  I can just keep going past the 31 days.  I can do whatever I want!  

I decided to alter my perception within it all and just look at all of this as a kind of learning experience to begin the shift of a lifestyle change!  Most of that came within the plastic realizations and the time restricted eating.  The fitness end of things will never leave me.  It has been at the root of who I am longer than anything else in my life.  I will never let go of it, nor will I ever move on from it.

With this in mind I figured I’d just get back at it as soon as my body felt kind of OK, and do what I could.  I mean, can I really ask any more of myself?  I will pull what I can out from within.  I’m pretty good at that, so that’s what I’ll do, and have to be good with that!

My hernia is obviously right front and center of my mind.  I want to get it fixed at the end of September so I will have enough time for it to be fully healed by the time I have to start shoveling snow.  I could get it done before then, but I don’t want to infringe on my swimming season.  I wait for this every year.  It is only a short two month window, and I don’t wanna lose any of it…not even for some shitty pain.

After my trip to the hospital and seeing that doctor about my foot on Saturday, I knew right away that he didn’t have a clue what he was talking, so I went in to see Dr. Link at the walk-in clinic yesterday.  (Monday)  I wanted to see what she had to say about my foot and get a move on my hernia.

Dr. Link is amazing!  I have seen well over 200 healers in the 25 years my body has been all messed up.  There is a reason she is the only medical doctor I trust.  I have been with her for I think 16 years.  The only time I consider anyone else is like the other day when I went to the emergency room on the weekend.  Talking to that doctor reaffirmed me once again as to why I have long taken the stance I have in regards to Dr. Link.

We started talking about my hernia.  She brought up my file as it has been a persistent thing from a botched operation by Dr. Schumacher in Trail in April 2016.  She said the first time before my original operation it was as big as a grape.  The last time we spoke about it last summer when it came back, it had grown and was as big as a plum.  This time was different.
 
As soon as I lifted my shirt, Dr. Link’s eyes widened and she was half shocked at how large my hernia had become.  She immediately grabbed a tape measure at first sight of my belly.  The combination of her expression, grabbing the tape measure and what she was saying about the size of it gave me a greater glimpse into the situation.  It was worse than I thought.  It is 6 or 7 centimetres…enough to cause the reaction it did from her.

We got right into talking about it, and how I wanted to go about things.  I told her my timeline I preferred, and told her with 100% certainty that Dr. Schumacher was not gonna be the guy.  

“He had his shot and blew it…he’s not getting a second chance!”

Dr. Link took notice of that and said she would send me to someone else.

The next thing she asked was my weight and height.  She said I looked like I had dropped weight, which was good.  Last summer I was carrying too much weight to get operated on as they don’t like you to be too big for that kind of operation.  I told her my rough weight and height.  (My frame is 5’7”, but I can’t stand up straight anymore, so I am currently around 5’5”.)  She said my BMI is at 29, which put me inside the window of weight where they wouldn’t bug me to drop more.  I assured her anyway that I would drop more by then for sure, and told her about my 31 Day Challenge.

Dr. Link was funny about it.  She seemed to try to think of every way she could to get me to eat treats.  “…but high end chocolates come in paper wrappers,” she said with a big fatty excited smile on her face.  It was pretty excellent!  I freakin’ love her!

After we finished with my hernia stuff, she asked me if there was anything else.  I simply showed her my foot without saying anything.  She got right into that.  As she finished talking I told her I had gone to the hospital on Saturday.  When I told her that, she asked me what they said.  I simply gave her the prescription, to which she immediately said it was the wrong thing.  Once again…Dr. Link crushing it!  The other guy in the ER was so transparent with not knowing what the hell was up with my foot, and Dr. Link was all over it.  She gave me a new prescription (more plastic), and in one day my foot is already showing signs of getting better.  Just like that!

If you need a doctor in Nelson, go see Dr. Link at the Walk-in Clinic!  She is amazing!

On my way out of her office I put myself on the scale.  Turns out I haven’t lost too much weight at all since I began this 31 Day Challenge.  That is because I am building muscle at basically the same rate I am dropping fat.  It shows the flaws in the BMI (Body Mass Index) reading as well as the serious flaw in simply reading a scale.  The proper determination of the ideal way to be has to factor in muscle mass vs body fat on top of body weight and height…then you have resting heart rates and VO2 Max, blood pressure, etc.  A full well rounded picture to measure the state of ones body takes many things into account.  Simply stepping on a scale and putting that next to your height is very limited and therefore flawed, of which I just showed yesterday.

One of the girls I work with just randomly told me this morning that I have lost weight.  I was armed with my up to date knowledge that I hadn’t really because of the muscle building thing, but it was good to know that I have been dropping away the sludge from my body.  I can’t really tell, but apparently it is noticeable to others.  All I care about though is getting back on track with my challenge even with the lost time, and newer outlook within it all.  I’ll keep charging along, and whatever results will take care of themselves!

The new bonus is swimming as the river has finally warmed up somewhat.  I can tread water OK, but it hurts my belly too.  I tried swimming a few strokes and it tore my right shoulder apart.  That pissed me off though as I am still looking ahead to doing some triathlons at the end of August.  I am not sure how I can do that though with my shoulder in the state that it is in.  I know I won’t be able to get into my wetsuit by a long shot, but I will simply have to toughen up to the water.  My shoulder is the only real concern…possibly my belly on my bike, but I can’t make a call on that until I get back out on the road and off my winter trainer.  I will do that in August.  Once again…Time will tell!