Day 5 and 6

Day five and six get only one post because I was waaaaaaaaaaaay too tired last night to write anything coherent.

Yesterday was crazy. I had to get up an hour early to drive to the cat to the vet for his teeth cleaning. Then work, then physio (which was seriously a killer) and then back to the vet and then home with the cat, then yoga. I did have a smoothie in between physio and the vet thank goodness. My physiotherapist has me doing all these squats and lunches and this morning my butt is SO sore!

After yoga I stopped off at the grocery store and picked up a chicken and a salad as well as a couple other things and came home for what I thought was going to be a relaxing evening. It wasn't. Instead, before I'd even gotten into the shower my dad phoned to let me know that my grandmother has been made palliative and is going to die very soon...four provinces away. This of course throws my family into crisis since with mom so sick...

Today was a hard day for yoga. It was hard to get up, hard to get motivated and hard to stay motivated. It's almost as hot outside as it is in the hot room. However, I did it, and now I'm off to work at the shelter this evening. Perhaps more reflections will come later.

Day 4

It's day four, and I'm sore. Not horribly sore, but it's also not morning yet and I've done 3 hot flow classes in a row. Perhaps I'll take in a hatha class tomorrow, we shall see.

My first victory of the day was seeing how despite my ankle, my arm strength has really improved and I was able to hold crow pose (in the picture) for at least 5 seconds before I fell over. This is huge for me, because if you'd asked me two months ago if a 200+ lb girl would ever be able to hold an arm balance I probably would have said no. Yoga has been going well, despite the challenges I'm having fitting it into my day.

My other victory of the day was being able to tell my counsellor that since going back to yoga my mental health has been WAY better. I mean, I totally still have my moments (today I cried because I realized my mom would never knit my baby mittens) but things are going way better. She suggested that we not meet for a while, since I only get 12 sessions a year with her, and that I work on maintaining things on my own, using yoga for my healthy coping. So we'll see how it goes.

Day 3

Warrior pose. Today I am a warrior. Yesterday we found out that mom has a blood clot in her leg. It runs from her groin all the way to her calf and has slowly been growing. This is obviously not a good thing, and rather concerning. Mom's now receiving injectable blood thinners at the hospital everyday and taking Warfarin in the evenings. Chemo is bumped another week back. I have many thoughts about the chemo, but not today.

Today was a good yoga day. Much as there was some anxiety about fitting everything in and having to miss Wednesday church so that I could both do yoga AND work late (I've been missing a lot of time for physio) yoga went super well. I really surprised myself with my endurance and with the strength in my ankle. I mean, it's certainly not perfect, and the range of motion isn't there, but in terms of strength, not so bad.

What I learned today is patience. Patience with my body. Patience to say it's okay to do modifications on all my sun salutations because I just don't have the range of motion in my ankle to do an upward dog with both feet on the ground. Patience to know that I can't do a "proper" child's pose because I can't put that kind of weight on it. So, today I am a not just a warrior, I am a patient warrior.

Challenge Day Two

I chose tree pose to start this off with because of the rooting tree pose provides. It's a balancing pose, so it's certainly not a strength of mine right now, but I'm working on it. It seems like a good place to begin. Begin with roots not with branches or offshoots or large new growth, but begin by reaching down, down into the earth, and perhaps more importantly reaching down into the depths of yourself to call on strength you didn't know you had.

It's not even 9PM yet and I'm exhausted from my day. I didn't sleep well last night, there was storm in the air and it was hot and humid out. I worked, then went to physio and then went to yoga. Physio can be a workout in and of itself, so it was really hard doing the two in a row. By the end of yoga I was just lying on my mat; listening and absorbing the heat, but too exhausted to do anymore asanas (postures).

What have I learned today? Well, that's a hard question. I learned that it's expecting too much of myself to be able to sit cross legged or kneel yet, my range of motion is just not what it should be. I also remembered that I need to be patient with myself, that things will come when they come. Okay, so I didn't make it actively through the whole yoga class today. I stayed in active rest, and chose that as my way of practice. I once again became aware of just how much my body can take and where that line is between pushing myself and passing out.

Namaste

Challenge Day One

So, I'm actually writing this on the morning of Day 2. Last night was HOT and busy and I got dizzy when I took my medications and then there was a bit of a crisis with my mother, which I'll write about somewhere else.

Anyway, reflections on Day 1 of the challenge. Wow. A step out of my comfort zone! The opening ceremonies were at this gorgeous outdoor area just inside the city. They didn't tell any of us what we were doing, just to come. What we were doing, was a Challenging our Obstacles Course (wheel of fortune anyone? it's a before and after!)

My first thought was "I can't do this". I made the assumption that I would not be able to participate because of my ankle. And while physically I maybe should have gone with that, emotionally I'm really glad I didn't. We had to make teams, which again, was a HUGE step out of my comfort zone. I strongly dislike talking to people I don't know (don't even get me started on the massage train at the beginning) but it turned out to be just fine. The other women in my group were great. They were super compassionate about my ankle and we had lots of great laughs together as we navigated trails, hills, tree houses and yoga poses. It turned out, that the only thing I really couldn't do was the three legged race. That would just be asking for trouble.

So, day one of the challenge. Not what I expected, but already I've been pushed way out of my comfort zone. Let's see what day two brings!

Yoga 30 Day Challenge

Tomorrow I am starting a 30 day yoga challenge and I thought it would be really nice to blog about it... if I have the energy! The theme of the challenge is overcoming your obstacles and Ganesh here, the elephant God, is the Lord of Success and the Destroyer of Evil and Obstacles... or so the email I got tells me.

When I first decided to do the 30 Day Challenge this summer the biggest obstacle was the heat. How was I going to do 30 days of hot yoga in the heat?! Then Canada Day happened and my biggest obstacle became the fact that I couldn't walk and really wasn't sure when I'd be able to. I registered anyway. One of the first things I asked my physiotherapist about last week was whether she thought I'd be able to do my challenge, and she said YES (as long as I'm careful and stay within my limits and yada yada yada). My new obstacle is time. When I initially signed up for the challenge my schedule was about as empty as it ever gets and I thought it would be the perfect time. Now I've got physio twice a week, laser once a week, counselling etc... And let me tell you, physio is a workout and a half (i secretly call my physiotherapist the torture woman).

So, this challenge will indeed be about removing my obstacles, about finding time for myself in the midst of craziness and about shifting my priorities so I can accomplish my goal. Good luck to me! I'll keep you posted.

for your viewing pleasure...my little purrito

The counsellor goes for counselling (aka I'm a bad client...)

I am fairly sure that on some level I drive my counsellor crazy. I honestly don't remember exactly what prompted me to email the Employee Assistance Program about counselling or how long ago it was. I suppose I could look in my calendar, but my calender is in the living room and I'm in the bedroom with my foot iced and elevated. They had me set up for an appointment in less than a week. The for profit world boggles my mind. I know they said it was fast service, but I was thinking at least a month. In any case, I digress.

I am not sure how I feel about this whole "going to counselling thing". I mean, I've done it before and had a really good experience, but I'm having a lot of ambiguity about it now. The goal was to deal with my mom's impending death and I was very clear that I did not want to change ANYTHING about myself... now I'm not so sure. My therapist seems to have a hard time with my ambiguity. Whenever I mention I'm not sure I should be in counselling she seems to get rather defensive. Sometimes she just calls me on my bullshit though, which is a much better approach. I think it is hard for me to accept that I'm back in this place. That there's still stuff I need to work on. That there's unfinished business in my life (of course I say all this at the wise old age of 23...)

This post isn't really making sense, and for that I apologize. I guess I'm just really not sure how I feel about counselling, and I'm having a hard time talking that out with my counsellor. On the other hand, she pointed out I haven't been writing and perhaps that is another reason I haven't been processing. So I'm trying to write.

more pics of my slowly healing ankle

So I've been getting low level laser treatment for my ankle from the massage therapist across the street and I thought I'd show you all his awesome tape jobs!!! He uses this stuff called Kinesio tape and it's wonderfully supportive and really helps draw out the swelling!

Sprained Ankle...my tale of woe...with pictures!

So I sprained my ankle, thus having much time on my hands and figured, what better to do than come hang out on my blog. I've never done this before and would love ANY and ALL advice or stories about sprained ankles/crutches/breaks/sprains/etc... Basically it's an, I'll tell you mine if you'll tell me yours!

So here's my story. It's Canada Day and I'm doing what I generally do on Canada Day, hanging out with friends. In fact, I helped two of my friends build a fence, we used hammers, and nails and power tools and built and AWESOME new piece of fence.

Then of course it was off to the Canada Day Festivities. The assistant general manager of one of my cities big attractions goes to my church so a lot of us had VIP passes to the event. This gave us access to a "private" area in which there were tables, alcohol and a good view of the stage. So I sat back, relaxed and enjoyed part of my blue Bacardi Breezer while listening to music and attempting to chat with friends over all the noise. As dusk fell, people came around selling glowsticks, which of course, I had to have, so off I went, wallet in hand, with my heart set on wearing a glowing necklace for the rest of the evening.

Then all of a sudden, down, down I went. I felt my ankle twist out and then possibly in and discovered that I couldn't breathe. Panic went off, but I stuck to my goal, passed my wallet to my friend, and instructed her to buy me two glowing necklaces through the fence of the beer garden (fully expecting to be up in a minute to continue the party. A minute passed and then another as my concerned friends looked on. I finally admitted defeat and lay down on the grass to avoid passing out while someone went to get some ice.

My friends grabbed ice from the beer counter. Apparently the volunteer at the beer counter felt the need to get the first aid people (which was probably a good idea in retrospect). Unfortunately, the first aid "people" turned out to be a paramedic from the Major Incident Response Vehicle parked behind the VIP tent where I was lying in the grass. After it was established that I could bear absolutely no weight on my right ankle, the paramedic gave me the bad news; I had to go to the hospital, in an ambulance. I tried to talk him out of it, but with half my church on his side, I really didn't have a chance. So with some help, I hoped over to the cement and then, much to my embarrassment, they stuck me on one of these...

That was all fine and dandy until next I had to climb into this off road jeep sort of thing. Seriously, we only went about 25 metres on the first stretcher. By this point they had my whole ankle wrapped up in a pillow with an ice pack held together with triangular bandages. So, when 50 metres later we stopped to wait for the ambulance I was sitting in full view at a public event with a pillow tied to my foot. Then it was out of the jeep thing and onto the next stretcher for a ride to the hospital. I did catch a couple fire works out the back window though!!!

I have to say my hospital experience was great. I was there maybe an hour an a half total and one of my friends came with while another picked us up. The x-ray showed no breaks so off they sent me with crutches. Note: I live on the third floor of a walk up apartment building. fml. But up I climbed and to bed I went.

I will tell you though, that I am NOT in my happy place. It's super hot, super humid, I can't walk, feeding the cats is a nightmare, my house is messier than usual and my bed has crumbs in it. This is my first time spraining my ankle badly enough to need crutches, and let me tell you, I NEED them. The doctor said two full weeks of off my ankle. Did I mention it's my driving ankle? Blargh.

quick update

I want to start writing more. I think it will be good for me. Life has been rather...overwhelming lately and it's been rather hard to get started.

My mother is so very sick right now and there's really no hope for her to get better. I've been stressed about work, lots of internal drama more so than client issues. To top everything off I sprained my ankle on Canada Day (July 1) and did quite a good job of it. It's really well sprained. I'm still using my crutches quite a bit and start physio for it on Monday.

I've been seeing a counsellor through Employee Assistance, which has been...interesting. Certainly not the easiest thing I've done recently and I'm still not sure it's the right thing, but I think so?

Cats are good. Oliver Lockhart has been literally in my face all evening. Right now he's got all four of his paws touching my arm which is making typing very difficult. I'm also trying to ice/elevate my ankle and so I'm at a rather awkward angle.

I have lots to say, particularly about counselling, but for tonight this will have to suffice.