The long road to recovery...
Day #12 of the challenge: What do you miss? (a person, a thing, a time of your life...)
The thing I miss the most, my health. If you follow me here, on Twitter or are a friend on Facebook you'll know that I've been struggling with my health for the past couple of years. I've always been generally healthy, sure I could exercise more and skip the doughnuts every now and then, but all in all I've been healthy and happy. A couple of years ago I got really sick while on vacation with my husband's family, I got some sort of lung infection which resulted in a horrible cough that lasted almost 3 months! I ended up on steroids for 6 weeks, which if you've ever been on steroids you'd know that they have some nasty side effects including weight gain. As I was in graduate school, time to exercise was sparse. Fast forward to a year ago, a few weeks after graduation and I hurt my foot. I won't go into all of that in this post, but you can read/see about the ordeal here and here. Recovery from that injury took almost 8 months, which brings us to this year. For the past month or so I've been suffering from back problems. Now I've had back issues for years, chalk it up to old color guard injuries and a family history of back problems. I've been seeing a chiropractor since 2004-2005'ish and he's been amazing. So when this started I assumed I lifted something wrong or slept in the wrong position and saw my chiropractor. Even with visits I wasn't feeling any better so I went to another doctor for a second opinion. That doctor gave me his opinion and a plan of treatment so we'll see. So far I'm still having problems.....So yeah, I'd love to stay un-injured enough that I can get into a routine of working out. I know getting into shape will help in the long run, but it's hard to exercise when you are in pain. Kind of a catch-22.
One of my friends has back issues and it wasn't until she lost a lot of weight, that they sort of subsided. She would be almost crippled with the pain. I think she was diagnosed with herniated disc, but since there's not much you can do about that safely, she just tries to maintain her weight so the extra weight doesn't aggravate the situation. Maybe go for long walks? I used to do that all the time with my husband and we both lost a lot of weight that way (well, that and portion control). We started doing more workout DVDs, but since you're not at 100%, I wouldn't recommend those. I hope you feel better. *hugs*
ReplyDeleteI try to do some walking on the treadmill a few days a week but can only handle 20 minutes or so. I know that's better than nothing. I know with time I should get better and can extend my workout. Until then...a walking I will go!
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