Big Progress

When I began training with Ben he had me try the leg curl machine where you lie on your stomach and curl your heels towards your butt. I used to do 90-100 pounds on this machine, which primarily works your hamstrings and glutes, but that day I couldn’t even move 10 pounds because my left hamstring wouldn’t move. I felt devastated and blogged about it. About 2 months ago, I felt I’d be able to do better on that machine, but when I tried it, my left hamstring still wouldn’t move. Well, I decided to try it again today and my leg is working! I could move 90 pounds. This is great news. It means my brain is signaling the nerve to innervate the muscle. It also means I’ve recovered my full strength.

Another note on progress is that my fear of doing certain exercises or movements is slowly being extinguished. In part this is due to Ben who uses his confidence and reassurance to move me into things I’ve avoided, or been told to avoid, such as squats, and most recently dead lifts. I never thought I’d do a dead lift again. But I’m doing them, I have no pain, my hamstrings are snapping to life, and this success is erasing my fears.

Working on the fear of running will take longer than fears around squats, or twisting my upper body, or bending over to touch my toes, but this fear too will be eradicated. I ran a total of 1 mile yesterday in the format of running ¼ mile and walking 2 minutes, and repeating that cycle 4x. I’ll do that again tomorrow, and each week I’ll slowly build on this until I’m stringing more distance together with fewer breaks in between. Joe has taken a similarly slow approach to his running post metatarsal stress fractures. He is up to running 4 miles continuously. His feet are swelling less after each run, and his familiar ankle problems have not resurfaced, which makes us believe that his ankle/knee/hip problems were occurring from running too hard, too far, too fast under the pressure of training for a race. Neither of us are in a hurry now to be injured (which really means, we’re not signed up for any races and aren’t pushing so hard!), which makes it a bit easier to take it slow and build a strong base.

20 Year Reunion

Last night was the Rufus King High School class of '89 twenty year reunion at the Eisner Museum of Art. It was a perfect warm summer night for cute little dresses and heels - which by the way, amply crippled my feet. The night was a BLAST. A core group of us stuck together, but there were some other great reconnections made. In general everyone is aging well, and are leading happy, successful lives.

From Left to Right. SUE: Has a PhD in something, lives in DC with her husband and two young children. CARRI: Respiratory Therapist, lives in Brookfield with her husband and their 11 year old daughter. ME: Clinical therapist (MSW), Waukesha, married with no kids. LAURA: (my bosom buddy since 1st grade!) Masters in education, ESL teacher for MPS, lives in Bayview with husband and 4 month old daughter. SARAH: Masters in some kind of biology, currently moving from CA to SC, married with 8 month old daughter. JEANNINE: Masters in something, just passed CPA exam, single, Milwaukee, no kids.

I Ran Today!

Does this seem to be out of the blue to some of you readers? The last you heard I was committed to not running, right? Well, those Dr. Sarno books arrived, and I’ve been eating them up voraciously. What he says is resonating, and lightbulbs are going off. Here’s the simple version of what this is all about.

Dr. Sarno created the diagnosis TMS (tension myositis syndrome), which in essence (and this is a real shortened version) postulates that we have back pain, as well as various other kinds of pain (neck, shoulders, knees, headaches, migraines, colitis, fibromyalgia, etc.), resulting from our minds protecting us from distressing emotions, such as anger, rage, anxiety, & fear. When the subconscious or conscious mind is overwhelmed by suppressing these negative emotions, it may restrict oxygen flow to certain muscles, tendons, ligaments or nerves, which causes pain. The pain you feel if very real, but it’s origin is emotional, rather than a physical problem. Typically, when we feel pain that does not go away, we go to a doctor and the doctor looks for a physical cause for the pain. If an MRI or Cat Scan can show a structural abnormality, such as my herniated disc, the doctor will cite that as the cause of the pain and prescribe treatments for it. The cause of the pain may have nothing to do with the identified structural abnormality, and this explains why so many people have unsuccessful back surgeries. The surgery has not corrected the root of the problem, which is not the “bad” back, but the mind. Are you following this? Another point to consider is that many people have horrible looking MRI’s but have no pain. How can you explain this?

Dr. Sarno says certain personality types are more prone to this. People like me, who self-impose a lot of pressure on themselves to do well - people who are hard working, responsible, compulsive, competitive, driven. TMS is also common in another personality type – the people pleaser, the person who wants to be liked and approved of (that’s not me so much). The mind creates an injury or area of pain to distract itself from the unsavory emotions it’s experiencing because it’s more acceptable to focus on a physical problem. He has all sorts of answers for my skeptical “but what about...” questions that seem to make sense. I’m beginning to buy into it, and am seeing what may have led to my problems. I still have some skepticism, but will continue to read more of his stuff.

The “treatment” is to be aware that pain is a symptom of something emotional going on – usually repressed anger. If you think about it and are honest with yourself, we all stuff tons of anger, stress, frustration and anxiety everyday. Once you become aware of this process, your brain will begin to loosen up and physical pain will decrease.

A huge issue at work once you’ve had pain, is fear of it returning or worsening. This fear is fueled by doctors who tell you not to do certain things so as to avoid worsening your situation. In my case, I’ve been living in fear of running, because my neurosurgeon all but said that I would need surgery if I try running again. There is no way to know for sure that my pain was caused by my herniation. There is also no way to know when my herniation occurred – this ejected disc may have slipped years ago. There is no reason to think I have a deficient back. I am strong. My postural muscles are strong, and the degeneration I have is normal – all part of aging.

So, with that in mind, I told my trainer, Ben, I wanted to try running a mile on the treadmill. He was okay with this, but suggested I start slow with a ¼ mile between now and Monday, when I see him again. Now we’re back to my tag line: I Ran Today!

After 247 days of not running, I ran a total of ½ mile today. I interspersed 2 quarter mile distances within a half hour walk/climb on the treadmill. I took the run slow. It felt decent. I can tell my legs are not used to it, but my left leg/foot didn’t feel too delayed or gimpy. After running I stretched, worked upper body, did some core work and took a 45 minute spin class. I feel great. I’m now asking Ben for his input next week on how I might reasonably increase my distance and endurance. Also, I saw my chiropractor yesterday. I told her I was going to try running and she was behind me 100%.

Night Terror

Last night we slept with the windows open – a crisp clean air infusing the room. Around midnight we were ripped from sleep by a terrifying sound like a woman screaming. As we listened, it became apparent that it wasn’t a woman, but what was making this sound? It was piercing, loud and close to the house for a time. Eventually the noise started moving away. Researching the screech this morning, I’m 99.9% sure it was a red fox crying out. The cry we heard likely came from a female fox looking for a mate – even though it’s a smidge late for that sorta thing. To hear the terrifying screams, click on this link, and pretend this sound is slicing through your dreams:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cPg7_nyoBc

Reminiscing

It was one year ago to this day that Joe and I completed the Napa-to-Sonoma Half Marathon for the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA). It was a wonderful time - a celebration of accomplishments. We never thought we'd be runners, so to train for and successfully finish 13.1 miles was amazing (especially for Joe who was running injured). When we joined Team Challenge - the name of the CCFA group fundraising and running this race, we never dreamed we'd meet the $7600.00 minimum. We assumed we'd put a lot of our own money in, but as it happened, we raised over $10,000.00! And we hadn't anticipated making lasting friendships, but are pleased to be in regular touch a year later with Karen & Denise from Milwaukee, Fred from NY and Jodie from MT. Karen & Fred raised funds and ran the race again today - many congratulations to them for their hard work - with both training, and raising money and awareness for CCFA. It's been 5 years since Joe was diagnosed with colitis. He is very well, and has not had one flare since his diagnosis. A super duper healthy lifestyle and commitment to Asacol see to that!

I've been quiet on the blog front lately cause there has been little to report. No news is good news, plus I think there may only be 1 or 2 readers left anyways! My hip/leg/back continue to manage tougher work-outs with Ben, and longer weekend hikes with Joe. Numbness in my thigh and pringliness in my foot persist. Joe's feet continue to swell after he runs, but are not causing him pain. Joe's up to 27 minutes of straight running (no walk breaks), which equals close to 3.5 miles for him.

Soon, there will be exciting things to write about, such as my 20th high school reunion, and details on our upcoming vacation.

Minooka

It's Saturday and that means it's time to hike. Heather came with us to Minooka Park - a great Waukesha County Park about a mile from our house. It has a variety of trails and a huge dog park - one side for little dogs, one side for big dogs. It was a beautiful hike affording us both sun (we know it's bad, but can't help wanting some color!) and shade. We were out for 90 minutes, so I'm guessing we covered about 6 miles. Next weekend Joe and I will hit Scuppernong - anyone interested? Back home now, all the windows are open, creating a wonderful cross breeze through the house. This is the kind of Saturday you never want to end. I'm off to make peanut butter pretzel ice cream in our new ice cream machine...

New Thoughts

I’ve ordered Dr. Sarno’s books, but have cooled off from the idea that there is a way to make running feasible again. Whether Sarno’s ideas are right or wrong is inconsequential. My disc is herniated, and it no longer matters how or why it happened. The point is I have very little disc material left between 2 vertebrae, and no amount of confronting stress, emotions or whatever Sarno quips about, is going to create a new plump disc. This means that I’d be a dreamer and a fool to run again, as the running will pound what’s left of my disc into oblivion – hastening a bone on bone situation long before aging with time will. So, I’ll read the books – I’m certain there will be some good things to glean from them, but I have returned to that place of acceptance that I cannot or should not run, and hope to stay put.

Another thought that has come to me is the importance of words. Words color our thoughts, feelings and perceptions. I have been referring to myself as “in rehab” or “rehabbing”. I no longer think this is accurate. I have gained all my previous strength and stamina back. I am strong like bull and need to change my verbiage to reflect that. To think of myself as still being in rehab suggests that I am not yet 100%, that I am still fighting my way back, that I am not healed. Of course I need to be mindful of how I lift, turn and bend, but that is lifelong. I believe I need to think and refer to myself as being in a “maintenance” or “relapse prevention” phase now. I also need to try eradicating my MRI image of the massive herniation; replacing it with a new image of a greatly reduced herniation – do you remember a couple months ago when I found research citing a 60% reduction in large herniations after 6-12 months? I’m sure mine is looking much improved!

Some of you would like a Joe update. He began running about 3 weeks ago, slowly and safely on a treadmill doing run/walk intervals. This week he hit a milestone completing a 5k (3.1 miles) distance on the treadmill at his standard 8 minute pace per mile. He felt good, but has had some swelling of the metatarsals. Nurse Juanita (mom) reminds us that once you’ve broken bones you’re always more vulnerable in that area. Since it’s been more than a couple months since his feet received the kind of pressure pounding running creates, it may take a while before they toughen up and cease to swell. It is also possible that he will continue to have some level of swelling as part of a chronic condition.

A New Avenue

Like a feather floating out of the sky into my path, a new possibility for investigation has presented itself to me. When my herniation hit and my running days were ended, my subscription to Runner’s World was paid up through 2010, so I’ve continued to receive this magazine, and I’ve continued to read it. Why read it if I can’t run? It’s made me feel good just to stay in the know –to be up on the latest races, the newest running trends, and various training modes. Last night as I read my August edition, a flicker of hope was re-ignited by an article in which the author, a 61 year old life long runner, was besieged with a side lining injury. He could not identify the origin of it, and went through a multitude of treatments for it to no avail (i.e. chiropractor, massage, acupuncture, heat, ice, electrical stimulation, special shoes, etc.), until he was finally referred to Dr. John Sarno – a real medical doctor with a perspective on the mind-body connection that most of his peers scoff at.

In a nutshell, Dr. Sarno believes that our brains become overwhelmed with stress, negativity, rage, anxiety, etc., which becomes too much to face. Our brain will then restrict oxygen to various parts of the body creating symptoms that are easier and more acceptable to focus on, such as physical pain. Then we go to a doctor with our physical pain, which is very real. If the doctor finds signs of structural damage (i.e. a herniated disc), the pain gets ascribed to the structural problem, treatments are prescribed, and usually fail. Dr. Sarno cites the example of how the majority of people having back surgery do not have long term back pain relief. He also points out that many MRI’s can show horrible looking structural problems, but why is it that many people have no pain associated with these abnormalities when others do? Take me. Could someone else have a herniated disc like mine, but not have pain and never know they even have this condition? According to Dr. Sarno, yes.

Dr. Sarno identifies a certain personality, such as mine, as more susceptible to this phenomenon. The kind of person who creates a lot of self-imposed pressure on themselves. People who tend to be perfectionists, hard workers, conscientious, driven, success-oriented, ambitious, etc. He suggests that this kind of self-pressure creates anger (anger at the pressure), and that the brain responds by taking part of the body out. This kinda makes sense to me. As a runner, I was always down on myself – I wasn’t training hard enough, I wasn’t fast enough, I wasn’t lean enough, etc. Did my brain succumb to the anxiety, negativity and self-imposed pressure by giving me a “legit” reason to stop running? I don’t know. But it seems worth exploring, and this means buying one of Sarno’s books. Stay tuned people!

Hiking Time

July means it's hiking time. We have 8 weeks to prepare our hiking muscles, tendons and ligaments for the trials of the Grand Tetons, where we expect to see unparalleled beauty (okay, actually I would bet that the Wonderland Trail is more beautiful, though I can't say 'til I'm done with the Tetons) during 10 mile hikes each day up and down several thousands of feet of elevation, as we move daily to a new camp site as part of a 70 mile backpacking loop. Today we spent 2+ hours hiking the toughest terrain that our neck of the woods has to offer at Lapham Peak - lotsa ups and downs in kettle moraine country (we saw many deer - see the photo above). It was a good work-out, in which my foot, leg, hip and back performed without issue, and Joe's feet felt fine in his new serious ass-kickin' hiking boots. We're talkin' boots that come to mid-calf! (Just kidding. You can see them in the picture above) And in my picture, check out the purple thistle standing behind me, taller than me. Dang. So, we'll be hiking most Saturday's from now 'til vacation - anyone of you are welcome to meet up with us at the hiking hole of the week - just come with good shoes, water, bug spray and a mindset that we're working out,rather than strolling through nature! Next weekend, it's Minooka Park. Give me a holler if you're interested ...