Splitting Hairs: Part Deux

Which is worse? 

When you articulate how depressed you are, someone who says they are your friend does this:

1. Tells you to "just get over it"; or
2. Ghosts you/says nothing at all.

Just curious.

Kaizen: Day 22 (30 Minutes!)

Last night, I failed at getting to bed around 11. Instead, I stayed up, such as it was, nodding off in front of the t.v. until close to 1 a.m., and then toddled off to bed. At least I went to bed in the spare room, so at least I'd have an uninterrupted sleep experience. Tonight I'll do better. The Murphy bed is already down, so it's a matter of setting a timer, and doing certain things to prepare me for bed. Perhaps I'll crochet a bit to relax. It's been a while since I've hooked.

This morning, Maharajah decided to work from home, so that changes my morning routine and gives me more time for me and my Kaizen experiment. I managed to not only ride the recumbent bike for THIRTY MINUTES, but I also gave myself an additional five minutes, and elevated my legs to help with blood flow (and get some fresh blood back in my legs when I stand back up.

I've also decided to make a few tweaks to my daily dietary supplement line up, too. I've ordered up some (30 mg) zinc glycinate gel caps, and some "P5P" pyridoxal-5-phosphate to take instead of my pyroxidine caps--P5P is a more bio-available form of vitamin B6, and I am hoping it will help me with this pesky proteinuria situation. And since that capsule has about 100 mg of magnesium in them (and I plan on taking 2 a day), I'm going to discontinue taking a separate 400 mg magnesium capsule--and I hope that lowering the magnesium will also make an impact. The supplements arrive by 3/31, and it will give me close to two months of dosing before I see my kidney guy for my 6 month check up. 

I am hoping with these supplement tweaks, as well as the Quercetin I started taking a while back, will be just the thing to disturb and change the uric acid & proteinuria problem. My numbers in my blood tests might be "holding steady," as my kidney guy says, but given the "borderline left ventricular hypertrophy" on that TTE from last week, I am now back to being terrorized/traumatized by the idea that no matter how vigilant or compliant I am, there's only so much I can do and my body and family's health legacy will fight me every fucking step of the way.

My body continues to be a cantankerous asshole, and I am still not on speaking terms with it. 

Kaizen: Day 21

Last night was PT, so I did my usual 10 minutes on the "stepper."

This morning it was a bit tight for time, but I managed 15 minutes on my bike.

I had my usual bi-weekly session with my therapist today and I ran him through everything for the last week: Colonoscopy, TTE, Job Interview, Snow Storm, slip sliding into the abyss, bringing us to today.

By the time I speak with my therapist again in two weeks, I should know something about the job interview. And already I'm thinking of possible questions to ask and demands to make, if their response is YES WE WANT TO HIRE YOU. If they don't want to hire me, things are much more straightforward: I will stay the course, get my knee replaced, and resume my job hunt after recovery. 

In the interim, I am going to try to focus on the two things I want to change:

1. Continue chipping away at trying to get more active (i.e. using my bike) every day; and
2. Try to get into a decent sleep hygeine habit to improve my sleep.

My therapist quipped that if/when I find the "magic" to make the sleep happen, let him know. My riposte was that perhaps we both should be accountable to each other and work on this together.

Right now, I'm reading up on sleep hygiene, and I'm going to come up with a formula that might work with my personality, habits, household, etc, and get myself on a schedule. 

Kaizen: Day 20

I was tooling along nicely, I thought, for a while, up until Monday, the 19th--and things kind of fell apart last week.

Monday the 19th, I endured both, a colonoscopy, and a trans thoracic echocardiogram.

Tuesday, while still feeling illish from Monday's festivities, I went for a job interview. And the physicality involved in taking the train and subway AND STAIRS (not to mention the stress of LIKE ME, PLEASE LIKE ME, that interviews invoke), I was fried.

Wednesday brought with it, yet one MORE snow storm (Hey! It's SUPPOSED to be Spring!).

Thursday and Friday were more of the same lack of Kaizen. No physical therapy on Saturday. And Sunday, at least provided about 3,000 footsteps.

Monday (yesterday), still no bike time. 

Today, Tuesday, I'll be at physical therapy tonight (this was the appointment that was supposed to be on Saturday).

So the Wednesday that was highlighted, I highlighted for a reason. Early in the morning, I was showering up and getting ready to go to work (despite the snow). And my therapist called, thinking it was a regular appointment; however, we spoke the week before and we weren't due for another session until THIS WEEK. 

We got off the phone once he realized his mistake; however, it's odd how the remainder of my week played out, physical stress from the colonoscopy (the prep was tough, but good that they evicted Pepito my Polyp, and he turned out to be benign), and from the trans thoracic echocardiogram I am "borderline" for left ventricular hypertrophy--the knowledge of THIS stresses me out and I hope to have a conversation with my kidney guy regarding seeing if we can get a little more aggressive with my medications to get in front of this before it turns into a THING.   Then there's the emotional stress that the interview brought on, and a lot of negative self-speak going on, and I'm wondering if I even WANT that job now if they even make an offer. Turns out, as the week went on, I really needed to talk to him. So I have to hold my water, so to speak, until tomorrow morning. 

And regarding the job interview? I should hear something in about 2 more weeks. 

My own game plan regarding my health and Kaizen is the same, and tonight I get a pass as I"m going to the physical therapist tonight and will be on the cross trainer there. So, I need to hydrate more, keep moving, keep trying the Kaizen until getting on my bike is a habit, and maybe elevate my legs at the end of the day. I WAS contemplating tweaking my supplements one more time and perhaps taking more magnesium--but I need to read more about it, and once I am convinced I won't be negatively impacting my kidneys, I'll act. I started reading up on magnesium and it looks like it could help so much regarding the LVH, as well as my on going proteinuria and uric acid issues, but if it is too much for my kidneys to handle, I need to be very conservative, as I'm currently on 400 mg daily anyway.

 

Kaizen: Day 11

Progress is being made, incrementally, as is my plan.

Where we left off LAST Friday, I did 10 minutes in the morning and blew off my evening Kaizen bike session. The last week has gone thusly:

Saturday:
10 min on bike at Physical Therapy

Sunday: No bike as I went out with my sister.

Monday:
10 min in morning
No bike in evening

Tuesday: No bike 

Wednesday:
7 min on bike in morning (short on time, therapy session in morning before work)

Thursday:
10 min on bike in morning
No bike in evening

Friday: 
15 min on bike in morning

Saturday: 
10 min on bike at Physical Therapy
No bike in evening

Sunday (Today):
30 min on bike in morning

The goal here is twofold: 1. The exercise of course, and; 2. making the exercise a HABIT. I remain unconvinced that I am at the "habit" stage of this process as I still have that internal struggle with myself to just set a few moments of my day aside to work on this. Afterall, HOW MUCH TIME do I waste on any given day?  PLENTY, and rarely is that time devoted directly towards improving my health?

Today I will probably be either spending the day either curled up in a ball (unlikely, though part of my brain wants that) or doing a lot of puttering to distract myself from colonoscopy prep today. I ate breakfast, and now it's 24 hours from the time I have to show up for the colonoscopy. And I'm not necessarily well-prepared for day's activity (subtext: COLON BLOW) beyond getting the Rx laxative solution. And even though I DO have a print out of instructions from the gastroenterologist, I still found the wording vague, and perhaps they should condense it all on one page and give you a 24 hour timeline. Just a thought. I'm already starting to get a stress headache around my ears ALREADY, just at the thought of everything. But the sun is shining and looks like it'll be a good day, albeit weather-wise.

I am scheduled out of the office tomorrow, with a 9:30 report time for the colonoscopy, and a 1 p.m. TTE (trans thoracic echocardiogram) scheduled for 1 p.m. And laundry pick up will happen therabouts, and lunch, and it looks like a full day.

Tuesday I may/may not call out sick, as I have one appointment tentatively set, and once I get the time and location, I will then call another recruiter who called about another job (same company) and see if I can push along/coerce/convince them to try to book the second interview the same day. If I am going to have an anxiety attack about taking a sick day the day after a scheduled absence, I might as well make exceptional use of my time.

Unlike the Kaizen bike bit, which is all MY INFLUENCE, this Kaizen regarding chipping away at finding myself another job is pretty much entirely out of my control; however, I am grateful that I am getting a lot of interest at least in my resume and phone interviews--the latter of which I can hide behind the phone and hide my Bitchy Resting Face, which can be intimidating or perhaps convey messages I don't want to convey during a job interview.

But that is something for me to worry about for Tuesday. Today I can only live in the moment, even if that means I'll be living in my bathroom for the better part of this evening.  Ugh. 

Splitting Hairs

Which is worse? Someone who knows they are ghosting another, or someone who is unaware that their actions make it appear as if they are in fact, ghosting another?

Just curious. And no. I won't be replying to any comments (if any are in fact, left).

Daily Kaizen: Day #5

THURSDAY
Morning: 5 min
Evening: 5 min

FRIDAY:
Morning: 5 min
Evening: 0

SATURDAY:
Physical therapy appt: 10 min

SUNDAY:
Morning: 0
Evening: 0

MONDAY (Today)
Morning: 10 min

SUPPLEMENT TWEAKS:

Discontinued digestive enzymes I resumed in January after my trip. Blood glucose was running a bit high. Decided to reincorporate CLA into my daily mix of supplements. 

Yet another article regarding Kaizen. 

So, if I were to LITERALLY make 1% improvement daily, and a day = 86400 seconds, I'd have to dedicate LITERALLY 1% of my day, 14.4 minutes to work towards that daily improvement.

Thoughts, Words, Deeds, Habits

Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.

― Mahatma Gandhi 

I've been on the fence for TOO LONG (YEARS in fact!) when it comes to exercise. Being in constant pain from an assortment of issues does not help. More activity = more pain. And that is where the entire THOUGHT of exercise begins and ends. It hurts too much. And if that weren't enough, I detest sweating.

I'll be 50 in August, so there's only so much longer (which is to say NOT AT ALL!) I can continue to blame my parents and the poor examples they've set for me about how to "adult." But what to do? 

Currently I've been going for acupuncture, in addition to my regular chiropractic and physical therapy and massage appointments. I decided today to get back on my protein shakes in the morning (instead of waiting for the afternoon--and some days I forget or decide not to have my shake). And UGH, I need to try to hydrate myself more sufficiently, as this no doubt is impacting a lot of things from my blood work being skewed a bit, or my kidneys not flushing out the things it should flush out.

Let it be known: This morning, I decided to have a different approach to exercise, or at least in the ESTABLISHING of a HABIT of exercise. 

I've decided to emulate Kimmy Schmidt with her 10 seconds at a time approach to pain or difficulty:

I've actually used that philosophy at times, give myself a moment, breathe, and ten seconds later, lather-rinse-repeat if necessary. 

Somewhere along the way, I saved an article about Kaizen (the definition of which is "slow, continuous improvement," and I even found some other articles (i.e.) devoted to applying Kaizen in small increments of time, to work towards fulfilling goals. I might not know much about the process, but at its core is making small, manageable changes or sustainable progress towards a goal. 

I have a very short list of what I want to work on in my life: 

1. Exercise more.
2. Find a new job.

Both of these two goals involve tedious work, but if I just "keep at it," chipping away at it daily/weekly, eventually I'll meet my goals. 

In the case of the exercise, I just associate so much unpleasantness along with it, but the reality is, the more I put it off, the less active I am, and the less active I am, the more problems I will have to deal with later as a result. So it's imperative I work at it NOW.

So, this morning, while my coffee was brewing, I hopped on my recumbent bike for five minutes. Five minutes seems a laughable duration. Rome wasn't built in a day. And I know if I push myself by a longer duration or by increasing the resistance on the bike, I know I'll hurt more tonight or tomorrow, and thereby make it more likely I won't get on the bike again any time soon. 

(Full disclaimer: After five minutes on the bike, I also did some stretching with my resistance band and  about 10 pumps on my Thigh Master. Baby steppin'!)

(God I hated "What About Bob," but the one thing they got RIGHT in that flick was the simple idea of baby steps.)


Tonight, I hope to repeat this action, hop on the bike, and ride for 5 minutes. Heck, I might end up riding longer, as I think that watching a TEDTalk while riding my bike, might make the time go quicker, and in the process, I'll be pumping some useful information into my brain.  I enjoy TEDTalks, so perhaps I can end up looking forward to my "5 minutes here, 5 minutes there" routine and sustain it for a while, and hopefully it will become second nature to me and I won't view it as such a chore. PERHAPS. It's a theory at least. Perhaps I can start and end my day with a TEDTalk and bike routine. Let's see how I do tonight with watching the TEDTalk while I bike--I didn't think of "baiting the hook" with a nice reward for WHILE biking. I just thought of this idea just now.

I'm thinking it, and speaking it, and hopefully my words become actions, and my actions become HABIT.  The more active I become now, hopefully will equate to a quicker recovery time when I finally get my knee replacement (later this year). 

My overall objective is to make my NEXT 50 years be the BEST years. Let's just see how tonight goes.