Feelin' Groovy
I forgot that the first words of this song are, “Slow down, you move too fast.” Huh. Not likely.
Anyway, I’m not feeling like Deena Kastor yet, but am feeling worlds better. It is inexplicable to me that for the first week after my fall I experienced no improvement—even felt worse as the days went by. And the second week didn’t get much better until Friday, when I awoke in the morning and said to myself, hey, I’m gonna live.
The nurse practitioner I saw at Dr. F’s office Wednesday told me she didn’t think I needed to give up on the idea of the marathon, but then, she is young and is a distance runner. I doubt a fall like I took would keep her down as long as it is threatening to keep me down. But I loved her for saying it and for not saying, “Oh you must stop running for two months.”
My son the doctor told me I could probably pursue what’s known as “active rest.” I love a good oxymoron, so after about five days during which all I did was walk from the bus terminal to work and back (four blocks), I’ve returned to riding my bike and swimming. I’m paying more attention to my regimen of painkillers, which I think has helped as much as anything else. Did you know you can take ibuprofen and Tylenol AT THE SAME TIME? Neither did I. Linda the lovely nurse practitioner said one stresses primarily the kidneys and the other the liver, so they’re OK together. I’ve been taking two of each every five to six hours. Today I’m cutting back to only one Tylenol per dosing, this after reading an article in Parade magazine about Tylenol being the number one source of poisoning seen in emergency rooms. My dad used to ask, “Is life worth living?” and then, after a few beats, answer himself: “It depends upon the liver.” I’d just as soon keep mine happy.
My little drama of injury, pain, and recovery is my story, and it’s compelling to me. Since this is MY blog I’m not going to trivialize what happened. It has knocked me off track mentally and physically, and I’m grateful it appears headed for a reasonably happy ending. This is a blog about running, so chronicling the mesmerizing adventures of my aging corpus seems legit. But—you knew this was going somewhere, no?—I’ve gotten a couple of doses of perspective along the way. First, my old friend J, whom I’ve just gotten back in touch with after many, many years (we met when we were in kindergarten!), called me last week to let me know her boyfriend has a brain tumor. Second, one of the best friends of WJ, my sister-in-law the transplant survivor, just had surgery for colon cancer. The cancer was a blow out of the blue; one week this woman thought she was fine and the next she was fighting for her life. I am not comparing my fall to a life-threatening illness—in fact I’m not sure what I am saying.
Physical catastrophes are hard to process and put me immediately into the realms of religion and philosophy, effectively removing me from any meaningful cogitation on the body. So I don’t know where to go to deal in any authentic way with seemingly random physical disasters. In the end, we are all critters of the flesh and how we deal with its inevitable, ongoing mortification defines the quality of our lives.
I was SUCH a miserable bitch the first week after my injury. Z’s working buddy, the young and utterly charming Mexican, B, thought I was mad at him when he came to our house. I was mad at him. I was mad at everything in creation. I was mad that Z was still running, I was mad that the sun was (or wasn’t) shining, I was mad that the world went on but I didn’t (or so it felt). One evening I just sat and cried for an hour. Not big, wracking sobs, but just letting water run down my face like I was a half-full water balloon someone had pricked with a pin. I was mad at me for being so shallow that I carried on as if I was dying when all I had was a sore hip. But I knew that it felt to me as if something was dying—maybe my image of myself as a runner, or my conviction that I could stay young forever—who really knows. I’m not sure how differently I will react when (not if) I am faced with that final physical ailment. Some schools of Buddhist thought advise you to visualize your own death in as detailed a way as possible so that when it becomes imminent you will be prepared. It’s not a bad idea to me, but is incredibly hard to do for more than a minute or two, and how many gory details can I get into in that short amount of time?
The most aggravating and at the same time most wonderful premise in Buddhism is that life is constant change. Not is IN constant change, or WILL bring about change, but IS change. Holding onto the past is an exercise in illusion and futility. But it’s a habit that’s hard to break. I was getting attached to my new persona, the broken old broad, only to find that while I was blubbering she up and left the building. On this day, I am the recovering being, the optimist. Tomorrow? Not knowing how (or who) I’ll be at any given time is one thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. May I always feel that urge to find out.
Anyway, I’m not feeling like Deena Kastor yet, but am feeling worlds better. It is inexplicable to me that for the first week after my fall I experienced no improvement—even felt worse as the days went by. And the second week didn’t get much better until Friday, when I awoke in the morning and said to myself, hey, I’m gonna live.
The nurse practitioner I saw at Dr. F’s office Wednesday told me she didn’t think I needed to give up on the idea of the marathon, but then, she is young and is a distance runner. I doubt a fall like I took would keep her down as long as it is threatening to keep me down. But I loved her for saying it and for not saying, “Oh you must stop running for two months.”
My son the doctor told me I could probably pursue what’s known as “active rest.” I love a good oxymoron, so after about five days during which all I did was walk from the bus terminal to work and back (four blocks), I’ve returned to riding my bike and swimming. I’m paying more attention to my regimen of painkillers, which I think has helped as much as anything else. Did you know you can take ibuprofen and Tylenol AT THE SAME TIME? Neither did I. Linda the lovely nurse practitioner said one stresses primarily the kidneys and the other the liver, so they’re OK together. I’ve been taking two of each every five to six hours. Today I’m cutting back to only one Tylenol per dosing, this after reading an article in Parade magazine about Tylenol being the number one source of poisoning seen in emergency rooms. My dad used to ask, “Is life worth living?” and then, after a few beats, answer himself: “It depends upon the liver.” I’d just as soon keep mine happy.
My little drama of injury, pain, and recovery is my story, and it’s compelling to me. Since this is MY blog I’m not going to trivialize what happened. It has knocked me off track mentally and physically, and I’m grateful it appears headed for a reasonably happy ending. This is a blog about running, so chronicling the mesmerizing adventures of my aging corpus seems legit. But—you knew this was going somewhere, no?—I’ve gotten a couple of doses of perspective along the way. First, my old friend J, whom I’ve just gotten back in touch with after many, many years (we met when we were in kindergarten!), called me last week to let me know her boyfriend has a brain tumor. Second, one of the best friends of WJ, my sister-in-law the transplant survivor, just had surgery for colon cancer. The cancer was a blow out of the blue; one week this woman thought she was fine and the next she was fighting for her life. I am not comparing my fall to a life-threatening illness—in fact I’m not sure what I am saying.
Physical catastrophes are hard to process and put me immediately into the realms of religion and philosophy, effectively removing me from any meaningful cogitation on the body. So I don’t know where to go to deal in any authentic way with seemingly random physical disasters. In the end, we are all critters of the flesh and how we deal with its inevitable, ongoing mortification defines the quality of our lives.
I was SUCH a miserable bitch the first week after my injury. Z’s working buddy, the young and utterly charming Mexican, B, thought I was mad at him when he came to our house. I was mad at him. I was mad at everything in creation. I was mad that Z was still running, I was mad that the sun was (or wasn’t) shining, I was mad that the world went on but I didn’t (or so it felt). One evening I just sat and cried for an hour. Not big, wracking sobs, but just letting water run down my face like I was a half-full water balloon someone had pricked with a pin. I was mad at me for being so shallow that I carried on as if I was dying when all I had was a sore hip. But I knew that it felt to me as if something was dying—maybe my image of myself as a runner, or my conviction that I could stay young forever—who really knows. I’m not sure how differently I will react when (not if) I am faced with that final physical ailment. Some schools of Buddhist thought advise you to visualize your own death in as detailed a way as possible so that when it becomes imminent you will be prepared. It’s not a bad idea to me, but is incredibly hard to do for more than a minute or two, and how many gory details can I get into in that short amount of time?
The most aggravating and at the same time most wonderful premise in Buddhism is that life is constant change. Not is IN constant change, or WILL bring about change, but IS change. Holding onto the past is an exercise in illusion and futility. But it’s a habit that’s hard to break. I was getting attached to my new persona, the broken old broad, only to find that while I was blubbering she up and left the building. On this day, I am the recovering being, the optimist. Tomorrow? Not knowing how (or who) I’ll be at any given time is one thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. May I always feel that urge to find out.
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