Monday Inspiration

This is dope, but if you are offended by nudity, you'll want to squint.

Crutch-Wrist

Since my arms have gotten stronger, I can do a lot more crutching, but now my wrists are starting to get mad at me. So, I'm gonna try to give them a little more TLC. Here are my recommendations to myself.

First, remember that you are using them whenever you crutch so warm them up a little bit.

In karate and tai chi classes we always used to do various circular moves with our joints to warm up. They said it was to "lubricate" the joints, and I think I read somewhere that it was to allow fluids to coat all the tissues surrounding the joints. So, whenever you are about to crutch, just do some gentle wrist circles to loosen and warm up the area. Another really popular writst warmup is to interlock your fingers and then make a wave with your wrists.

In aikido we also used to stretch our wrists out, to prepare for receiving joint locks. I don't see how it could hurt, as long as you don't push to hard of anything. Anyway it was a lot like this:



Next, strengthen them. You might want to start doing this before you're on crutches, but it's better late than never. There's a nice article on this here. My favorite tip is to brush your teeth with both hands! I'm right-handed and it is my left wrist that is bothering me. For some reason, until I got this tip, I didn't put two and two together.

Last, if you know you'll be crutching and your wrists aren't strong enough or are really irritated, you could wrap them. A nice how-to is here.

Workout Review: TheFirm Standing Legs/ Standing Arms

Ho-ly crap. I haven’t seen this much spandex since 1989. And I gotta tell you, I liked it.

So today’s exercise DVD was from The Firm. This was a much-lauded brand of home workout tapes in the 80’s and early 90’s, and I always used to see ads for them in health magazines when I was a kid. I always wanted to try them but they were wicked expensive for a 10 year old, so you can imagine my excitement when 16 years later, Netflix kindly delivered the DVD to my door.



So first order of business: if you have any appreciation for vintage home exercise videos, run, don’t walk, to get this DVD. There are men in unitards. There is intense eye contact with the camera. There is a slim lady with a soft, breathy voice rhythmically saying, “up, down, up, down, power up, squeeze down, ugh it’s so hard!” She will later tell you to “work the belly of the muscle.”

So on to the review. The DVD provides two separate workouts, each about 40 minutes long. One is for your arms and the other for the legs, but the legs workout seems to use the arms too. You will need a few props: hand weights, a chair or stool, and a mat for the floor. You will also need to be wearing scrunch socks, brilliant white sneakers, tights, and a thong leotard. A French braid is optional.

The Instructors (there are a few of them) in the DVD use multiple sets of hand weights, and they’ll tell you when to use heavy ones and when to use light ones, but I only have one set so that’s how many I used.

Lower-Leg Injury Compatibility: Sure
Obviously, the standing legs is out, but I did the arm workout. There are some portions of the workout that are done standing, but you can just sit down or stand with your trusty peg leg, so it’s no big deal. I could do almost the whole program. I couldn’t really do the warm-up, but it took my eyes a little while to adjust to the spandex anyway.

Difficulty: Variable
If you have some fairly heavy weights, I’m pretty sure your arms would be jelly after the 30 minutes of continuous arm exercises. I have a meek 5lb set of hand weights, though, and I’ve been crutching for a few weeks now, so it wasn’t all that challenging. There were some pushups near the end that I really didn’t want to do, but other than that my arms felt tired but not pooped.

So that’s The Firm. I finally tried it. Oh, and I’d like to thank Kenny G for providing the soundtrack.

BONUS
And for those of you who just can’t wait until your copy arrives, I’ll give you a little taste…


Yeah, I did that. In my living room.

iWALKFree Review (cont'd)

So yesterday was the first day that I wore my iWALKFree out into the world. I felt that I'd mastered it about as well as one could, so it was time to take this baby out for a spin. I strapped in on and took the bus to school, wore it around for the day, and took a cab home. And today I am so happy to have my crutches back.

While I stand by how helpful the iWALKFree is for doing things around the house, and think it has been well worth its rental price, there are some significant problems with it for more adventurous persuits.


First, the walking motion is very, very awkward. A big aspect of this is the large amount of lateral motion of the bar. When you put your weight on the "foot" of the device (which I will call the peg), the whole bar jerks laterally. The straps try to hold on to keep the bar in place, but you simply can't get them tight enough to restrict the motion (well, at least not while also permitting blood into and out of your leg.) I do wonder if sex has anything to do with this. No, not that kind. The other kind. The angles between the pelvis, femur, and knee joint are different for ladies than for men because of our superior birthing hips, and I wonder if the mechanics of this thing kind of make the lateral problem worse for the ladies. I really have no idea, but it's... well it's a big deal. It makes the thing very uncomfortable.

Next, is how slow it is. Oh. My. Gosh. To get anywhere is *painfully* slow. Now I'm a fast person, and I walk faster than just about everyone in DC, so my opinion might be a little extreme, but I really can't stand how long it takes to just get from one end of the hall to the other. I'm pretty fast on crutches--faster, I think, than a slow walker--so for longer distances I'd rather just deal with taking breaks with tired arms than use the iWALKFree.

Then, there is the tripping. When you are wearing the device, you have a fixed swinging distance from your hip to the floor,and all motion originates from the hip, so you can't lift the "peg" like you can a foot when you bend the knee. Consequently, small changes in the floor or carpet can catch you off guard and cause your to sort of trip forward. This happened to me several times yesterday, and each time was both a little embarrassing and a little frightening.

And then there's the staring. I've experienced staring like this before, but not in this country. Everyone--absolutely everyone--will look at you. Partially because they mean to look at you, but partially, I think, they just ween't quite sure what just passed them so it was just a reflex to make sure I wasn't some sort of hungry alien. See on crutches, people recognize the motion so they don't really feel the need to investigate further. They'll stare if they feel like watching you, but its not because of the compulsive will to survive.

Next, it's kind of painful. I don't have knee problems, but both my knees were unhappy after a day on this thing. The one you are kneeling on gets an uncomfortable locked-up feeling that can't be relieved without taking the device off, and the other one just gets annoyed with that weird-ass way you are walking. Also, if you have any lower back problems or SI joint problems, this isn't gonna be doing you any favors. There is a significant amount of out-of-wackness going on and you definitely feel it.

And it's cumbersome. Anytime you want to get up or sit down you have to put the thing on and take it off. This is paticularly inconvenient on the bus. I actually just left it on and awkwardly sat down. I sat in an aisle seat so the peg was sort of in the arm rest ares in frount of me, but that didn't go so well and if you are travelling during rush hour, good luck.

And last, it's no fun! Crutches, annoying as they are, are at least kind of fun. It's like you have your own little set of parrallel bars with you throughout the day, and you can feel all athletic and accomplished when you master them. When you are wearing the iWALKFree, because of the gross change in movement and the slowness... well, I felt like I had something much worse going on than a broken ankle.

So, I won't be wearing my iWALKFree out again. But here are some links if you want to get others' opinions:

Johnny Hopalong: A young athletic dude gives his perspective
ProductWiki: A handful of written reviews and some agreed-upon pros and cons

Monday Inspiration

Workout Review: New York City Ballet Workout Vol. 1

So today's DVD was one I have had in my collection for a while. I bought it years ago and had a vague memory that there was a lot of floor work, so I thought I'd give it a try.



Unfortunately, memory didn't serve up precision this time. This DVD is about the length of a dance class, and is packed full of ballet stuff like plies, tendus, and degages, but has very little floor work. It features four of the NYC Ballet dancers (two males and two females, so you bros can feel masculine about doing it), and takes you through warmups, stretching, floor bar, and standing leg work. Overall, it's a beautiful DVD, but it's not so good for us gimps.

Lower Leg Injury Compatibility: Poor
This DVD has many segments (I dunno--20?), and only 3 or 4 of them are dedicated to floor work . The exercises are good and make you feel all graceful and stuff, but there just aren't enough of them. There was a minute there during the sit-up segment when my abs started burning, but then it was over.

Body Part Focus: Abs, Back, and Hip-flexors
It shouldn't surprise you that a ballet workout focuses on the core. A curiously still torso is one of the hallmarks of ballet. So, the floor work that I could do was all core-centric: a situps segment (but pretty situps, cos ballet is pretty); side-lying leg-work segment; and a belly-lying back segment.

Standing on Crutches?: Not a Good Idea
I don't take defeat lying down, so I did try to do the standing work with a crutch nearby for stability. Ballet has a lot of work on one leg anyway so I thought it might work, but it didn't. First, it's just straight unpleasant. Keeping your balance is a pain, and since the gimpy foot can't keep up with the flexing and pointing, and can't really touch down at all, it's just a real pain coordination-wise. Then, even if you have uber-balance and can do one-foot tendus in your sleep, I'm not sure it's wise to train so unilaterally. If you develop the muscles on one side in one way, and then another way on the other side, it stands to reason that you might end of giving yourself some alignment issues. I'm no physical therapist or anything though, just saying.

So, overall, I can't recommend this ditty for us injured-types.

Meditation Positions for the Lower Leg Injured

So, it was another one of my goals that during my recovery I would use some of that time I’d be using running errands to meditate more. For those of you that I just lost, bear with me. There is lots of scientific support for the benefits of meditation, and meditation Cd's are even issued by Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center to pre-surgical patients.

There is also evidence that that meditation can make some serious changes to the brain. Recent FMRI studies of monks and other hard-core meditators have shown that there is increased activity in the parts of the brain that seem to control positive emotions when in meditation. Among the monks who have been studied is even French molecular geneticist-turned monk Matthieu Richard, author of the popular read, “Happiness: a Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill.”

And then there are the physical feats that these monks can do! I seem to remember from my youth hearing of meditation experts who could survive pretty intense hypothermia situations by heating their bodies with their mind-grapes, but some monks in Northern India take it to a whole new level. These monks actually practice a type of meditation that heats their bodies so much that they can steam-dry wet, freezing towels draped over their backs, outside in a freezing climate!

Don't underestimate the mind-grapes!

So, during my recovery, I wanted to not only learn more about meditation, but also try to meditate with a lot more regularity. But, my first obstacle is, well, my ankle. There really aren't that many positions in which I can sit that won't damage my ankle or hurt like reading Charles Dickens, so I'm dedicating this post to listing some meditation postures that I can do. Hopefully I'll add to the list as I go. I still haven't found a suitable substitute for sitting cross-legged, but I'm working on it.

1. Corpse Pose (flat on back)
Corpse pose if great for things like body scans (where you focus on one part of your body at a time) or things like “warm autogenic relaxation," and it is completely doable with a sprained ankle, broken foot, or whatever you've got going on down there.

Unfortunately, corpse pose really doesn’t do it for me for lots of other kinds of meditation like breath awareness and mantra concentration, because it relaxes me a little too much and I start to fall asleep. Plus, there's a sort of feeling you get when you are sitting up straight that just can't be emulated with corpse pose. Sometimes you just want to vertically align your chakras, ya know?

2. Seated in Chair
A completely valid posture. Sit in a straight-back chair with your hands on your thighs (or in various mudras) and you feet flat on the floor. This is the pose that is often taught to seniors who might not have the best mobility, or in group settings where people don't want to get on the floor.

However, it has it's drawbacks. Namely for me, I only have one chair; it's my desk chair, and it's not very comfortable. Sitting in this chair means I'm working, and I just don't feel like sitting in it any more than I have to. So, I prefer a posture that signals meditation--a posture that is not in any way related to studying for finals.

3. Modified Child's Pose
Okay this one I invented myself. Child's Pose is a common yogic position used for inward-looking meditation; you are sheilded from light sources and your are just all balled up on the floor. But, the traditional pose calls for the ankles to be hyperextended and for weight to be placed on the feet and ankles, and that's no good for lower-leg injuries.

So, I developed my own little modification. I use two props: a zafu and a yoga block. For those unfamiliar with zafus, they are basically really sweet sit-upons. They are about 16 inches in diameter and are filled with enough stuff so that they provide a dense cusion about 6 inches off the ground. To do the position, I kneel on the zafu so my feet are off the back edge and just kind of dangling there. Then I put a yoga block where my forehead will be and I otherwise just get into the position normally, but with no weight on my ankles and my forehead propped up to a comfortable level.

This position isn't as comfy as real Child's Pose, but it's still pleasant.

4. Legs up the wall pose
I've grown very fond of this pose. It's a double-duty for us gimps. Elevated legs AND relaxing meditation pose.

5. Reclining Bound Angle

I actually haven't tried this one yet, but it looks like I might be able to do it. I can't do Bound Angle because the stress on my ankle would be too great, but I might be able to do this one.

6. The elusive lower-leg injury compatible cross-legged pose
Coming soon...

New Hands-Free Crutch Gizmo!

I love mobility aids. I think they are so interesting and, of course, useful, and apparently a new one is in the pipeline!



Right now, I think this product is still in the prototype/limited availability phase, but I think you can pre-order one from Goodbye Crutches. This device looks about as comfortable as the iWALKFree, but it is much sleeker and probably would barely get you noticed on the street. I want one!

P.s.: Really, the Freedom Leg? Um, can we keep politics out of it?

iWALKFree Week 1 Review

About a week ago, my iWALKFree arrived and I began my relationship with my peg-leg. I ordered it from Goodbye Crutches, a company that sells and lends various mobility aids. The promise was that I would get so used to it that I would be inclined to take dogs for walks and enter into abbreviated marathons. Well, so far, neither of those things are true, but I do think that it is worth the rental fee of $125/ month.

It took me a day or two to get used to the thing and to not feel like I was putting my life in danger every time I used it, but now I'm pretty comfortable with it. I still don't use it to go outside because I feel nervous about taking away the controlled environment of my apartment, and frankly I just think it's easier to negotiate the bus and transitioning between sitting and standing when I use my crutches instead.

However, I do use it everyday and several times each day, and it has really helped with some of the more frustrating things about crutches. For example, in the morning, instead of carefully strategizing how the heck I'm going to do all that morning stuff--making coffee, fighting with the coffee filter, brushing my teeth, etc--I just put on my peg-leg and move around my apartment with relative ease. Similarly, it makes taking the trash out, getting my mail, cooking, and cleaning my apartment much, much more pleasant. In fact, I might be covered in garbage right now were it not for ol' peggy.

But, if you're expecting to enjoy long walks with the thing, your expectations might be a little high. Walking is never really natural, and I usually keep a hand on the bar of the peg-leg for stability (during which I like to imagine I am preparing for a role as Dr. Gregina House, M.D, a medical drama that I am pitching to Fox). Also, the walking is slow-going.

But as I said, I think it is really helpful and worth its rental price. I live in a very small studio and I can imagine that the benefits would be even better if you had a bigger space and needed to move around more. So marathons? No. Cooking and cleaning? Yes. And frankly, the latter is more important than the former anyway.

Oh, and they say you can shower with it on, but I'll stick to my shower stool, thankyouverymuch.

Workout Review: Crunch, Super SlimDown

Yesterday I tried another workout vid that I thought might have more than just ab work. I tried Crunch: Super SlimDown.



This vid gets much higher marks in the doability department than that Self one, but for a moment, can we just talk about the names of these DVDs? I mean, really? Super SlimDown? "Slim and Sleek, Fast!"? Can't I just want to move my body without doing something that involves an exclamation point? And does the fact that I want to exercise necessarily mean that I have a low opinion of myself and want to SlimDown?

Anyway, back to the review. So this video is filled with many super-slim ladies guiding us through three segments of exercises. The first segment is standing yoga-type work that will deeply, deeply offend yoga types. (I'm not really touchy about that stuff but I was still kind of glad that I could fast forward through it.) And then the next two are pilates-inspired leg work and pilates-inspired ab work.

Low-Leg Injury Compatibility: Pretty Good
The first segment of this video is standing but the last two are on the floor, so I could do about 25 of the 40 minutes of this DVD. Once on the floor, I really didn't need to modify the exercises at all.

Body Part Focus: Abs and Legs
Though this DVD (the parts that I could do) was pilates-inspired, it had more leg work than most pilates DVDs. It still mostly works the hip-flexors and such, but the added leg work was nice and there is a little more back work than most beginner pilates DVDs.

Overall, not bad, and given how tired I am getting of pilates, some of the more creative movements were a nice change of pace.

They're all gonna laugh at me!

So I'll admit, I haven't really ventured out of my apartment much. I am in exams period at school so don't really need to be anywhere. I prefer to study at the library, but the effort it takes to get there has prevented me from making the journey.

Though the effort is one significant reason to avoid going anywhere, really my shyness plays a big factor in it too. I'm not uncomfortable meeting new people or carrying a conversation or anything, but I am curiously put off by people looking at me, especially when I'm doing something that I feel is kind of weird or uncool. And, well, there are times on crutches (sometimes all the time) when you don't exactly look slick.

So when I'm on crutches, I feel pretty paranoid that people are staring at me. I don't know if people even really notice or care, but I suspect they do since I hear "what'd you do?!" from all over the place when I go anywhere. A couple years ago, when I was working in a small town and was on crutches for a long time, I used to crutch to the supermarket and random people would actually stop and ask me if I wanted a ride. I would thank them, but I had a car, and I just wanted the exercise. People seemed to think that this made me somewhat crazy, as though a broken ankle diminished my need for fresh air and sunshine.

But even if people are thinking "why doesn't that crazy girl stay home or get a car or something," it really shouldn't stop me from going out. I believe that you should live your life in a way that makes you happy, damning the stares you may get along the way, and one of my goals for this time on crutches was to work on putting that belief into action.

So, I'm going to start tracking my outdoor crutch-time to help motivate myself. I'm going to use my love of getting better at things to help chip away at my fear of being stared at. I just went on a crutch-walk around the block and my shoulders were weeping by the time I came back, so I'll tally my crutch-ercise for today as:

1 X 150 crutches, followed by 1 X 25 crutches. I made it kind of around the block. Shut up. Don't laugh. :P

Workout Bust: Self, Slim and Sleek Fast

Woman cannot live on ab workouts alone, so I looked through some DVDs that I thought might just have other toning work that I could do. I ended up picking Self: Slim and Sleep, Fast!



Unfortunately, this one didn't work. I even tried doing it with my iWalkFREE, but no luck. The workout has no floor work and only minimal arm work. It's mostly squats and plies and whatnot. So... this video gets a big thumbs down from the crutches-using board. But, I might try this one again when I am starting to retrain my legs. It's not very intense, so might be a good advanced rehab vid.

Monday Inspiration

Workout Review: Basic Ab Workout For Dummies

Today's exercise DVD review is Ab Workout for Dummies. As its name suggests, it is a simple ab routine. Nothing "pilates" or creative here.This is a back-to-basics 40 minute routine that takes you through 10 classic abs exercises.



My biggest critique of this workout is just that it is boring, which is exactly why I don't like working on my abs, and why I needed to be on crutches to get interested in ab training in the first place. Boredom aside, I did like how the instructor basically taught me how to perform well-known exercises and had me do them in a slow, controlled way. I'm one of those perfectionistic Iyengar-loving people, so I appreciated this attention to detail. Also, just like in the Dummies book series, there are these little bullet points they mention throughout the workout that kind of keep your mind occupied. Kind of.

Lower Leg Injury Compatibility: Very
I could do most of this workout without needing to make any adjustments. There are 2 exercises at the end that require use of the lower legs, but by the time I got to those exercises, my abs were pooped and I didn't want to do them anyway. I think probably had I had the will, there would be a way to modify the exercises so I could do them.

Difficulty: Beginner
If you've been doing crunches and scissors in the gym for ages, you will likely gain nothing from this video. If you are brand new to exercise, you will likely gain much. And, for people like me, who are no strangers to the gym but tend to avoid ab work like the plague, it might be a nice refresher on those basic ab exercises.

Bonus: There's a 10 minute quickie workout on this DVD too. I haven't done it yet, but am sure its also compatible with crutches.

UPDATE: 10 min quickie workout is 100% lower leg injury compatible and is pretty challenging.

Pilates Review: Pick Your Level Weight Loss Pilates

Partially as motivation for my staying active, and partially because I thought it might be useful to someone at sometime, I plan on reviewing all the exercise DVDs I try. Most I'll be trying are pilates or similar-style workouts, but I'll also try a few that you might not think would be possible with a lower leg injury, just to see what else is out there.

For my first DVD, I did Pick Your Level Weight Loss Pilates.


This video features three lovely ladies atop three column platforms in three different colors of spandex doing three different levels of “pilates.”

Lower Leg Injury Friendly: Not paticularly
The first 10 minutes of the workout are standing exercises, and the last 5 minutes or so are as well. There were a bunch of exercises I could do in the middle with just minor if any adjustments, but I missed out on about a third of the workout.

Pilates Instruction: None
The DVD played much more like a pilates inspired target-toning video than a true pilates vid. There wasn't any mention of how you should be breathing or holding your spine/pelvis or anything.

Aerobic: Nope.
I wasn’t expecting it to be, but one day something might have some way of getting my heart rate up, so thought I’d get in the habit of assessing this.

Difficulty Level: Variable
I could certainly do level one without hurting myself (which is the level I tried), and I certainly couldn’t do level three without hurting myself, so the level of difficulty was perfect for me.

Sluggish, at best

So today I'm finding motivation difficult. Stressors seem to be overwhelming and I've spent far too much time alone in my apartment. The thing is, it is genuinely hard to go anywhere and frankly it just gets so dark out so early and I'm not that comfy being out in the dark on crutches. I don't live in a bad neighborhood or anything, but I just feel like a sitting duck on crutches. I mean, if you wanted to mug me, now would definitely be the easiest time. I can't run, I can't even crutch for longer than a block at a time, and I'm more concerned to my ankle healing than most things.

I have to imagine that this fear is somewhat irrational. I mean, people with movement-affecting disabilities still live their lives, including going out after dark. And to tell the truth I'm not that hard to mug anyway. People probably don't mug me usually because no one wants to mug me, not because I seem like I'd be hard to mug. But, for now I still feel uncomfortable going out.

I should try to work on this. At least get the motivation to leave during the day. And, of course... I should stop eating my fridge.

Crusty Cast Comes Off, Icky Foot Emerges

Today was my first post-op appointment. They took off my pseudo-cast, removed the parts of the stitches that didn't dissolve, and told me to give them a call after my six weeks is up. In the meantime I'm supposed to move my foot around a lot but don't put pressure on it.

But ho-ly crap I am still really weak. I've figured out that I can do around 4 somewhat-consecutive sets of 60 crutch-steps before my arms turn to absolute jelly. So, that's my baseline. Take note. I hope to more than double than in the next few weeks.

And, getting to Georgetown Hospital from my hood in DC is really difficult. It's annoying normally, but when you're on crutches, that block you have to walk to switch buses---whoosh. Each crutch feels like someone is beating my shoulders with a jackhammer.

But I finally made it to the hospital, only to have to crutch through a whole frickin hospital to get to the doctor! Why are hospitals so dang circuitous. I felt like a gimpy mouse in a maze, moving slower and slower towards my cheese. If I had made one more wrong turn, I would've had to just find a bed and stayed the night. I was hoping I could get one of those complimentary hospital wheelchair rides, but apparently you only get one per surgery.

Anyway, so by the time I got home from the doctor, I was way too tired to leave the house again, so I missed class tonight, and I feel bad about that.

iWALKFree Arrives!

Today I received my iwalkfree hands-free crutch (a.k.a., the peg-leg).

Okay so the included instructional video has this homely sort of woman assembling the peg-leg with me, but I have to say--that lady is secretly a special ops engineer. It took me five times longer than her to assemble the thing and it took all the strength I had in me. Okay that's not that much. Shut up. But, I got the thing assembled eventually and now that I've got the hang of making adjustments it's no big deal.

So how is it?

Well, it's day one, so I'm suspending ultimate judgment for a later date, but I almost took several nasty falls on it in my first jaunt, so it makes me nervous. The thing is, you have to kind of hyper-extend your hip back so that the peg part hits the ground the right way. I plan on making my trip to the mailboxes today with it so we'll see.

One Week Post-Op

[Posted Dec 1, 2009]

It’s been one week since my surgery. That’s about one week since I’ve left my 200 sq. ft. apartment. This is what I’ve been doing:

Day of Surgery: Tuesday, Nov. 2

Today I woke up at 5:30, disinfected my body with Dial, and headed to the hospital. I can’t tell you much about what happened, but I do know that I woke up with a serious sore throat that didn’t fade for days. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Took some painkillers as per the doctor’s instruction, but so far no pain.

Day 1: Wednesday, Nov 25

Today I still felt like a normal person. Like I could just crutch over to the store if I wanted to. Went for this hypothesized crutch. At block marker 1, my pecs turned off. I made it a few more crutches on shoulder power alone, and then I shut down. Had to sleep on the concrete that night.

Also, my ass is killing me from all the hopping. My ankle feels fine.

Day 2: Thursday, Nov 26

The call of nature woke me up at 5am. Before moving, I knew that my muscles were very, very sore. Movement confirmed diagnosis. Finding way to bathroom in the dark, while you’re sore, hopping, and with your mother sleeping on an airbed 2 feet from you is precarious.

Today, everything hurt, all the time, except my ankle.

Day 3: Friday, Nov 27

Pecs still compromised. Still mostly hopping rather than crutching around my apartment. Did not venture out. I did a Pilates dvd today, but don’t really remember it, so I’ll review it next time.

Day 4: Saturday, Nov 28

Oh, the boredom. My mom was still here and we basically just watched shows we never wanted to see on TV.

Day 5: Sunday, Nov 29

Will to live diminished. Watched TV and movies all day. Started to go a little batty.

Day 6: Monday, Nov 30

Will to live replenished. Didn’t accomplish much work, but did several workout DVD’s.

And that brings us to today. I had some school-related stress today and I have to say, being on crutches definitely amplified it. Mostly just because I don’t feel as capable on crutches, I’m guessing. I feel like I can’t just run down to the office or school and take care of some things. Plus, I got some of my co-pay bills today from the MRI. Holy crap! 20% of a pile of money is still a pile of money.