Prior to discovering my liver tumors, gallbladder attacks weren’t that unusual for me. In fact, the hospital visit where I randomly discovered the tumors was because I thought I was having the worst gallbladder attack of my life. Once I learned about the tumors and they started to shrink, my gallbladder attacks stopped. I discussed this with my liver surgeon and we think that since my tumors were so big they might have been pressing on my gallbladder and making my attacks worse. I still have gallstones and gallbladder issues, but it’s not anything like it used to be.
My liver surgeon was going to remove my gallbladder when I was supposed to have my tumor surgery. Since that didn’t happen, he said that he would still do both surgeries if I need one or the other. So if I need my gallbladder out, he can take out whatever tumors are still seen. I do feel better that I have a good surgeon because there is a very high chance my gallbladder will come out eventually. But I am in no rush to do it and since I haven’t been having attacks I don’t think about it too much.
But last week, I had my first attack in a long time. I don’t know what food triggered it because I didn’t eat anything weird. And it wasn’t like most of the attacks that I have had in the past. I usually can tell that an attack will be coming a few hours before it hits. I hate knowing that it’s coming, but I guess it’s also nice to have a warning. My attacks usually last a few hours and there are a few tricks I’ve done over the years to help the pain feel a bit less severe and I have some breathing techniques that I’ve used too.
This attack came on very quickly. I had no warning symptoms leading up to it. It just hit me and I was in the middle of an attack before I knew it. I was having the stomach pain, the rib pain, crushing sensation in my body, and overall body sweats within a minute or two of the attack starting. It was the weirdest thing because I am not used to it happening so fast. And I haven’t had an attack in so long that it did take a bit of time for me to realize what was happening. I was scared I was having a heart attack or panic attack and couldn’t calm down. After about 10 minutes, I realized it had to be a gallbladder attack and went to lay down on my bed to try to let it pass.
Since it’s been a while since I have had an attack, I guess I forgot how horrible they are. I was in so much pain and I couldn’t believe that it was so awful. The entire attack was over in under an hour which is much faster than normal for me. So maybe the attack was a condensed attack which made everything worse. Or maybe I just forgot about them since it’s been a while. Either way, I was so grateful when it was over and I was so upset that it happened.
I have no clue if this is the start of all my issues happening again or if this was a random attack. I’m really hoping it was random because I do not want to have to worry about this again. But if they happen as often as they used to, I probably will consider surgery more seriously because there is no reason for me to be in this much pain on a regular basis if it’s easy enough to prevent. I have an MRI in October to check my tumors and they usually check my gallstones too. I’m hoping that I can at least wait until then so I can have an idea if my gallstones are worse than they used to be.
I had been so optimistic about my gallbladder for so long now because the attacks stopped. Maybe I needed the reminder that I still need to be careful and aware of my gallbladder issues and that’s what this was. I really hope that’s what it was and I heard that reminder loud and clear. I do not want to go through another attack again. I know that that’s not necessarily possible, but I at least want a very long break again before I have another one.
I think it was pretty clear that I recently had a pretty bad workout week. It was horrible and I was feeling pretty bad about myself. I knew that it was due to crazy circumstances, but that still didn’t help me feel better about the effort that I did in class. Fortunately, things changed for the better for me this week and I found new things to work on.
Monday’s workout was so much better than the last Monday’s class. I was still dealing with the tail end of my nausea, but I was basically back to normal and I felt much more like myself. We had a strength based class and the rowing had a lot to do with stroke counts which was a nice challenge.
For cardio, we had 2 blocks. Each block had push paces with no inclines and push paces with inclines. We also had inclines for our all out paces. I was using my normal resistance levels on the bike and didn’t really do much to count for incline work except to use my all out resistance level for push paces with inclines. It made me realize that I might need to work on seeing if I should be increasing my resistance levels on the bike again. I’ve been doing the bike for a long time without a treadmill break and I’m not used to that. When I’m not on it as often, I don’t make a lot of changes with my resistance levels. But if I’m going to stick with the bike (which I’m really feeling like I will be doing), I can’t be static in what work I do.
On the rower, both blocks had the same challenge. We had a 150 meter row and we had to count how many strokes it took to do that. When we had squats with medicine balls and the number of reps equaled how many strokes the row took. So the goal was to have your stroke count as low as possible which requires a lot of patience. I’ve gotten pretty good at being slow on the rower for stroke count challenges so I was able to keep my count around 12-13 each time I did it.
And on the floor, each block had 2 exercises. The first block had squats to bicep curls and push-ups. And the second block had sumo squats to upright rows and sit-ups. For the weighted work, I wasn’t doing my heaviest weights, but I was doing better than I have been doing for the past month or so because I really wanted to push myself.
Wednesday’s workout was another strength day. Strength days used to be really hard on me when I was on the treadmill because I was limited with incline work, but I don’t mind them as much now that I use the bike. But just like on Monday, I know that I’m probably not doing enough resistance work to replicate hills on the bike and I really didn’t do that great with fixing that in this workout.
For cardio, it was mainly done at a base pace alternating between hill work and flat road work. I did use the resistance level between my push and all out paces for the hills, but I know I could do more and I was a little mad at myself after finishing the workout for not doing that. I’m not sure why I have this mental block that I can’t do more because I know physically I can. But maybe I needed this problem to come up so I could be aware of it and start fixing it.
For the rower, it was all shorter rows with squat work between each row. We started at a 200 meter row and then had a 150 meter and 100 meter row. After the 200 meter row, we had regular squats with the medicine ball. After the 150 meter row we had regular squats and ground to press with the medicine ball. And after the 100 meter row we had regular squats, growing to press, and power squats with the medicine ball. The squats were taking me a long time so I didn’t get as much rowing done as I would have liked to. But to keep my hips safe and not hurting I have to make sure that I am not sloppy with my squat form.
On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had chest presses, knee tucks, and tricep extensions. And the second block had chest flys, sit-ups, and reverse flys. For the chest presses I could go pretty heavy with my weight, but for the other exercises I had to go a bit lighter than I would have liked to. My arms were feeling a bit weak and I think that my arms have always been like that and again I might just need to put some focus into fixing that.
Friday was another strength day (I feel like having all these strength days is a sign that I needed to work on them). Even though the other workouts during the week were also strength days, they all have their own focus and I was able to find different things to work on during this class compared to the other classes.
For cardio, it was a similar pattern to what we had earlier in the week with alternating flat road and incline work. But the incline work was for longer intervals in this class. When we had the hill work for 2 minutes, I was using my normal all out resistance level. To know I could do that for 2 minutes gave me a real boost in knowing what I could do. It wasn’t easy and my legs were sore when I was done, but I did it! When we had our all outs, they were supposed to be on hills so I did 1 level above what I usually use. If I hadn’t done the hills before, I think I could have done a higher level. But it just continued to prove that my biking ability is much more than I’ve been really doing.
On the rower, we started with a 600 meter row. After that we had squats with medicine ball raises and calf raises. Then we had 2 rounds of a 300 meter row with the medicine ball work after. After that we were supposed to have 3 rounds of 150 meter rows and more squat work, but my hips were really starting to hurt me. Friday morning we had a small earthquake very early in the morning and that woke me up and I never got back to sleep. I know sleep helps my body reset and makes my hip get back into alignment. So when I don’t sleep, I’m at a high risk for having a bad hip day and that’s exactly what happened. So instead of doing the squat work after the rounds of the 150 meter rows, I just kept rowing.
On the floor, we had 2 blocks with 2 exercises each. The first block had deadlifts and hollow hold single arm chest presses. And the second block had seated shoulder presses and double crunches. For the deadlifts and shoulder presses, we had a range for the number of reps we were supposed to do. So I went heavier than normal with the weights to test myself. I don’t think I could do the heavier weights if I had to do more than 5 or 6 reps, but since we could do as few as 5 they worked. For the chest presses and double crunches I just used my normal weights for the exercises because both of those things put a bit of stress on my hips and I didn’t want to risk things with going higher with the weight.
Saturday was an endurance based workout, but I ended up treating the class more like a power day. After all the motivation I had earlier in the week with my bike resistance levels, I decided to test a few things out.
For cardio, we had 2 blocks. The first block was 2 rounds of a 2 1/2 minute push pace with a recovery between them. 2 1/2 minutes is a pretty long push pace, but I still decided to see if I could increase my resistance level a bit. I increased it by 1 level (so it was the level between my push and all out pace) and it was tough. 2 1/2 minutes seemed to take forever, but I managed to keep the resistance level there the entire time. The second block was a 6 minute distance challenge. And I decided to use my previous push pace level and see if I could do that for the entire time. I was doing ok with it until about the 4th minute. Then I had to bring it back down to my old push pace level. But to know I did it for that long (plus that I did the previous push paces at a higher level) was the proof I needed that I was due for a change.
On the rower, we started with a 1,000 meter row. That was brutal after all the work on the bike! Then we had 100 jumping jacks to do which was tough as well. Jumping jacks aren’t that easy for me to do, even on my best days. I had to break them up into multiple chunks, but I eventually got them done. Then we had a 500 meter row and we were supposed to do 50 jumping jacks and 50 squats. I skipped the jumping jacks because I could feel my hip getting a bit sore. We had a few more rounds we could do on the rower, but after my 50 squats I was only on the rower for a few minutes before we switched again.
And the floor also had 2 blocks. The first one had upright rows, plank jacks, and knee tucks. And the second one had low rows on the straps, reverse flys, and sit-ups. The weight I wanted to use for the upright rows and reverse flys weren’t available so I had to decide if I wanted to go lower or higher. I tested out going higher with the weights and was able to do it! I don’t know if I’ll be using the higher weights regularly because I did have to take more breaks (so I didn’t get as much work done), but again it was nice to prove to myself that I was having a good week.
I really needed this past week after the week I had before. I needed the boost that I got from doing some great work so I could bring that into this week. I should hopefully be having another good week this week and I want to try to make even more progress!
There was some debate among my Pantages season ticket group if we would renew for next season or not. I am now always game to renew even if I’m not totally sure on the shows in the season. But the coming season does have a few shows that I am excited to see so I was very happy to renew if at least one other person was going to do so (I don’t want to necessarily go for a season alone). But the rest of the group wasn’t totally sure about it and we gave ourselves some time to figure things out before the deadline to renew and guarantee our seats.
One person in the group quickly decided that they weren’t going to renew. I totally understand why they aren’t going to do it, but I’m still sad that they won’t be a part of the next season. Right before the deadline we set for ourselves, another person decided not to renew as well. At right at our deadline date, the last person decided to go for it so we renewed the season tickets for 2 of us.
As much as I love having a big group to go to the shows, I’m happy that I’ll be going with a friend for the coming season. As long as I’m not going alone, I’m in. So I was so happy that someone else decided to do the next season with me and I can’t wait until we get to see all the shows I’m excited to see and to discover which of the ones I don’t know much about become new favorites! I seem to always be surprised each season by which musicals I end up loving and sometimes a show I wasn’t sure I would like becomes something I really enjoy.
I’ve been doing the Pantages season for a few years now and this next season will be different from the other years I’ve done it. “Hamilton” will be coming back to the Pantages next year and it looks like they will be doing another long run. That show technically is not a part of our new season, but we will have access to get tickets early so that’s a good thing. I definitely want to see it again at least once! And I’ve already told my parents they should come to LA to see the show with me since I know they both would love it (and we haven’t gone to a musical together for over 20 years). But because they will be here for a long run, the season can’t be at the Pantages theater the entire time. So the first few shows of the season will be at the Pantages and then the second half of the season will be moving to the Dolby Theater (where the Oscars are held).
I’ve been to the Dolby before and have been to an event there once. It’s a huge theater and it will be interesting to see how the musicals do on a much bigger stage. I think it will be fun and different and I’m sure it will be just as good on that stage as shows are at the Pantages. And even though it never seems repetitive or routine to go to our shows, I think having something to change it up is exciting and I am really looking forward to it.
And like I’ve said every year when I’ve gotten another season of musicals, I’m just so glad to be getting to do this again. The shows bring so much joy into my life and it makes me have a commitment to go out and have fun. I go to them when I feel amazing and I go to them when I’m feeling nauseous. It’s something to enjoy and make sure that I don’t stay home doing nothing all the time. There are not many social things in my life that have the same commitment as these shows do and I probably should find more things like it so I can make sure I do maintain some sort of regular fun in my life.
But I’m really jumping ahead since I do still have a couple more shows in the current season. I think it’s nice that they are back to back because then there’s not a big gap when I can see shows. And I just get to look forward to everything I get to see! Now I get to enjoy a few more shows that I already have seen and get to look forward to a bunch of new shows and a new theater venue!
Posted onApril 11, 2019|Comments Off on Blogging Led To A Breakthrough (or I Need To Believe I’m Worthy)
Yesterday I wrote about how I was putting off doing an elimination diet to hopefully discover what triggers flares of one of my autoimmune conditions. I was honest about why I’ve been scared to do it and what I might or might not find out. Writing that all out did help me sort through my feelings a bit, but when I was done writing I wasn’t done thinking.
I kept wondering why I was so scared of something that will lead to answers one way or another. Even if I don’t find any foods that cause flares, I will learn that I don’t have trigger foods. That won’t be the result I want, but it’s more information than I have right now. But I knew that there had to it than just that. I thought maybe I was scared that it would trigger disordered eating behaviors, but I’ve done so many random diet plans and I know how I behave on them.
Then I realized something that I don’t know why I hadn’t connected before. Part of the reason I am hesitant to do this elimination diet that might help me is that I don’t necessarily believe I deserve to find out.
I’ve written about how in my past someone in my life liked to tell me that I wasn’t lovable or worthy of things. I’ve always thought of that in connection to dating and friendships. Whenever I get ghosted by a guy, I have to work through the thought that I was an idiot to think I deserved a guy that great. I was just ghosted by someone recently who I thought was a really great guy and I was looking forward to seeing him again. It sucks to be ghosted, but I know it has nothing to do with me. There are women in my life that look like supermodels that get ghosted. It’s a numbers game and since I put myself out there a lot I have the risk of being ghosted a lot.
But this false narrative I have about not being worthy does go beyond relationships. Maybe I’ve never connected it before or I never had the reason to connect it before. For years, I have said that I was unlucky with health related things because I always have weird stuff. But I never felt like it was my fault those things happened. They usually had a reason I could pinpoint that took the blame off of me somehow. But with an autoimmune condition, there’s nothing I can blame it on. Even if I discover what my triggers are, those didn’t give me this problem. It just makes it worse.
And I know that I didn’t do anything to deserve this issue or anything else health related. I know that it’s just a genetic issue or mutation that I had no control over. But that doesn’t change the fact that I have been putting blame on myself.
Part of it is because I was misdiagnosed for a while and some people believe the skin flares caused by my condition are due to weight or bad hygiene. While weight can make some of the flares worse, weight doesn’t control whether or not I get this or get flares. And hygiene has nothing to do with it, but I do take a lot of care of my skin where I get flares so I don’t have any secondary issues. But when I was told that this was something I could have controlled and it wasn’t getting better, I did blame myself for not doing more. And when I couldn’t make it better, I figured I was doing things wrong and I couldn’t figure out what to do.
Now that I know that this is an autoimmune condition, I don’t have the same blame on myself. But I do wonder why I had to have this bad luck and what I did to deserve this. And the answer is that there’s no explanation for the luck and I didn’t do anything to deserve it. But in the back of my head, there is still the voice that says that I’m not worthy of good things.
And one of the good things that I feel like I don’t deserve is to get answers and to have fewer flares. It’s such a weird back and forth in my head about whether or not I deserve it. I know I do because everyone deserves to have whatever control they can over their body and medical conditions. But that little voice keeps telling me that I’m crazy to think that.
I have been working on quieting that mean voice through therapy and it has gotten better in the past few years. But it seems to pop up every so often and sometimes it’s in very unexpected ways. I never thought that it would be one of the reasons I have been avoiding working on my autoimmune condition. But the more I think about it the more I feel like that makes sense.
I’ve said so many times that writing this blog is like therapy for me. And I think that it always will feel like that because it allows me to get my thoughts out and even though I risk people judging me it is my voice and opinions uncensored. That freedom is so great for me. And having a breakthrough moment because I couldn’t stop thinking about something I wrote is a new way this is therapy for me. I’m so grateful I figured that out because now I have something new to work on and see if I can keep making that negative voice quieter in my head.
Usually, if I know something is going to help me or be good for me, I don’t hesitate to do it. There are a few exceptions, but I don’t normally waiver on the idea that something is going to better me. For example, even though I knew going off hormonal birth control would likely be an issue for me, staying on it was going to make my liver tumors continue to grow. I stopped the pill without a second thought. When I knew that I needed to add different supplements to my life to help with recurring medical conditions, I went to the store and bought them after leaving my doctor appointment. Even getting the non-wart/actual tumor off my face was something I didn’t go back and forth on once I found a doctor willing to do it.
But lately, I’ve been avoiding doing something that I know I probably should do. I have a few different autoimmune conditions and for one of them I deal with it flaring up. When I have flares, it causes very painful bumps on my skin and it can affect so many aspects of my life. There’s no cure for it and most treatments have a lot of negative side effects. And my condition is not nearly as bad as it is for many people so a lot of treatment options aren’t even options for me yet since they are for people with much more severe cases.
But something that I could do would be to find what my triggers are for my flares. Most people find that there are certain foods or categories of foods that trigger flares and you can stay almost flare-free if you avoid those foods. And the easiest way to figure out what foods cause flares is to do something called the AIP diet (which stands for autoimmune protocol diet). It’s like an elimination diet where you don’t eat foods that are common triggers for a period of time and then you slowly add the foods back in one by one. That way, when eat something that causes a flare you will know what it is so you can make sure you don’t eat it. This isn’t a diet that is meant to be long-term. You only follow the protocol until you know what your triggers are and then you go back to normal and just avoid the foods you need to.
I’ve known about this diet for a long time, but it was only recently when I decided to do it because I noticed I was having flares more often than normal. I originally planned on doing it after I had my trip last month, but then I got sick. There was no way I could follow the rules while sick and I knew my food habits would be weird then so I had to wait until I was better. And once I was better, I was dealing with pain and nausea so I decided to wait.
But this is just sounding like one excuse after another. And I had to think about why I have been acting like this. It took a few days of me doing some real soul-searching and thinking, but I think I finally realized what it came down to.
I’m terrified of what I will or won’t find out by doing this diet.
First, I’m scared I will find out I can’t eat foods that I love anymore without having flares. I would hate it if I couldn’t have dairy, eggs, or certain fruits and vegetables anymore. But I know that this is very likely because something is most likely one of the triggers for my flares. I don’t want to have to worry about every single thing I eat and if it has something in it that I won’t be able to eat. I’m scared that it will make eating at a restaurant difficult or that I will find it hard to adjust if something I love has to be out of my diet.
But I’m also scared that I won’t find out that any foods are causing flares. If I can’t find something that triggers them, that means I can’t do anything to help myself for now. I either have to see if I can do a treatment option that may be too harsh for me right now or I might have to wait to see if things advance to a more severe stage.
I don’t know which of those two terrify me more. They both sound horrible and I would be upset if they happened. But at the same time, doing nothing isn’t a good option either. I know I want to see if I can do something to help my autoimmune condition so that I don’t have to stress out about when a new flare will happen. I am lucky that the condition I have does tend to have food triggers because not all conditions have that. I have options I can try before I go to medications with lots of side effects and I owe it to myself to try those.
This is something that isn’t just something I should do for myself but what I need to do for myself. I do still need to do a bit more research on the plan so I can do it successfully, but I have a feeling I’ll be doing it soon so that I can try to find out some answers.
Posted onApril 9, 2019|Comments Off on Disney Views and Food (or Rides Were A Low-Priority)
The Food and Wine Festival at Disneyland is happening right now. This has been an annual event that I’ve been able to check out for the past few years. While I don’t drink, I always love seeing the fun and unique food offerings and it makes a really fun day at Disneyland. And with the food pass you can get, it actually makes things not too expensive. So of course I had to check it out again this year.
I went with my friend Dani last week, and it was the perfect spring day. We’ve been having warmer weather, but it wasn’t too hot and we had a gorgeous blue sky with all the flowers in bloom!
The main reason we went to Disney was for the Food and Wine Festival, so we immediately went over to California Adventure to get a food pass and start looking at what each booth had to offer. The food pass allows you to get 8 items and we figured that we would be splitting pretty much everything. There were a few things we each wanted that the other didn’t, but it all balanced out.
There were a few repeat things from the past few years and several new things. We tried our best to vary things up and I think we got a good mix.
My favorite things were the asparagus Caesar (which was a repeat from the past, but they added chicken this year), the pepperoni egg rolls, the corn nuggets with bacon, and the garlic mac and cheese (which was another repeat).
Dani got the ghost pepper mac and cheese (I don’t eat spicy food) and she said it was good and tasted like a spicy version of the garlic mac and cheese we split.
Not everything was a winner for us. The two things we got that we didn’t love were the fried artichoke hearts and the parmesan salt and vinegar wings. The artichoke hearts were a repeat thing but they were just soggy and didn’t have a ton of flavor. The chicken wings were fine, but we couldn’t really taste parmesan or salt and vinegar. They were good wings, but we were expecting something different.
There was also a new thing this year with how you could order food. Instead of having to go to every booth to order what is there, you could order anything at any booth and just bring your receipt to the correct booth to pick up the food. We didn’t try this until we were using our last food pass tabs and we ordered a bunch of different things at one booth. It worked out fine for most things, but we did discover the downfall to doing this.
We ordered the beef tenderloin slider at a booth other than the one that serves it. When we went over to the booth to pick it up, we were told they were sold out and that they wouldn’t have any more for about 30 minutes. We had the option to wait or we could get anything else from any other booth. We didn’t really want to wait 30 minutes for something that we’ve had before, so we decided to go through the options and see what we wanted to get instead.
Since everything we got had been savory, we decided to get something sweet. They had a popsicle duo that had lime and strawberry at a booth. Dani took the lime one and I took the strawberry one. They were good, but nothing special. I probably wouldn’t have picked it normally, but we just wanted something easy and it was a good choice to end the time at the Food and Wine Festival with.
While we were on the California Adventure side, the only ride we did was Toy Story Mania. We didn’t want to do any of the fast rides since we were eating so much food, but we also didn’t want to spend time on rides we could do whenever when the food offerings aren’t always there.
We headed over to the Disneyland side thinking we’d do a few more rides, but when we got there the first thing we noticed was how nice it was with the flowers and trees in bloom. The castle is being worked on so it’s covered by a mural, but that didn’t take away from how pretty it was.
We did Pirates of the Caribbean and then we were going to go over to Fantasyland to do the Storybook Canal Boats. And as we were walking, we saw yet another gorgeous Disney view.
By the time we got to the boats, the sun was down and I was hoping the little houses would all be lit up. But they didn’t have as many lights as I seemed to remember. It wasn’t bad, just different from what I thought we’d be seeing.
We did a lot of walking around and wandering through different parts of Disneyland. It wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t as crowded as we thought it might be. We had a few other rides we wanted to do, but we weren’t having good luck and it seemed like the few things we thought about doing happened to be down when we were over there.
And even though we had a day full of food, of course there is always still room for Dole Whips. I had the orange/raspberry one which I think is my favorite combination.
After the Dole Whips, we started to head out of the park because the fireworks were starting. We didn’t want to be stuck in the crowds exiting the park when they finished, and we managed to be just at the gates as the crowd started heading that way. We still hung out in Downtown Disney doing some shopping, but we didn’t stay too late since we both had early mornings the next day.
Considering that the main point of this Disney day was to check out the Food and Wine Festival, I would say it was a success! It would have been nice to do a few more rides, but since we can do those any other day we are there I was ok with missing out on a few things we wanted to do. I’d love to go back to try a few more things at the different food booths, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it back before it ends. But if I can’t, then I know I’ll just be back to check it out next year!
I know that for the past few years I’ve done workout recaps on Monday. I’m not planning on changing that, but this week I felt like I needed to do something different. I knew going into this past week of workouts that it was going to be my bad week. I’ve been trying to stay optimistic and hope that maybe my pain and nausea wouldn’t be as bad as it has been, but I also am realistic and prepare for the worst.
I did do my usual Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday workouts. But each day had its own struggles and things kept changing up. Monday was by far my worst day and Saturday was almost back to normal. I would say that Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday were pretty much what I expected to experience. It was Monday that really took me by surprise.
I had so many issues going into my workout on Monday. I was experiencing extreme pain and nausea. And I had spent the night before being sick every few hours so I didn’t get much sleep. Adding exhaustion to everything else really made it a bad day. And what made things a bit worse was that it was supposed to be a 3 partner workout. I really didn’t want to be partnered with anyone because I kind of needed to do my own thing. I ended up being paired with someone else doing their own thing too so it worked out well.
That workout was honestly about just getting through it. Even looking at the workout plan online, I can’t remember much of what I did. I was constantly having to take breaks to let nausea pass and to wait for my cramps to stop. The cramps were getting so bad that I was scared that maybe something else was wrong with me. But unfortunately they were just really bad cramps that my painkillers weren’t touching.
My last portion of that workout was on the floor and I was just miserable. My Monday coach has known me since my very first workout and he knows when I have bad weeks that I’m not my usual self. But he could tell it was much worse than normal and I was struggling so much. He came over to check on me and I burst into tears. It was a combination of pain, exhaustion, and frustration. I hate that I must have these weeks of struggle each month and I’m so tired of it. I can’t do anything right now to change it and sometimes it really gets to me when I realize I might have over a decade left of dealing with this.
I’m so lucky that my coach (and all of my coaches) are amazing. When I started crying, he just pulled me in for a hug and was trying to reassure me that I was going great and that it didn’t matter that I was having a bad week. He reminded me that a good week will come soon and for now I should focus on the fact that I showed up because not everyone would do that. While hearing that didn’t make things better or easier, it did give me the motivation I needed to keep going.
And most of my workouts this past week went the same way. My coaches all knew I was having a tough week (it’s pretty obvious when I do) and they all have coached me enough to understand that I have to do my own thing at times. I’ve been doing these modifications for over 2 years so I’m pretty good at figuring out what I need to do. I don’t need to be checked on when I’m having these tough days and they know it. I’m grateful that they aren’t hovering over me or making me feel like they are paying more attention to me than other people. I just want to be treated like everyone else and kind of blend in.
Part of the reason I didn’t want to do my normal workout recap was because there was nothing that great about my workouts. I don’t necessarily remember everything that I did and I think my brain is just blocking some of that time out of my memory to protect me from remembering how miserable I was. I really am hoping that this past week was just a random thing and not a sign of what future bad weeks will be like. Not only were my workouts affected during the beginning of the week, my entire life was affected. My normal remedies weren’t working and I was in a foul mood most of the time. Fortunately I’m doing so much better now and I know I’ve got a few weeks of freedom before experiencing a bad week again.
Posted onApril 5, 2019|Comments Off on Feeling Understood (or The Relief Of Shared Problems)
There are a lot of problems I write about on here that I know other people struggle with. So many things can feel like you are the only one dealing with it, but when you talk about it with a friend you discover they have the same worries. Â It’s always such an amazing feeling when you discover you aren’t alone and it makes you feel so much better about how you are handling it.
I’ve been very lucky that I have this blog because I have had so many people reach out to me after I write a post saying they have been experiencing the same thing. I don’t always write posts so that other people won’t feel alone, but I have noticed that I have been doing it from time to time. I have a platform to help someone discover that they are not the only person in the world experiencing something and I want to make sure I take advantage of that.
But even though I am open about a lot of problems on here, I’m not always as open when talking with my friends. This isn’t me trying to hide anything about me, I just don’t always think about talking about them. Many times getting them out in a blog post is enough for me and I don’t feel the same need to connect with someone else going through the same thing in person. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it is how things are for me.
The problem is that I know that not all my friends read my blog, and that’s fine with me. I know not everyone reads blogs or they feel like they don’t need to read it. I don’t mind because I don’t expect people to feel like they need to read this. I’m still sometimes surprised that I get readers (although I am so insanely grateful for everyone who does read these posts)! But because some of my friends don’t read what I write, they don’t know some of the struggles I have and they might be battling the same thing and think they are alone.
And that’s exactly what happened earlier this week. I was talking to a friend and they were telling me how they were struggling with the balance of being social with taking time to recharge. This is a recurring battle for me too! I over-schedule myself and then when I take the time to focus on myself I feel like I’m neglecting my friendships and I crave social interaction. It’s a balance that I will probably always struggle to figure out and I wish that it was easier. Or I wish that being social was my way to recharge and get back to myself.
When my friend was telling me their struggles, I told them I battled the same thing. I could see the relief on their face that I understood what they were going through and it wasn’t a crazy issue. I wish I had better advice to give to them other than the few things I’ve been trying to figure out the balance. It’s such a personal thing to work through and what works for me is not necessarily going to work for anyone else. And I still don’t know what works for me so I’m even more useless with giving advice.
But even without advice to give, I think having shared problems was a big help for my friend. They felt like I understood what they were going through and that it’s ok to struggle with it. Sometimes all you need is to not feel alone to feel a bit better. And now that they know that I have the same problems maybe they will feel ok using me as a sounding board when they need to talk things out or just want to rant to someone who understands. Being there for a friend is something I want to do more often, but it’s not something I can necessarily control. I can control that they know they can come to me if they need help, but I can’t make someone do that.
And even though I have known for a while that I was not alone in the struggle of finding the balance of self-care/being selfish and being social, it was still a relief for me to know I have another friend going through the same thing. If I need someone to talk to, I have someone else to reach out to that will understand exactly what I’m experiencing. And having a friend who understands my problems is so powerful in helping me when I’m struggling.
With so many repeat musicals this season for my group, it’s so nice when we get to see something new that none of us have seen. With all of us being big theater people, it is so rare to find a show that is new to us all. In past seasons, that was more common since a lot of shows were new shows that were touring for the first time. I think whenever something is unique in a season it just seems a little extra special.
And this past weekend was one of the few shows that was new to us all. We got to see “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”.
While it was a new musical, we all were very familiar with the story. I read the book as a kid and have seen the 2 movie versions. But this was the first time seeing the stage production and I knew there were new things in it. Plus, I was excited to see how they were going to accomplish some things that used a lot of movie magic in the movie versions.
We got to the theater early so we decided to go to Wood & Vine for a quick drink first. The manager saw us come in and came over to chat with us. We missed seeing him when we were there the last time, so we caught up on “Cats” and he filled us in about a few things with this show. He really liked the show and thought there were a few things that really stood out to him that he wanted us to make sure we caught. And then he asked us what we were going to drink. I was just going to have water, but he said that we had to try the Golden Ticket drink. I wish I could remember everything that was in the drink, but I do remember that the garish is real gold!
Even though I don’t really drink, I had to try it. It was good and if I had been eating too I probably would have had more. But drinking when I don’t drink on an empty stomach didn’t seem like the best combination. But I was so grateful to the manager for letting us try the drinks!
Once it was closer to showtime, we went across the street to the theater. Since we have changed dates for so many of our shows, we rarely sit in our normal seats. But this show was one that we kept the same so we were back in the orchestra over on the side. But I have to admit I kind of missed being in the balcony. Even though I love being close to the stage to see the actors better, I know we did have some sight line issues. If I could afford it, I would do season tickets one section better so we’d be more centered (but still on the side). But if we do renew our season, going one section better almost doubles the cost of our tickets!
Even with the sight line issues, the show was still awesome! It was very familiar since I knew the book and movies, but there were still new things to experience and enjoy. Most of the songs are original to the musical and they fit in really well with the songs that are from the movies. The sets and costumes were all so bright and colorful and they did a great job making the factory seem as amazing as they can do in a movie.
I also loved that they didn’t tone down things when you compare it to the book. When the kids in the book have their incidents, it’s pretty dark. And that’s pretty much what they did in this show. It’s not gruesome or graphic, but it’s not overlooked or suggested that they were perfectly fine. It made the show more like a dark comedy and I think that was perfect. We were laughing so much during the show and sometimes shocked that they went as far as they did before laughing. It’s still more a show that is appropriate for younger audiences than some other ones, but they made it so it wasn’t just a kid show.
This was the perfect show to see when we saw it. My friends and I all needed something funny to watch because we were all dealing with some other things that were putting us in slightly down moods. And a dark comedy was the best mix of dark and sinister with great laughs that we needed. I left in a much better mood than I arrived in and I was still smiling and giggling thinking back at some of the things we saw in the show.
Our next few shows are all sadder shows, so hopefully I’ll be in the perfect mood for possibly crying while watching!
Posted onApril 3, 2019|Comments Off on Making Challenges More Challenging (or A Dri-Tri First For Me)
When I did the Dri-Tri this past weekend, I pretty much knew what to expect. I’ve done it several times before and I’ve learned new tips and tricks each time that usually help me. I don’t always improve every time, but I feel better about it each time I do one. So when I got off the wait list for the Dri-Tri this time, I was so grateful because it was another opportunity for me to test myself and see what new things I could figure out.
But even though I knew what to expect, I also knew this one would be very different from the other ones I’ve done. First of all, I was having a bad nausea/pain day. While I’ve had some nausea, this was going to be the worst of all my Dri-Tri attempts. I was prepared for this, but at the same time it’s hard to be prepared until you are in the middle of the workout. Also, this would be my first time doing a Dri-Tri using the bike instead of the treadmill. If I wasn’t having a bad nausea day, I might have debated using the treadmill even though I haven’t been on it for months. But knowing how I was feeling, there was no way to do anything other than the bike.
We had a 2000 meter benchmark row earlier in the week which I found so helpful. I had an idea of what my row time would be since you are supposed to go slower than the benchmark since the row is only the beginning of the Dri-Tri. I still wanted to be under 9:30 even though that would keep me close to what I did for the benchmark. But I’m stubborn and had that in mind. A lot of people in my heat were doing it for the first time, so there was a lot of emphasis before we started to not burn out on the rower. I listened because I knew I needed the reminder too.
Once we started, I quickly found my pace on the rower. I was not worried about anyone else around me or what was happening other than maintaining my pace. There were a few times I noticed I was getting a bit too speedy and slowed things down, but I was pretty steady without too much effort. I tried to zone out since I knew the row would take time, but that didn’t quite happen. But even with my focus on random things, I still did pretty well with my row. I was the last person to finish, but I did it in under 9:30 so I was very happy with that.
The floor was a challenge that I wasn’t totally prepared for. I always remember the floor as being tough, but I forgot how many things we had on the floor that were face down exercises. Those make me more nauseous so it was a tough section for me. I did modifications when I could like using the bench for plank work, but I still needed a lot of breaks to let the nausea pass. But because I do lunges instead of step ups, I feel like I make up some time doing that. The floor could have been much worse, but it still more than I really thought it would be.
By the time I got to the bike, I was ready to be at the final stage. I had a general idea of how long it would take me to do the bike, but I also haven’t really done that far on the bike in a long time. I started a little higher on the resistance level than my base level, but I decided to drop it back to my base level after the first few minutes. If you are running on the treadmill, you don’t have to go faster than your base. I also knew that if I kept it to my base level that I could probably go faster. And since it’s a timed event, going faster is always better.
I did have a few issues on the bike, but nothing too bad. Whenever I needed some water, I had to stop completely since I’m still not coordinated enough to drink water and pedal at the same time. I also was having waves of nausea during the bike that I had to stop to let pass. I wasn’t sure if the nausea was still from being on the floor or just happening because they happen, but they felt a bit more frequent than I would have thought they would have been. I tried to not stop for too long, but sometimes I just had to.
While I was on the bike, other people were completing their Dri-Tris. I never expect to finish in the first half of the group so I always figure that I will see lots of people finishing before me. I’m never completing against anyone else (even though they do have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners I’m not eligible due to my modifications) so I don’t care where I rank in finishing. And it is always fun watching people complete it because everyone in the room is cheering them on.
As I was getting close to finishing the distance on the bike, I realized that because the staff was focused on seeing who was close to finishing on the treadmills (because they could easily see those numbers) I would have to pay attention to the time I finished. I didn’t mind that there wasn’t attention when I finished because I honestly wasn’t super happy with my time. While I had no idea how long it would take me to finish with using the bike, I still wanted to finish in under 50 minutes. I ended up finishing in 50:50 and it was a little bit frustrating. Those extra 50 seconds could have been one or two water breaks and I hate that I was so close to the goal I set. But I did finish and that is really the most important thing.
I finished around the middle of the pack, and as soon as I caught my breath and recovered a bit I started to see who was close to finishing their 5K on the treadmills. I joined in to cheer on as each person finished and I was so happy I could be a little bit of motivation as other people were finishing. Everyone who started the Dri-Tri was able to finish it. And that is the only goal that really matters.
There were 2 heats for the Dri-Tri and I was in the first one. I had a few friends in the second one and I promised to stick around to cheer them on. I wasn’t sure how late I’d stay, but I wanted to be there for support for my friends. They were nervous with this being their first Dri-Tri and I wanted to help out however I could.
I ended up staying until all of my friends finished their 5K on the treadmill. I didn’t stay for everyone in that heat to finish because I did need to get home, but I wanted to make sure my friends had support even if it was at the very end of their run. They all did amazing and I am so proud of them for taking on a challenge and kicking butt doing it!
While this Dri-Tri wasn’t the same as any of the other ones I did, I’m glad I did it. I found new challenges I had to overcome and I was able to do it. I also now have an idea of how long it would take me to complete the bike section. There’s a good chance I’ll still be using the bike when the next Dri-Tri happens so I’m glad that I have a goal in mind. And I do also know how to deal with my bad nausea days for the Dri-Tri, although I hope the next one will fall on one of my better weeks.
Stopping A Panic Attack (or Only One Health Issue At A Time)
