The Hazards Of Being Gifted

Oh thank you sweet merciful Lord/demi-lord icon/random convergence of events/flying spaghetti monster!

Almost exactly a year after starting physio for my crappy crapped out knees I have been declared fit enough to return to the gym!
I am at the stage where repetitive (but gentle and, for the moment, limited) movement will do me good instead of harm.

I missed it.
I missed feeling actually awake the whole day after going in the morning.
I missed the way it reminded me to drink water.
I missed sleeping better at night.
I even missed that funny carpet underlay + sweat + chlorine smell that most gyms have.
But I had completely forgotten one thing.
I had forgotten my... problem*.

It's nothing drastic, I just...
Well, I can read things that are printed backwards.
It's not that special, a lot of people can do it, but it means if you put me in front of a glass door with the word 'PUSH' carefully printed ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE DOOR that is what my brain will see and that is what I try to do.
Every time.

You'd think I'd remember after once or twice and I do but my brain sees the word, my body says 'oh cool, PUSH' and before I can stop myself...

I think some of the gym staff and regular patrons are starting to think that I have special needs.

Ah well, it's not so bad.
I'm just dreading the day it causes me to do something truly stupid.
And having to explain it afterwards.
If I'm in any condition to do so.

In the meantime, onwards to the gymnasium!


*No, not the one where I notice typos or grammatical errors on things I haven't even been reading - signs, newspapers, labels - although that can be pretty disorientating.
There's nothing quite like stopping in the middle of the pavement, confused and slightly concerned because you're sure that something, somewhere nearby is misspelled.

It's Character Building

It's go time people!
It's time for another flurry of activity and a light smattering of getting things done!

It started with a sheepish acknowledgement that I should probably go back to the physio and see how my muscular retraining has been going instead of just rolling about on my swisse ball doing my embarrassing and somewhat suggestive-looking strengthening exercises*.
So I made an appointment.

Then I realised that I hadn't been to the dentist in a while** so I blocked that in too.

But why stop there? I haven't been to the GP in a bit, I might have a vaccination due for a boosting and I guess I should have my flu shot whilst I'm at it.

All in the same day.

I thought this one through obviously.
Because, if all things go to plan, by the end of the day I'll have been scraped, poked at, stabbed, stretched and massaged***.
And I'll feel a bit hard done by but also too guilty about sugar and plaque to have a drink or some cake, too stabbed up to comfortably do my physio exercises but will feel slack and self-sabotaging if I don't and will be wondering fretfully whether even though I was well when I entered the Doctors' Surgery I might have picked something up from one of the hacking and dripping people that surround me in the waiting room****.

But as dentally violated and bodily battered as I'll feel, it'll be accompanied by a perverse sense of accomplishment and a deep and fulfilling sense of relief that I won't have to do any of those things again for quite some time.
By which point I'll probably have forgotten the stabby, scrapey, stretchy part of the proceedings and will only remember the sheer genius of taking a day off and getting it all out of the way in one fell swoop.



*I'm not going to lie to you, they're all pretty suggestive. There's a lot of lifting and thrusting and bouncing involved. I'm starting to worry about my physiotherapist really.

**Ahem, 2006, just before I went backpacking for five months. I didn't want to be in the middle of the picturesque rural scenes of Europe and have a rogue tooth erupt out of my jaw and pierce my nose.

***I'll leave you to guess what by whom, you might be surprised. I have a couple of concerns about my dentist too.

****And whether if I asked really nicely if anyone would mind if I kept the original edition TMNT comic books that are just wedged in amongst all the Woman's Days, New Ideas and Reader's Digests! I mean they're just sitting there! And kids today don't appreciate these things!

Hey! Where'd You Get Your Walking Licence!? Out Of A Cereal Packet!?

Walking.

A lot of us are doing it wrong.

You’d think that’d be a pretty tricky thing to manage to completely screw up, something as simple and fundamental as walking, but here we are.

I know, I was pretty surprised too, but apparently a lot of us completely fail walking.

I say ‘us’ because I’m one of the losers who has been putting one foot in front of the other in a completely inappropriate way for most of their life.

I’d managed to start dragging myself to the gym on a semi-regular basis at the end of last year and this stubborn penance for years of minimal activity and Uni student eating lasted all the way until April this year when my knees started to crap out on me.

I thought this was pretty bloody unfair.

All these years of doing balls all and I finally get off my arse to get my body into working order so I don’t turn into one of the grandma age ladies who look like an inverted L or, alternatively, a bean bag with legs and arms and my joints start mouthing off at me.

After giving up the gym and a nice long stretch of denial failed to do away with the mild but annoying ache I finally went to the doctor who sent me to the radiologist who said there were no ‘structural abnormalities’ and suggested I see a physio.

Going to the physio you always feel like half of what they ask you to do is for a hidden camera show or their own entertainment.

I was asked to walk up and down in a straight line, my pants rolled up to my knees whilst the physio crouched down and examined my gait like a judge at a dog show. I had to stand on one foot and then the other and then do some strange stretches that made the Village People’s timeless classic YMCA pop into my head.

And at the end of all this energetic knobbing around the physio nodded, satisfied with her observations, and told me that I was walking wrong.

Turns out that the slight sway to my hips is not a result of my middle name being ‘sexy’ but of poor walking technique.

I lose walking.

With the aid of some posters, a lovely plastic skeleton and stopping just short of pulling out hand puppets, she explained to me that there are a whole swag of muscles supporting your hips that work in cooperation with the muscles in your legs and back to manage walking.

Except mine weren’t. Mine were sitting around having a smoke and playing cards or something. So the whole walking deal was being managed by a couple of big muscles that run all the way down the outside of the leg, join up with some muscles in my back and stretch up across my shoulders.

As she explained how these muscles have basically just been slingshotting my full weight back and forth between them and been responsible for the entire ‘dynamic motion’ of my body for X amount of years I could almost hear the comedy rubber band sound effects.

So apart from being given some strange and embarrassing exercises to do to ‘wake up’ the muscles in the vicinity of my bum that I hope no one ever walks in on me doing, I started wondering how the hell do physiotherapists ever go outside?

Can you imagine walking down the street and mentally cataloguing exactly what everyone was doing wrong and imagining what they’ll look like in 20 years when they’ve done the body equivalent of wearing out their fan belts or snapping their cam shafts*?

How would you be able to stop yourself from running up to them and telling them to knock it off?

Probably in the same way dentists stop themselves from confronting people in the street, wild-eyed and earnest, offering them free toothbrushes and sample size packets of toothpaste.

Probably the way that you stop yourself from approaching people who are walking down the street in broad daylight wearing suspenders AND a belt AND sandals with socks.

Probably the way that die-hard environmentalists and vegetarians stop themselves from criticising other peoples’ lifestyle and dietry choi… Oh, wait…

Anyway, in the meantime me and this strange rubber tube thing-y that looks like I should be using it to shoot up in a public restroom are off to re-enact an Olivia Newton-John video clip**.

*This is pretty much the full extent of my knowledge of car terminology and I am probably using it wrong.

**No, not the one from Grease. God I wish…