Skip to content

Admittedly, this might be one of those posts that I think is wonderfully uplifting and informative and positive and yadda yadda, and normal people have to call a therapist after reading. If it weren’t for my fellow painiacs, and the otherwise-normal people who love me and want to know how things are going, I’d probably have abandoned this years ago.

I started out blogging for myself, because I was driven to; I’ve mostly written it as a “non-scientist’s guide to living constructively with this” for the benefit of painiacs who don’t have my medical and communication background; and I’ve wound up writing purely for others, because I’m (very sweetly) obliged to. My high school English teacher quoted that freedom is choosing your chains, and the obligations of love, mutual care, and friendship are wonderful chains — if that’s not too much of an oxymoron. (Personally, I find the image a bit eye-watering, but different strokes for different folks. I’ll try to remember to think before I choose a metaphor.)

However, that’s not what I sat down to write.

Not long ago[LINK], I was in a tailspin about how to manage winter in this body, which is inevitably a bit tiresome (oh look! A flash of humor!), and looked like being more so than ever this year.

I found an old, simple, eliptical trainer by the side of the road that had a stride as short as mine now is. Huzzah! Got it home, and have been using it to work my way gently out of this exercise intolerance. I’ve gone up from 3 minutes 38 seconds, to 4 minutes 40 seconds! And that only took a month. (Look, another funny :))

I have to stop just at the point where my blood gets going and it just starts to feel warm and wonderful. That’s right, I have to stop before it gets really good. If I don’t, I wind up in a slow-motion collapse onto the sofa or bed, and have to really work at it to keep the usual disciplines of getting a shower and food and toilet trips. Since that means that appointments and groceries may not happen, it’s kind of a big deal.

I assure you, many people live like this.

For me, it’s the cardiovascular activity I have to be careful of. The annoying peripatetic noodling-around of errands and driving don’t wear on those mechanisms (though driving wears hard on my attention and I can do, at most, 3 stops for errands before my brain and spinal relays pack it in for the day.)

As I was flailing through the fog of the past month or so, my entire pelvic girdle (hips, low back, tailbone, all the joints involved) decided to lose their cool. Quite literally. I’d be putting my magic goop on the icy skin over my hips, which most women have, and my hand would go over two wide ribbons of fire over my sacroiliac joints, with zapping spicules at each disk, and great squanching bolsters of “eff you, kid, you are NOT sitting on us” right on my sit-down bones. Not cool at all. (See what I did there?)

Much physical therapy and massage therapy happened. It took awhile, but finally, some stability began to re-emerge. I asked my PT how to keep from getting off-kilter again, and she said, “It could be anything: stepping too hard off a curb, carrying heavy things off-balance. That new car of yours could be a problem.”

Ah, the car. There is a story about the car. And what a story it is! So much of a story, in fact, that it’s going to have to wait for its own blog post. It might be right up there with “Intestinal Fortitude”[LINK] for sheer WTH??? But, luckily, I wound up with a good solid vehicle that mitigates everything about driving that a vehicle could possibly mitigate. Unfortunately, it’s easily 4 inches higher off the groudn than the last one.

Talk about stepping off a curb too hard.

I also thought about the eliptical trainer, which I hadn’t been using very mindfully. I lurched from one foot to the other, and I know my hips were taking a wrenching, but I was too daffy to notice. I just, strangely, couldn’t improve my time. I wonder why!

I remember a PT 11 years ago, in my first Multi-Disciplinary Functional Restoration Program, who worked with all of us to “control your descent,” meaning, don’t just plonk your foot dodwn and crsh the rest of your weight onto it; lay your foot down, roll on in a controlled fashion, and whoa, suddenly life gets a lot better — until you forget. Real built-in motivation, there.

As sometimes happens, I stood there for a moment, staring past my current PT’s left shoulder, feeling the idea burst upon me and wash through all my current struggles: loss of partner, loss of help, added responsibilities in the house and for a cat, aging in winter with a rotten set of diseases, new injuries, etc, etc, etc,

Control my descent.

Don’t lurch onto the next step and come crashing down on it.

Stay mindful of each more; it pays off immediately.

Well, that has helped enormously!

It’s elegant and genteel, two words I never cherished but now find strangely redeeming, to pause and collect both legs before exiting a vehicle, and stepping down gently.

Believe it or not, I don’t have to do everything NONOWNOWNOWNOW. That was a tough nut to crack, but I did it with the hammer of “control my descent.”

I’ve gotten cushions I recommended to a friend with a tailbone injury [LINK?] for myself, and everything I sit in is loads better; I can rest.

As for plopping into chairs, that has gone the way of hopping out of my car; still happens once in awhile, but instantly regretted. I control my descent.

The ice and snow are doing interesting things in the driveway, and it will get dealt with, but since my amazing vehicle doesn’t mind, I have the time to prioritize and deal with it when I can do so properly. (I might get a plow attached… that could pay for itself in a couple of years, given my usual fortune/skill at shopping for bargains and finding friendly neighbors who’ll do things cheaply.) I can control the descent of that resolution.

It’s nice not to be crashing from fire drill to inferno. I’m coming back to myself — the practical, quirky-clever, loving little dingbat that still lives on under all the messes I’ve staggered through over the years.

I like the dry, mechanical nature of the image of “controlling my descent.” It gets quite emotional enough in here, I don’t need to rock the boat any more by trying too hard to push the perkiness; it’s healthier for me to just calm the upheaval. I can’t stop life throwing me up in the air sometimes. However, I can usually do something to control my descent.

Time check: must go, in a controlled and pleasantly mindful ashion, to my next appointment. I will try to remember to insert those links and maybe add some pictures afterwards. Feel free to nudge me… because I know I’m forgetful, and I can ask my friends for help  🙂

3 thoughts on “Controlling my descent”

  1. Thanks for posting this – I so relate to your situation (except for the snow – where I live we only get snow on the surrounding mountains – I can enjoy it from afar but I don’t have to drive in it.)

    I lost my wife to cancer three years ago, and a year later I destroyed my ankle and CRPS reared its nasty head, determined to slow me down. Like you, I am alone now, with a house and job to manage, 2 cats to care for, and not enough energy to do it all. The hardest lesson for me to learn has been that I don’t have to do it all NOW. I am slowly learning to listen to my body, because when I ask too much of it it screams and throws tantrums worthy of a two-year-old.

    Exercise has flown out the window (bet that pushed its heart rate up!), unless you count hobbling through the supermarket using one crutch and a shopping cart for support. I’m usually shaking by the time I get to the checkout counter.

    I also started a blog for myself – more of an occasional journal and random thoughts – but it helped me tremendously to write it down.

    I don’t know if it’s possible to subscribe to your blog, but I would love to.

    1. I’m sorry to hear you have had such a harsh time. I hope things smooth out for both of us! Thanks for your comment, and yes you can subscribe. There’s a widget for that on the right in the web page. The phone interface seems more limited but I’m sure it’s here somewhere 🙂

    2. Please feel free to link to your blog. I’m not territorial at all about sharing info — we’re all in this together, and more “entry points” are better.

Leave a Reply to Dena B Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *