Notes on maintaining the ol' chassis
A few things I wanted to also mention today, just to help me remember the timing:
1. Skin. I got the labs back on my skin thing, and it is not cancer, or anything else that requires worrying. All the same, I will be going back in for a full-body examination, with photos and everything, which she assures me will vividly illuminate any serious skin damage that does now or will ever require worrying and/or treatment.
2. Cough. I also went to see my GP yesterday, to get his opinion on this lingering cough I've had since the last week in December. He took my temperature and blood pressure (both normal), weighed me (15 lbs. less than last year at this time), asked me some questions and sent me to the hospital for a chest x-ray, "just to see." Results on that should be in by Monday or Tuesday.
3. Mams &c. Next week I'm also having a mammogram, and the week after that I'm going in for a complete physical AND having a plantar's wart removed from the bottom of my foot. After that I should be good to go for awhile. At least until next year.
While I'm at it, here are a few more things related to the body that I've been meaning to record.
1. Stretching. I know it isn't exactly yoga, but for the last several weeks I've been operating under a new rule: if I'm going to watch television, I have to stretch. The results have been inspiring! I started feeling more relaxed almost immediately, and even just in the first week I noticed my flexibility was really improving. This is also partly thanks to my latest invention, which I'm calling the "yoga bath." Surely others have already trademarked similar practices, but I do my own version, consisting mainly of stretching my legs, arms, back, shoulders and neck under warm water, using the sides and wall of the bathtub on my back patio as props. Basically, any way I can stretch while in the water is fair game to try – so no headstands, of course, because then I would drown! But lots of bendiness is happening, and I like it very much.
2. Healthy habits. I'm hoping (and it's starting to happen) that I'll become addicted to stretching and exercising, just like I've become addicted to flossing. That would be so cool!
3. Wrists. My carpal tunnel problems are getting kind of bad again. I will probably go ahead and get a couple more braces this weekend; they did seem to help a lot when I used them before.
4. Vision. For about the last week or so I've been experiencing a strange and mostly pretty enjoyable visual phenomenon I've never noticed before. It's hard to describe, but it's kind of like super 3D vision. For instance, when I was walking the dogs down our road last night, I was hyper-aware of the shifting perspective of all the objects around me – trees, fence posts, tufts of grass, rocks on the street, the movement of the dogs around me, clouds in the sky, and even the apparent movement of a couple of layers of hills and mountains in the distance. Anyone can notice this effect if they try, but usually we filter it out, because it's distracting and we don't need it. Somehow lately I've been unable to turn this "feature" off completely, and as a result I often feel like I've stepped into a full-body 3D movie and can't take off the glasses. Everything's always shifting slightly. It's kind of disconcerting, and also kind of cool. I have a note to mention it to the doc when I go in for that physical.
5. Mind. Last night while I was sitting at the creek I wanted to process some things I was remembering from the day, and for the first time ever in my life that I can remember, I found myself unmotivated to write about them. My mind just didn't want to go there. Instead, it wanted to make a picture. So I did that. I drew the things I was thinking about, and it felt so good, the way it stretched my mind in a totally different direction. I've been noticing this a lot lately, now that I've been working primarily with images for a few years. Until recently, for about the last 20 years or so, I was working mostly as a writer and editor, and my brain just naturally always seemed to go in that direction whenever there was something urgent I wanted to express. I always used to draw too, but words were my main mode of expression. Now, my brain is starting to want to go in the direction of colors, shapes and pictures, and I am enjoying it very much (although I think my blog is suffering from my unarticulateness and longwindedness more than ever!).
And finally, something related to somebody else's body:
I found out today, via an email from a friend of the friend who died earlier this month, that she did have what I would call a good death. She was a very private person so I'll leave it at that, except to say that I'm so glad and grateful to know that she was able to meet it more or less the way she wanted to.
1. Skin. I got the labs back on my skin thing, and it is not cancer, or anything else that requires worrying. All the same, I will be going back in for a full-body examination, with photos and everything, which she assures me will vividly illuminate any serious skin damage that does now or will ever require worrying and/or treatment.
2. Cough. I also went to see my GP yesterday, to get his opinion on this lingering cough I've had since the last week in December. He took my temperature and blood pressure (both normal), weighed me (15 lbs. less than last year at this time), asked me some questions and sent me to the hospital for a chest x-ray, "just to see." Results on that should be in by Monday or Tuesday.
3. Mams &c. Next week I'm also having a mammogram, and the week after that I'm going in for a complete physical AND having a plantar's wart removed from the bottom of my foot. After that I should be good to go for awhile. At least until next year.
While I'm at it, here are a few more things related to the body that I've been meaning to record.
1. Stretching. I know it isn't exactly yoga, but for the last several weeks I've been operating under a new rule: if I'm going to watch television, I have to stretch. The results have been inspiring! I started feeling more relaxed almost immediately, and even just in the first week I noticed my flexibility was really improving. This is also partly thanks to my latest invention, which I'm calling the "yoga bath." Surely others have already trademarked similar practices, but I do my own version, consisting mainly of stretching my legs, arms, back, shoulders and neck under warm water, using the sides and wall of the bathtub on my back patio as props. Basically, any way I can stretch while in the water is fair game to try – so no headstands, of course, because then I would drown! But lots of bendiness is happening, and I like it very much.
2. Healthy habits. I'm hoping (and it's starting to happen) that I'll become addicted to stretching and exercising, just like I've become addicted to flossing. That would be so cool!
3. Wrists. My carpal tunnel problems are getting kind of bad again. I will probably go ahead and get a couple more braces this weekend; they did seem to help a lot when I used them before.
4. Vision. For about the last week or so I've been experiencing a strange and mostly pretty enjoyable visual phenomenon I've never noticed before. It's hard to describe, but it's kind of like super 3D vision. For instance, when I was walking the dogs down our road last night, I was hyper-aware of the shifting perspective of all the objects around me – trees, fence posts, tufts of grass, rocks on the street, the movement of the dogs around me, clouds in the sky, and even the apparent movement of a couple of layers of hills and mountains in the distance. Anyone can notice this effect if they try, but usually we filter it out, because it's distracting and we don't need it. Somehow lately I've been unable to turn this "feature" off completely, and as a result I often feel like I've stepped into a full-body 3D movie and can't take off the glasses. Everything's always shifting slightly. It's kind of disconcerting, and also kind of cool. I have a note to mention it to the doc when I go in for that physical.
5. Mind. Last night while I was sitting at the creek I wanted to process some things I was remembering from the day, and for the first time ever in my life that I can remember, I found myself unmotivated to write about them. My mind just didn't want to go there. Instead, it wanted to make a picture. So I did that. I drew the things I was thinking about, and it felt so good, the way it stretched my mind in a totally different direction. I've been noticing this a lot lately, now that I've been working primarily with images for a few years. Until recently, for about the last 20 years or so, I was working mostly as a writer and editor, and my brain just naturally always seemed to go in that direction whenever there was something urgent I wanted to express. I always used to draw too, but words were my main mode of expression. Now, my brain is starting to want to go in the direction of colors, shapes and pictures, and I am enjoying it very much (although I think my blog is suffering from my unarticulateness and longwindedness more than ever!).
And finally, something related to somebody else's body:
I found out today, via an email from a friend of the friend who died earlier this month, that she did have what I would call a good death. She was a very private person so I'll leave it at that, except to say that I'm so glad and grateful to know that she was able to meet it more or less the way she wanted to.
Labels: health
1 Comments:
That's a relief that the skin thing wasn't cancer.
I think I will borrow your TV stretching idea and the bathtub workout. You know what? You could probably write a book (or make a DVD) about the bathtub workout and cash in big time.
Congrats on losing 15 lb, too. (That is if you wanted to lose them; I shouldn't assume that losing weight is always a good thing.)
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