Our Frail Bodies

I'm exercising and losing weight so I can get out there and do stuff. Also, I don't want to be perceived as old, fat and feeble. Looking at people on the street, I see the slow and careful and hunched over movers, easily picked up far away as old.  I remind myself, "shoulders back, abs tight, walk tall, move briskly".

But there are no guarantees when dealing with mechanisms as complex and frail as our human bodies - especially ones that have been used heavily already. Obviously, big catastrophic accidents occur - a friend at work is dealing with the long term care of her physically and mentally injured significant other after a car crash -but smaller traumas, and just plain aches and pains and wearing out show up unexpectedly and often. Sometimes it doesn't take much to knock us off our planned course of virtuous diet and exercise.

A friend tripped playing tennis and hurt her knee and suddenly her summer is about knee surgery rather than going to the pool. Another friend fell on her bike and spent a couple of weeks gimping around with scrapes all over.  I tripped over my own feet in April and bent three fingers on my right hand back and it still hurts and I have lost grip strength and can't shake hands with firm shakers without wincing. I have to periodically flex the fingers after gripping the kayak paddle for a while, but it doesn't keep my from going.  I am terrified my knees will go from intermittent pain that can be avoided by careful mechanics, to become real barriers to moving. I keep an eye on my misshapen bunion inflicted foot, and I haven't worn heels in years.

The worst physical pain trauma I've been through was a bout of sciatica a few years back. For months, I couldn't bend in the middle comfortably. I couldn't sit still, I couldn't drive long distances, and sometimes the pain would wake me up in the middle of the night and drive me out to walk. I could almost always walk. But sometimes the pain was so intense all I could do was rock and whimper quietly to myself until serious medicine kicked in to make me goofy but relieved. The first day of 2004 I did not take any drugs was some day in June-over six months of pain meds every single day. This pain had me going through the endless back pain protocols: over the counter meds, physical therapy, X-rays, MRIs, stronger painkillers, acupuncture, traction, finally minor surgery. I don't know what worked, but finally something did. And the physical therapy led to my embracing exercise.

The sciatica never completely went away, it just got down to the level of an annoyance rather than the focal point of my life. I am not able to take ibuprophen any more (destroyed my stomach during this process) periodically get approved for one of the limited prescription alternative non-steriodal anti-inflammatories, which are all bad for your heart. I get to choose among bad things.

Lately, the pain seems to have morphed into a slightly different version of a muscle cramp when I leave a certain position. After I bend over, or twist to the right, the muscle on my right hip freezes up and cramps. I can't straighten up and I have to gasp for breath from the pain. I found a slow twist into the pain I can do that seem to free up the cramp. But when the pain strikes me, at first I am hunched and bent and can barely move - looking like the feeble old folks I'm doing my best not to become. I try to detach myself from the pain and analyze it- is it that I can't straighten up, or that it hurts too much to straighten up? It seems I can't, but I can't tell if that's become I cannot command my body to inflict more pain, or the nerve/muscle connection is truly not working and not allowing me to move a certain way.

Why can't I just feel good? Why does our warranty run out and parts stop working?