Pieces Of Me

I've been contemplating sharing this for awhile but have been hesitant because it's certainly my own inward struggle, and no one can really do anything about it. I don't want to be perceived as whiney and I certainly wouldn't want to sound annoying with such trivial issues when there are lots of bigger things going on in the world. But I've been struggling with this for weeks now and I'm hoping that talking about it will help, at least to some degree.

A friend once asked me where I thought fat went when it left the body. I didn't have a good answer except to say that maybe the molecules dissolved into thin air. Or perhaps it was the droplets of sweat left behind on the gym equipment after I'd finished a set. Maybe it was contained in the exhales that came from my lungs as I huffed and puffed through a run. But really, I had no idea. A common question upon my arrival back stateside is, 'how do you feel about leaving Guam?' The answer to that is also quite complicated. In a way, I left pieces of myself there. Seventy pounds worth of pieces to be exact. I have felt, and still feel every day, like I am grieving the loss of a person. Maybe it's the person that arrived on Guam October 8, 2011. I had felt that she was already dead to me, but perhaps staying at the scene of her death kept the grief at bay. It becomes stronger, and more real to me, each and every day. Maybe it's because so much has changed since that October day when the plane landed in paradise. It's not that I miss that woman, or her life, but I can't quite put my finger on why I feel so sad about leaving her behind. Is this is a common feeling when one loses a great deal of weight? Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

And of course, I miss my Guam family. Their smiles, their hugs, their encouragement through the hard times. Outwardly I smile and carry on about my days, but inwardly my heart continues to break. Texts, phone calls and FaceTime just aren't the same but they have become my band-aid, fixing my feelings temporarily. I wish so badly that someone or something would come along and sew me up. Put my pieces back together. I am trying hard to remind myself that grief takes time. Staying busy helps a little bit. Hopefully once I get 'home' from my little 'vacation' down South I can slip into a routine that will find some friends with similar interests. They'll never replace what I had in Guam, but I have hope for a new normal in the future. I do find it interesting that the place we were stationed at for the shortest amount of time, brought me friends that dug the deepest into my heart. <3

Baby Got Back Problems

Last Monday when I started to work on my newest training regimen, I was eager to get going and really hit it hard. And I did, until the very end of my first workout. While doing some dumbbell sumo squats, I felt something kind of tweaky in my left hip. It didn't really hurt, but it didn't feel right. So I dropped my weight a bit and didn't squat as low as I normally would. Once I finished out my set, I went about setting up for my deadlifts. Deadlifts are one of my favorite exercises and I've worked very hard over the last year at proper form, steadily increasing my weight to a personal record of 165 lbs. Being absent from the gym a couple of weeks, I dropped my starting weight down to a measly 95 lbs and decided to work through the first set, see how it felt, then increase if I thought I could do more. I positioned myself, pulled up, completed one rep and set the bar down. As I pulled up on the second rep, I felt and heard a 'SNAP!' in my lower back that literally brought me to my knees. I couldn't stand up, I couldn't lie down, and I couldn't roll over. I just couldn't move. I panicked for a moment before crawling over to the nearest wall and slowly picking myself up from the floor. I knew I was done for the day(thankfully on my last exercise!) so I quickly tried to re-rack my weights and get the hell out of there before people started laughing at the new girl. I had already been really nervous about being said new girl, and here I'd gone and injured myself like a dumbass, with minimal weight on the bar. AARGH! So I came home, popped some ibprofen, and parked my back on an ice pack. The next day it felt a little better, so I added heat therapy into my regimen. By Thursday I was feeling almost 80%...until I got in the shower. As I bent over to shave my legs, that same awful 'SNAP!' occurred and brought me to my knees in the hot streams of water. By Friday, even though I had resumed my ice and ibprofen, I wasn't feeling any better. Saturday I knew I had to see a doctor. I didn't want this getting out of hand. I've never had a back injury(or so I thought; more on that later) so I didn't know how my body was going to heal. A pulled muscle is one thing, a slipped disc is another. So I went to an urgent care facility on Saturday morning. Their x-ray technician was out so I didn't get any films. The doctor said it could be anything from a pulled ligament to a slipped disk but the only way to be sure was an MRI. So she wrote me a script for a lovely cocktail of steroids, narcotics and muscle relaxers to take for five days. Even after taking the drugs for a couple days, I wasn't bouncing back like I had the first time. My parents hooked me up with their chiropractor so I went to see him this afternoon. Now, military insurance does not pay for chiropractic care which I find downright stupid. I've always been kind of leery of chiropractors until today. I went in and the first thing he did was measure my legs. 'Your right leg is shorter than your left.' Who knew? 'I think you've got a misaligned pelvis.' Well okay, then. Fix me! A couple x-rays later and the good doc's theory was proven true. He also found that I have some small bone spurs on my pelvis, probably from carrying around so much extra weight for so long. He was amazed at my weight loss, by the way, and my before/after pictures blew him out of the water! He also showed me that I, at some point, sustained a compression fracture in my upper back. Remember how I said I never thought I had a back injury? Turns out, I do. He said it appeared very old and the only thing I can think of is slamming into a tree trunk with my back, on a rope swing, as a kid. This was when I was 10 or 11 years old!

So, there you see my crooked pelvis. He said it wasn't anything I'd done recently, it happens over time. I asked him if sitting in the same position flying for some many hours, combined with being out of the gym and not moving those joints regularly could have contributed and he validated that thought. A few minutes later and I'd been crunched back into place, painlessly. So for now, I'm supposed to stay on my medication cocktail for the next few days, ice for 20 minutes every hours tonight, ice and heat tomorrow night, go back to see him for one more adjustment on Wednesday, and then heat after that. I'm feeling alot better already. It's almost a miracle. I'm, of course, supposed to lay off the lower body workouts for a little while longer but I've already been doing that. I don't feel *great* about it but I know it's necessary. Hopefully next week I'll at least get to go to a Zumba class!