Walking Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

I hate to bore you with more details about my skeletal woes and trips to the doctor, but after all, I am at that age where the topics of conversations at happy hour are colonoscopies and gall bladder surgeries.

I’m a walker, and walking can be hazardous to your health. Most of the time, I power walk, which is quite a feat (pardon the play on words) when you have short, stubby little legs like I do. After one of my walks about 6 weeks ago, the back of my knee started to hurt. Then, as I was stepping down from a stepladder, the nauseating pain riveted down the back of my calf.

Mentally preparing myself for the big one…knee surgery…I visited orthopedic surgeon number one. After two wimpy x-rays, his prognosis was a torn meniscus…no surgery…physical therapy. Ten minutes and $300 later, along with his best guess, I was home icing my knee.

Orthopedic surgeon number two guessed bursitis. After a very painful cortisone injection, a prescription for an anti-inflammatory, and more physical therapy, I went home and wrapped a heating pad around my leg.

The cortisone shot did nothing except form a black, bruised hole on my leg (where the Physical Therapist drew a happy face), and I might as well swallow candy because the anti-inflammatory pills are worthless.

What I really want is an accurate diagnosis, and the ability to walk, free of pain, without shuffling and dragging my leg like Frankenstein. So I made my list of things to do today:

1. Wash the sheets

2. Go to Costco

3. Go to the Emergency Room for an MRI

Me: “I want an MRI on my knee, please.”

ER Nurse: “The Emergency Room doesn’t give MRI’s.”

Me: “But I had one last year when I had my emergency hernia surgery.”

ER Nurse: “You had a CAT Scan.”

Me: “Oh.”

After probably having a good chuckle with the nurse out in the hallway, doctor number three told me it’s probably a torn meniscus, and I will need surgery to repair it

ER Doctor: “In the meantime, here is a leg brace and crutches until your doctor orders an MRI. Oh, and…continue your physical therapy.”

So, back to square one – if only I could find a doctor who will order an MRI for me because right now I can’t walk at all – and the physical therapy is becoming hazardous to my health.

Grocery Store Shopping

You find them all at the grocery store – every body type, every voice level, every age, group, every gender. It’s usually a grueling experience for me.

I have found (sorry ladies) that men who shop for food are the usually the most considerate. Probably because they realize that their testosterone is outnumbered by the amount of estrogen in a 15,000 square foot building by about 99 to 1. They will make sure their cart is pushed to one side in an aisle to let you pass; they will let you go through the check out first if you only have a few items; and they will ask you about which spaghetti sauce you prefer. Men, also, are considerate enough to call the wife to make sure they are buying the right thing – “Honey, do you want the 1% or 2% milk?”

Warning!! DO NOT send your husband to the market for one specific item you need 30 minutes before guests arrive for dinner. Instead of getting a package of wild rice, they will come home with a Betty Crocker microwavable rice dinner in a bowl.

Then there’s the mother who is dragging her 3 children along with her. They are usually trailing behind her as she maneuvers from aisle to aisle, holding up the parade for the other shoppers, and it’s apparent they would rather be anywhere else than at the grocery store. The teenagers are texting, and the pre-teen is whining for every chip and cookie on the shelf.

Then there are those god-awful carts where the kid is strapped in and thinks he’s a racecar driver. Who the hell thought that would be a good idea. Not only do the carts block the entire aisle, but the kid is usually screaming to get out of it. The mother is oblivious to all of this while she decides what soup to open for dinner.

I like the elderly ladies the best – probably because we are closest in age and wear the same progressive/transition lenses eyeglasses. We will stand, shoulder to shoulder, looking at the shelf in front of us for about 10 minutes. Pretty soon we will say to each other, “Do you see the graham cracker crumbs?” “No, they were here last year.” About 20 minutes later you run into them again, “I found the cracker crumbs, now I’m looking for the shoestring potatoes.” “Oh, yeah, I think I saw them on the chip aisle.” We like to help each other out.

Today I am maneuvering my way down the bread aisle looking for hot dog buns. We are responsible for the tailgate party, and I thought hot dogs would be the easiest to prepare. Woops – low and behold, I encounter a Lane Bryant sized woman, straddling the walkway with her cart parked directly in the center. In my most pleasant voice I say, “Excuse me.” She turns to me and says, “I’m sorry. You should have hit me up side the head.” I think this is funny, so, trying to make light of the situation, I say, “Like Gibbs does on NCIS.” We all of a sudden become the best of friends. We stand there for 15 minutes sharing tales about watching NCIS, Law and Order, and Criminal Minds on TV. Then we discuss types of bread that is best for toasting and if our headbands are too young for us. We could barely tear ourselves away from each other. “Maybe we’ll see each other again some time.” “Yea, maybe down the cookie aisle.”

So from now on, I will change my attitude about grocery shopping. I will view it as a networking experience.

Take-Charge Health Care

When I retired I went on the state retirement health insurance plan, which actually is pretty good. However, when I called my primary care physician to make an appointment for my annual physical, his staff informed me that he did not take my new insurance and I would have to find another doctor. That’s great. Fifteen years of being taken care of by the same doctor and not so much as a “Let me refer you to someone else.” or “I’ll do your physical this year, but you will have to find a new GP for your next appointment.” or “How have you been feeling lately?” Nope. Never heard from him. He knew every mole on my body; he poked and prodded personal places my husband doesn’t even know about; he peered into the deepest crevasses of my womanhood. It was as though I was a kitten who had grown up being caressed and cared for by a loving family and then tossed out into the rain to fend for myself. Well, that’s exactly what this kitten has done. I’ve decided to take charge of my own health care.

It’s not hard, really. I had my blood drawn at Walgreens. Safeway gave me my vaccinations. Solis actually called me to remind me of my mammogram (business must be slow). All this is automatically submitted to my health insurance, which doesn’t have to adjust any overinflated fees that the doctor charges, and I receive all the results.

The latest take charge was my visit to have my mammogram. I have always dreaded this procedure because it is not a very pleasant experience having the technician grab your boob, plop and push it on a cold piece of glass, and then squash it between two glass plates in a vice. So I thought of some ways the radiology office could make a woman’s visit more comfortable. First of all, have some quiet music playing, soft lights, and scented candles burning as you enter the dressing room to undress. Instead of those sterile two-foot long capes that drape over your shoulders only to cover half your nipples, they can provide you with a little black lace cover up so you can pretend you are getting ready to meet the man in your dreams. Second, as you wait to be called into the x-ray room, you could lounge in a recliner, sipping on a glass of wine. And third, while the woman fondles your breasts, a sexy man’s voice could be piped through the speakers saying, “Oh, baby, you’re so beautiful. I’ve never seen such a gorgeous body.” After your girls have been violated and you get dressed, a tall dark handsome man hands you a long-stemmed rose as you leave the office and says, “See you next year, Babe.” Kind of makes you want a mammogram once a week, doesn’t it?

Meow – this cat’s going to make it through nine lives as I take charge of my own health care.

Why Do I Teach?

I teach because of the students.  I teach because I love to create lessons that are relevant to students.  I teach because I love to see the light bulbs go on when a student finally grasps a difficult concept.  I teach because it is rewarding to know I am preparing my students for life, work, and success. Students are the future, they need to know what to do with it.

I was a Navy wife the first year of my teaching career.  My husband and I calculated that he was only earning 50 cents an hour, so it was obvious I didn’t go into the teaching profession because of the money.  After graduation, I was idealistic enough to think I was going to have a classroom full of students who would sit and listen to me and gladly do all my assignments.  My first classes were in a junior high school, in Norfolk, Virginia, at the height of desegregation. Having grown up in the southwest, my experience with prejudice and segregation was limited to Walter Cronkite’s reports on the nightly news. 

I quickly learned that I had to create lessons that would be relevant to my students.  These kids had bigger problems in their lives than conjugating verbs and memorizing mythical gods and goddesses: their brothers had just gotten out of jail; their mothers had just given birth and didn’t know where the father was; they had seven siblings they had to cook for.  So I taught the curriculum with the students’ needs in mind.  I had them use the word “jive” in a variety of ways to construct sentences.  I created a drama club so they could release some of their pent-up energy and anger.  So often today, administrators require that their teachers follow a prescribed curriculum and submit minute-by-minute lesson plans.  Do the principals do this in the best interest of the students, or to appease the school district in order to preserve their own positions?  Teachers should be able to use creativity and flexibility when teaching the curriculum thus making it relevant to students and their futures.

There is nothing more rewarding than to see the light bulb go on in a student’s eyes that says, “I understand now.”  The challenge in teaching is to take a difficult concept and present it in a variety of ways so the light bulbs will eventually shine all over the classroom.  Math is not my subject, but I have taught business math in my personal finance class.  Sometimes I teach like I learn myself, and when it comes to math, that may be a little unconventional.  I have found that if a student doesn’t get it, then I change the way I present it so they do get it.  Teachers can’t do that if they are restricted as to when and how something is to be taught.  A teacher is trained in methods and best practices, let them use the tools of the teaching trade, and let them teach.

In the song, Kodachrome by Paul Simon, he sings, “When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.”  Are we presenting the curriculum in a way so the students can become critical thinkers?  Do the students know how high school is going to help them in their future?  I was lucky.  I got to teach a career class in business.  Every day I was able to tell the students why they were learning something and how they were going to use what they learned in their life and career.  The core academic subjects can be taught the same way.  Today, teachers are teaching so students can pass the standardized tests.  Once the test has been taken, the student forgets most of what they learned.  We should be preparing students to succeed in their personal lives as well as their future careers.

Teachers have a huge assignment.  They need to show students the relevance in their education.  They need to watch for the light bulbs of learning.  They need to allow students to think critically in order to be successful and prepare for life.  That’s why I teach, because students are our future.

SWIMMING

My daddy taught me how to swim, and I've had a swimming pool in my backyard for 36 years of my life. When we moved from Glendale to Phoenix, we decided against a pool because the desert dust storms were always turning it to mud and husband was tired of trying to keep it from turning green.

When I was growing up, my mother always made me wear a cap - a white rubbery number with a bumpy woven texture and a little chin strap. Not a very flattering accessory - especially when the boyfriend came over.

Now that I'm older and cellulite has turned the thighs to cottage cheese, I've had a phobia about appearing in public in a swim suit. I like dimples, but not when they form a landscape of hills and valleys starting at the second fold of my knee. I took a chance, however, and joined a water aerobics class along with the other white-haired ladies. After viewing the assortment of body types that padded single file down the kiddie's shallow end into the water, my fear of revealing my thunder thighs has somewhat diminished. As we were "jogging" and "jumping jacks" and "cross-country skiing" to the oldies, I observed a woman swimming laps at the other end of the pool. She swam back and forth for about 45 minutes. She had a long, slender body.

I want a long, slender body.

In my new quest of body-image improvement, I have taken up the sport of swimming again. I bought a new racer-back swim suit, goggles, and swim cap - not white, but black with a green dolphin. I can't go wrong with a dolphin on my cap. Off I go on my laps, swimming in my best free style. After the second lap, I found myself gasping for air, and the life guard started walking my way. Guess I'm a little out of shape. Forty-five minutes turned out to be a really long time. In just a few days, however, I increased to 14 laps using a variety of my best strokes.

There are pluses and minuses to swimming at the community center.

Minuses:

1. It is extremely difficult to pull down a wet swim suit, go to the bathroom, and try to tug it back up.  It's kind of like a rhinoceros shedding the skin of a lizard.

2. Water likes to flow into my ears. I have to stand on my head to feel it slosh around the ear canal and try to persuade it to trickle back out where it belongs.

3. Getting dressed in the locker room with 70 year-old women was a rude awakening. I guess years of having babies and surgeries has diminished their modesty. And all the cartoons depicting sagging boobs and body fat are true after all.

4. My hair looks like crap every day.


Pluses:

1. Swimming is an excellent cardio workout.

2. Swimming is low impact on my arthritic knees.

3. I don't rub a blister.

4. I feel 20 pounds lighter in the water.

5. My inner dolphin and I are one.

6. I'm on my way to a long, slender body.

My daddy would be proud.

OUR DAUGHTER, JACKIE

 As a baby, Jackie was resolute to getting her way – persistent in taking control.  The word tenacious comes to mind.  Of course, she was the first-born, so we showered her with attention, and she loved it.

MY FRIENDS

Jackie loved to have friends over to play– anybody – everybody - everyone in her class - the whole neighborhood.  We planned her birthday parties for months – I’m sure she would have invited the whole school if possible.  Daddy cooked hamburgers all afternoon, the kids bumped into each other playing Marco Polo in the pool, and the dog scored by feasting on the cake frosting that dropped on the patio.  It’s a good thing her little brother came along so she could have a built-in playmate – and someone she could dress up like a girl.  Then there was school time – Jackie made all her friends and her brother’s friends sit in a line so she could be the schoolteacher and write on her chalkboard.  At the babysitters, she organized one-act plays, assigning parts to all the kids in the house. 

MY TOYS

Jackie loved her toys – and no wimpy toys like dolls or tea sets, either.  She liked the big stuff – Matchbox cars & trucks and tracks & tunnels.  Tracks for the car sets were assembled in the family room with ramps, jumps, and tunnels.  White tubes that were fastened together ran around the living room and could be used as forts, secret hiding places, and playhouses.  Pooh Bear was always clutched in one hand and a truck in the other whenever we went on errands.  Imagination was used a lot back then – no video games or Angry Birds to occupy her time.  Jackie danced to music, set her stuffed animals in chairs for lessons, and hung blankets and sheets over furniture to play house.  Did she share her toys?  Sometimes.  But not with her Daddy and Richard when they started playing with her new birthday cars which involved a race track, balloons, and toothpicks.

MY SPORTS

Jackie’s sport was soccer.  She played the game for 12 years, starting with the Lady Bugs at age 6 and eventually driving to practice herself as a senior.  I wouldn’t say Jackie was a tomboy, but she sure wouldn’t let the guys get the best of her.  If the boys could be pulled behind a boat on the Sea Biscuit, a huge inner tube, then Jackie showed them up by standing on it and riding it like a wakeboard.  She was bummed when she didn’t make the basketball team in high school, but that didn’t stop her – she was in track instead.  Good choice, because she sure could outrun her dad on the beach at Lake Powell.  The tame sports like snow boarding and wakeboarding turned into extreme sports such as jumping off cliffs into the lake, sky diving indoors, and Warrior Dashes. 

Jackie still is very tenacious, especially when it comes to…

MY FRIENDS still includes her best friends from her childhood years and a lovely goddaughter, the sweet little girl of good friends from ASU.

MY TOYS still involves her creativity, but now includes a Nikon camera, a MacBook, and the fashion sense of an Elle model.

MY SPORTS now includes anything to do with Lake Powell, hiking the Grand Canyon, Mud Runs, golf, yoga, weight lifting, softball, kick ball, etc, etc., - which continues to keep her sexy figure in shape.

OUR SON, BRIAN

Instead of boring you with tails of early toilet training trials or describing the empty rum bottles we found hidden on top of the pot shelves in his bedroom, we have decided to describe a decade of Brian and his sports follies.

In an effort to involve Brian in sports, we decided to start out with soccer, a popular team sport for youth in the 80’s. Brian was so cute running up and down the field – as a matter of fact, that’s about all he ever did – run with his team one way, then turn around and run with his team the other way. I don’t think he ever came in contact with the soccer ball, much less kick one – but he sure knew how to run back and forth.

Since soccer didn’t really seem to excite him, he expressed an interest in playing little league baseball. He even practiced with a big white plastic ball and huge red bat when we would go camping as a family. I think he got too used to the huge red bat, because when it was his turn to bat in little league, he swung more than he connected. His position in the field was out field – WAY out field. Not many balls would come his way, so he spent a lot of time studying the rocks on the ground and observing the bug trails as they left the field.

In middle school he begged to be on the wrestling team. I’m not sure why except maybe he felt real mean after he posed for his sport picture in his wrestling uniform. Either that or he had an illusion of taking his English teacher down and pinning her to the mat – forever. He did hold a wrestling record, however – never winning a match.

Brian was on the swim team one summer. That didn’t last the entire summer because he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror in his speedos. It was just too embarrassing for a very modest young man.

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention teaching Brian how to water ski. He had short little skis that were held together in the middle with a plastic strap to ensure his feet would stay together and not cause his legs to go into an awkward split. I don’t know who had more endurance, Brian or Daddy. HIT IT, pull a few feet, DOWN. HIT IT, pull a few feet, DOWN. The unique thing about Brian’s early water skiing is that he would not even put the skis on unless he was wearing his socks. Heaven forbid if he had lost his socks at Lake Powell like he did his Smurf shirt.

Brian finally found his sport in high school – golf. He was on the golf team, went to Junior Golf tournaments, and won several trophies. He even won most-valuable player one season. And, a moment I’m sure he is very proud of is when he beat Daddy one time at Moon Valley.

And just look at the sports he’s involved with now – wakeboarding, snowboarding, softball, kickball, NASCAR chaser, and champion pub crawler. What a guy.