Tag: spine

Why I’m jealous of YOU at the gym..and it’s not the reason you think

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As all of you know, in the last 5 months I have become a gym bunny. Even though there was  break when I was sick, I’ve gone back to the gym and I’m hungry and obsessed to get back. After going on Tuesday, I spent the week waiting for Sunday morning so that I could go again and now I’m (hopefully) going tomorrow as long as my migraine disappears. I have noticed though, that sometimes I look around and feel myself getting a little jealous.

Now, I’m not jealous of people with beautiful athletic bodies, those who don’t sweat when they exercise or look endlessly cool.  I’m not jealous because I want the results without having to work hard. I’m jealous because their bodies work and mine doesn’t always behave. BUT at the same time, I’m learning to love and worship my body that literally had to rebuild a core part of itself, and know how lucky I am to be walking.

I get a little anxious and self conscious at times, not at all because of the way I look, after all the gym is where people go to work on themselves. No, I feel self conscious because of how much slower I am than others, and how little I can do because of my spine. For me, doing an hour at the gym is another small step towards normality for me. An extra five minutes on the treadmill for me is a huge thing BUT when everyone in the gym wants to go on the exercise bikes at the same time (positioned exactly behind the treadmills and therefore with a full view of my bum) and I’m still just able to do a walking pace, and a fairly slow one, at that. I do feel a little awkward I want to shout at them, ‘I’m in spine recovery, I’m not pathetic I promise!, I’m not just lazy’ because this is how I fear others see myself.

I try and tell myself not to care, that most of it is in my mind  and who actually cares what I’m doing? It might be silly but these thoughts go around in my head sometimes. Then then evolve to me wishing that I was fully recovered and I could run or lift a weight that was a ‘real’ weight rather than the tiniest ones that are there because they’re the only thing I can comfortably lift.

There will be a time where I’m a lot better and that’s happening slowly, just under a year ago I had to have help to get up one step and a small set of stairs to my flat were a huge problem. So the fact that I can go to a gym and try and do some exercise is incredible, and I know that. But sometimes, just sometimes, the green eyed monster will rear her ugly head and make me feel a little down, I know that’s normal and one day I’ll be able to throw her off my shoulder.

 

 

Remembering the good.

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If you haven’t guessed already I love pictures like the one above. I love words and slogans and nice backgrounds. I guess it’s because sometimes I don’t have the image that says what I want to say or sometimes I don’t have the words to say how I feel. It’s because of that I use Pinterest a lot because sometimes the words I need are already there. I don’t use the quote I picked today because I think I’m this brave, strong person. I’ve always said I’ve simply got on with my life the best I can.

I’ve thought a lot about the accident in the past few days, about my spine. This isn’t because I’ve had a lot of time on my hands, more because I’ve been in pain again and there’s nothing more frustrating. When my doctors say the scans look normal and my physio says there’s not much he can do and yet I’m still in pain a lot of the time. When I’m in the awkward part where I still can’t walk too far or stand up for long periods of time and have to explain that I’m recovering from a spine injury. When I have to call venues and explain why I need a seat and they have to decide if I’m ‘disabled enough’, because I’m not officially registered as disabled but at the same time I’m still struggling so much. Don’t get me wrong I do not want another label at all, but sometimes it’s what other people want so I can get the help I need at concert venues for example.

So while I was feeling pretty down about this yesterday, I had a conversation with Ali about how I was feeling and why. He reminded me that while the accident was shitty, awful and did change a lot of my life, a lot of positives came out of it too. I was reminded of these again when I went to see Joe tonight.

  • I’ve got a new appreciation for my body when it’s healthy
  • I’ve gotten better at taking me time and not doing things I don’t want to do
  • I’ve learnt a lot about friendship
  • I’ve got a much better relationship with food, portion sizes and exercise
  • I met Alice, who has come to be a great friend and support to me, I would never have set foot in a gym if it wasn’t for the accident
  • My relationships gotten stronger
  • I have a new sense of understanding when it comes to physical disabilities
  • I got a job I love that I might not have applied for if I hadn’t been spending so much time online when I couldn’t move
  • I got a lot of reading done
  • As a result of the reading I finally embraced feminism and found a new passion

There’s a lot there and I think, as with anything that changes your life when you don’t expect it, there’s a lot to deal with. Sometimes I forget all the positives because I’m just having a down day, that’s all. I worried about writing tonight’s blog because I have had people in the past saying I think too much about my spine, that it takes over my life. Then I shook the thought off because of COURSE breaking your spine is going to have a huge impact on your life, it changes everything for at least the first year – two years after it happens. I no longer care about the ignorant or negative people who don’t try and understand or make throwaway comments because my spine and how I handle it is a part of my life. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Crack – a poem

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Sometimes I write poetry, this image really made me think about the past year and where I’m at now. I started writing this after a really tough gym session,where I just felt my body let me down. Anyway, this is one of my few poems, enjoy.

One second was all it took,

Flying then falling

My lungs gasping for air

You cracked and you crumbled,

making me not as high.

Once I’d dreamed of growing taller, now I’d take it with no complaints.

You made my legs useless,

my summer a sleepy haze.

A city that should have been my playground,

turned into white walls and levels of pain.

Even now as I start to reclaim,

some of those things you took.

You can still floor me with a no notice

reaching out for boxes, the only hope I have of taking away my pain.

No doubt you’ve changed my life,

for the good as well as the bad.

In ways I couldn’t have dreamt of,

before their letter came.

I don’t want to fight against you,

spend my days angry and depressed.

But some days I can’t forgive a body that fights against me.

When I’m trying every day.

But I suppose time will tell,

and all I can do is carry on.

Slowly and pick myself up from the fall.

Workouts and Willpower

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Work it!! 

For the last 6 weeks I’ve been trying really hard to get fitter and healthier. As soon as I was told that I was allowed to attempt a little more exercise I wanted to work on it. I went to physio religiously and only missed one week because I had the sickness bug and wasn’t allowed to. I’ve never really had the kick up the butt I needed before, but after the accident I had a huge appreciation for, you know, a working body.

Now I’m at home it would be easy for me to say ‘oh well! I’ll just start again in January!’ and then eat everything, ignore my routine and then cry in January. I refuse to forget my progress. So, a few weeks ago I called the biggest gym enthusiast I knew and asked if he could be my gym buddy once I was home. This morning I was picked up by my Gramps and we headed to the gym for my induction and his work out.

It is very weird that my Gramps is so much healthier than me and while I was being shown around, he was on all the machines! Eventually I got started and we were doing some of our exercises side by side. It’s nice because we’ve always been super close, to the point where I wouldn’t sleep as a toddler until he’d come home from work, so having this to do just the two of us was nice. Hopefully I’ll get at least 2 more sessions in before I go back to London.

I left feeling energised and really proud of myself. No one forced me to go and work out today I wanted too and felt so good after. My new gym buddy was pretty pleased too. If 16 year old me had been told I’d love the gym she would have fainted (I’ve never been sporty at all, riding was the only thing and, well, you know how that went).

Now, the other thing I need to work on over the holidays is not over indulging on sweets, chocolates, my Mum’s amazing cooking and my sisters delicious baking. Over the past few days I’ve been very good. I’m using my app and still eating my recommended amount of calories but it is hard. I don’t want to just not eat but at the same time I don’t want to seem rude. It’s a tough balance and on days like today sometimes I don’t want to eat because I know I’ve done so well, then I quickly remind myself that I’m not getting into that cycle again. I’m doing this the healthy way or not at all, hence why I won’t have any scales in my flat.

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Mine and Summer’s Gingerbread House…looks so yummy!

My willpower is being pushed to the limit but so far, so good. I feel healthy, happy and actually really accomplished that I’m sticking to something I’ve found so difficult in the past. Unlike a lot of the ‘new year, new me’ types that will head into the gym January I’m not doing this to lose that big of extra weight or because I ‘should’, I’m doing it because I’m really proud of my body. After all the healing and growing new bone after so much damage (some of which may be permanent) I’m going to treat it as well as I damn well can.

 

Starting December right!

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It’s been a pretty positive start to the week and now the month, just what I needed! There’s been some really shitty parts to this year, especially in the last few months so I’m determined to send 2015 off in a positive year and look forward to 2016…even if I am a little bit terrified of it! I wasn’t feeling particularly great about today, I was anxious about my gym class because of the pain I’ve been having but it turns out I didn’t need to be. That said I was already in a good mood from last night after having a long and lovely Skype conversation with Eleanor, it’s hard with her being all the way in New Zealand but we’re making it work.

Of course today is December 1st (I know, how is it December already?!?) so it’s advent calender time but since I haven’t been back home in a while I had no advent calendar this morning…the first time since I was 1. Luckily Mum text me a picture this morning of a maltesers advent calendar all for me, yay! I also picked up Star Wars ones for me and Ali too because IT’S FINALLY STAR WARS MONTH AND MY TICKETS ARE BOOKED, AHHHHHH.

As always I trekked to the hospital for 9am *sob* for my morning gym recovery class. I’d had a rough week last week so I was lucky I could talk to Mum before going and try and get in a good mindset before going in, got mistaken for a student nurse (I wish!) and got told that ‘surely I still have time to grow’ after I complained I was so tiny… the people in the class thought I was in my teens. Of course the real reason I was nervous was pain but I tackled all the machines, including a new one, and I kicked butt! There is no better feeling for me at the moment than coming home covered in sweat and knowing I’ve worked hard to get better, even if I do pay for it later. Oh and because my physio instructor for the gym is amazing I got given a sticker because I worked so hard…being the youngest has its perks!

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Another really amazing thing is that as I’ve mentioned before I’ve struggled with the fact I’ve put on weight because of the accident and recovery, as well as the implications of my medication. As I wrote before I won’t mention numbers on here but I can confirm my healthier eating habits and gradually building up movement is working I’m finally losing the weight I gained!! I’m really proud of myself for doing something healthy and my strength in will power!

I ended a good day with a great evening at The Fighting Cocks with Ali, Charlotte, Rhys and later Joe. I got to play in the quiz, laugh a lot, get drawn on and just get out of the house with no expectation to get drunk which was really nice. It also helps that whenever me and Charlotte hang out we can’t stop laughing.

I’m stupidly excited about this start to December and I hope more than anything it carries on!

Spine Issues

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I thought I was done crying over my spine, I guess not. Today has not been a great day in terms of my spine, what started as just sadness and anger turned into almost being quickly taken into hospital to be hooked up to pain relief. I honestly thought that with the physio, gym sessions and other things I was on the mend, although I was still in pain I thought the excruciating part of it was gone but it’s very much alive in muscle spasms. While I’m on a lot of painkillers, I’m on nothing for my muscle spasms and currently my back and all around my hip is rock hard because of it.

I’ve had to pull out of a show again tonight which I hate, I hate letting anyone down and I hate not being able to perform, possibly the worst part of recovery. I’m miserable with not being able to easily play shows. I thought this part was over, I hoped this was a thing of the past. I was getting ready, about to go load up the car when simply walking around the flat I felt a sharp pain and that was it I was out. The pain was awful, Ali and I tried to wait it out, resting and then trying to walk again but I couldn’t. I was in agony, limping heavily and sobbing. I wasn’t going anywhere tonight. That started about 4 and a half hours ago, I’m still in pain but it feels more manageable now.

On Monday, I finally made the decision to leave the Horse Riding society after talking to my mental health mentor. I really wasn’t coping mentally or physically very well and the society was what was stressing me out most, I had to let the members know today and I am not ashamed to say I cried after posting:

Hello Everyone,

I’m writing this with deep sadness. As most of you will know I was in an accident earlier in the year, breaking my spine. I’ve still got nearly 2 years of recovery time and will probably never ride again. While I’ve loved being a part of the society and your president lately my mental health has deteriorated along with more struggles and nerve damage due to my injury. It is because of this my medical team have said that it would be best for me to step down as soon as possible. Thank you to everyone who rode with me, made me smile and was a friend. I will always love this society and hope that I can still be a friend. I have handed in my notice meaning we are looking for a new president asap and I leave you in the capable hands of Daniela and Amy, while Amanda will be back from leave when she can (please contact them in relation to any questions, queries, rides).

Thank you so much for everything.

Chloe

A lot of people commented saying they were sad to see me go, to say thank you and a lot of people to say that I was brave. I still don’t think I fully understand why I’m brave? Because I was honest about the reasons? Because I stepped down to look after myself? I certainly don’t feel brave. I worry I’m letting everyone down, that if anything happens to the society it will be my fault. I worry I’ll lose friends. Now it’s done though and I really need to focus on my studies and try to remember my time with happiness, not tears.

 

10407210_10153613102758206_918236493107446324_nHappier times at the society

I still have a long way to go with my spine and tonight’s reminded me of that. I’m so lucky to have so many amazing people around me caring for me and helping me carry on going forward when times are hard. I don’t know what the future holds in terms of recovery, I’ve been told around 2 years for successful recovery but I’m not holding on to that as a solid date, after all when it first happened I was told I had a 6 week recovery, laughable now. Almost 7 months down and who knows how many to go but I will keep going, I’ll just need a little help along the way.

The Gym: Let’s do this.

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This morning I crawled out of bed after being awake for most of the night. I was tired, nervous and excited. After 7 months of not being allowed to push myself, of having to watch for signs that my legs were giving up and tense doctors appointments I got to go into a supervised gym class with a physio instructor. I wrote about my body  and its changes this week as well, which had such an incredible response from all over the world. I knew I had to write about this too but I was so nervous. I really didn’t want to have to stop after a few exercises or for my leg to go completely numb so that I fall over.

I turned up in my matching gym clothes and was the youngest one there, mostly OAPs, one man who I’d say was in his 30s with a leg injury and a woman in her 30s who came in later. To say I was self conscious was an understatement and when we started warm up I started to panic, it was painful and I couldn’t keep up very easily.  As we moved on to the machines I needed a little bit of help going through my routine.

For now it consists of 2-3 minutes on each machine/ activity and I mix them up with how I feel:

Cross Trainer

Exercise Bike level 3

Balancing on a ball board (I don’t know the proper name for this)

Marching while doing weights on a trampoline

Holding my balance on an exercise ball while lifting weights

Sitting on an exercise ball and catching a ball that is either thrown to me or I catch after throwing it at the wall

Rising on my toes (aided) holding and going back down

While this week I had to do them in burst and I could only do each one once in the session each week I will build this up and by the end of my 6 weeks I should be able to do all of them a few times in the session! I left completely covered in sweat, tired but really happy. I finally felt like I’d achieved something and although I was pretty sore I was ok, I could still walk which was a bonus. I had about an hour to get back, have a shower and be on the bus to uni, believe me a shower has never felt so good in all my life.

My next stop was the university doctor, again. I have reviews pretty regularly for my medication and generally how I’m doing. This time it was another increase in medication, this time to help me sleep. The pain in the day I’m pretty much stuck with and just have to take both the good and the bad days, do my physio and wait it out. Not sleeping because of the pain is an entirely different thing, if I don’t sleep it affects my mood, I quickly get very depressed and lose all motivation to do anything so making such I’m not kept awake all night is a priority. My dose of both my Dihydrocodine and Gabapentin have gone up at night and I have another check in two weeks.

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I also made it through my lecture without falling asleep too although I wasn’t really myself. All aside this spine focused day has given me some hope and don’t tell anyone but I actually quite liked going to the gym to start my day. When I have a bigger place/ am better I would definitely like to get a Cross trainer for me at home. So that’s the start of my gym time done and I’m kind of looking forward to next week although I may change my mind on that tomorrow…

My experience of Acupuncture

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As a part of my fracture recovery I semi-voluntarily get stabbed with tiny needles all over my spine and occasionally my legs. Doesn’t that sound like fun? What I thought was just something that you paid people to do if you were slightly mad, is actually funded on the NHS. Now I’ll be honest I was very sceptical about the way this works and if it works at all. I’m still trying to figure it out myself. After weeks and weeks of still not being able to move and a little persuasion I was booked in to acupuncture.

I said last week that things are only slightly improving with my spine, leading me to be willing to try anything and everything to get rid of some of this pain and get a more active lifestyle back (I was supposed to be super ripped by this point, then I decided to fall off a horse). Meeting Nicola I was nervous, more than nervous but because she is absolutely fab she managed to make me feel informed enough to give it a try. Nicola is the most amazing physio, she answers any and all of my questions, encourages me and understands when the pain is a little bit too much. I don’t think I would have let anyone else use me as a dart board three times.

A lot of people ask me things like what does it feel like? Does it hurt? Do you watch? I can answer honestly that it feels like someone is jabbing you, not in an ‘oh my god what the hell are you doing’ kind of way. Some lucky so and sos don’t feel it at all apparently, I most definitely do. For me there are certain points which are quite painful, whereas others are just a bit annoying, for example there’s one in the middle of my lower back that I’ve had every time and I can usually ignore it. Another point that I had today was on my hip which lead me to swear out loud, it didn’t feel great and the weirdest one I’ve had so far is the backs of my knees, I don’t even know how to describe that. Obviously with it being on my back I can’t watch it, nor would I want to.

If you don’t like needles, scroll past this next image…

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Sometimes it can cause pain afterwards and, you guessed it, I’m one of the lucky few who get a fair bit of pain after. I can also get sleepy too. I’ve had 3 sessions and I haven’t seen any incredible results yet unfortunately. I’m going to have a few more sessions, partly because we tried the alternative today and I nearly cried in pain as Nicola tried to relax the muscles. I can’t say that I’d recommend it to people other than to help curb a needle phobia, I’m starting to not be that bothered as long as I don’t have to see it.

I think if I wasn’t struggling so much with pain and it hadn’t been so long I would have held off. I don’t see it as anything magical or groundbreaking, that said it might be more to do with what’s wrong with me rather than the actual treatment, who knows. I’m hoping that after pain clinic and seeing the Neurosurgeon I can finally get back on track, get rid of acupuncture and get back into some fitness!

Image from paramount-physiotherapy.com

Spine Update: 15 weeks in

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Now and a few weeks ago

So here we are, it’s been 15 weeks since my accident and 13 since I found out that the pain was actually a compression fracture and severe bruising on my spine. Ouch. After a stack of doctors appointments, tears, physio and recently having tiny needles stuck in me in what they call acupuncture. It’s been 15 long weeks and I’m still not really anywhere near the end.

I’m still taking pain meds, still in pain and not able to walk far and walking isn’t a good idea either. It sounds like a lot of negatives but I’m not completely bummed out, I’ve realised that there really are some amazingly supportive people around me and I really am happy. I don’t know if I’ll go back to riding, it really depends on what the surgeon says, I’m more focused on making sure I don’t do any more damage to my spine. Nothing is worth the pain and nearly losing the ability to walk.

I just wanted to write this post as a little update for all of you who asked after me and tried to cheer me up or sent me bits and pieces. I’ll keep posting updates when I hear something, I have pain clinic at the end of the month and hopefully I’ll be seeing the Neurosurgeon sooner rather than later (although they’ve been really messing up with it and I feel quite let down). I’m also still trying to do a little physio and any fitness I can, I really hope that changes soon.

Thank you again to everyone, I really couldn’t have done it without you all.

I miss fitness! My thoughts on ‘being brave’ and keeping going.

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Now I’ve said before that I’m not a health and fitness fanatic. If there was an option between a healthy snack and something covered in chocolate I’d bite your hand off for the chocolate. I made some healthier choices this year, I walked to uni most days (unless it was a Thursday morning, early starts after a late night are not a good idea), I swam occasionally and for the first time in my life I embraced a sport and did it every week. I’m also stubborn and have a rebellious streak. Normally if someone told me that I wasn’t allowed to ride I’d prove them wrong and get on, going twice as fast. I can’t do that right now.

To say that all this stress hasn’t been easy is an understatement. It’s not in the way that people see it. I keep getting told that I’m brave, that I’m so inspiring. To be honest I find it incredible that people are so sympathetic to me fracturing my spine but 6 years of mental health problems didn’t get any cards or bravery speeches, but that’s another blog post. I mean yeah I suppose to other people they really can’t imagine just getting on with life after breaking a vital part of your body, but do I feel brave? No. I just feel like I’m getting on with it. It’s something I spoke to my parents about the other day after people were told about me and just were amazed. It was nice and they were lovely people but I just said to my parents, wouldn’t everyone just get on with their lives? Apparently not, but I was raised to just battle on through.

So after yesterday’s post it’s clear that I’m still up and down, still getting there. Today a low decided to hit. I think it’s post festival blues, combined with stressing about the future and being tired from my back pain. It was relatively normal stuff and I wasn’t miserable or ‘meh’ all day, it was more when I was alone. I realised that the things I’d normally do when I feel bad, I couldn’t do and it just made me want to curl up under my duvet and cry. I didn’t. I finished the book I started reading last night and spoke to a few friends.

I never realised that exercise was something I’d miss, but then again I suppose you don’t until it’s something that you can’t do. I want to do some sit ups to get rid of a little excess weight, I want to sign up to gym, run around with the kids at work, swim without worrying I won’t be able to get out of the pool. Hell I’d like to be able to have a bath without worrying that I will get stuck!

The one thing I have though is writing, writing this or songs or fiction. I have to get out of the clouded stage before I can write anything but I can feel it lifting more and more as I type this. I am struggling a little bit with my exercise and little walks to clear my head. I suppose it’s one of the biggest challenges to my mental health it’s all the things I’d usually avoid. If I try and search for a positive in all this I suppose I can see that I’ve been there once and even though I’ve spent a good amount of time on my own, I’m currently missing my friends like a limb and I deal with physical pain every day I’m getting through it one day at a time.

I know this is a long blog but I can almost bet anything that someone out there will read this and understand. That someone will understand the both freeing and unnerving feeling that I have to go through this low without my normal strategies. I’m ok though, really. I have a good few days lined up and for once I can remember that these lows don’t last forever.

Thanks for reading guys, as usual I’d love to hear from you. Oh! And thank you to every single one of you following me on twitter, another 100 followers in the past few weeks! It really put a smile on my face!