The courage to bike again

When I first arrived in the Twin Cities in 1988, I did not have a driver's license. In fact, I did not know how to drive a car (although I had passed the obligatory Driver's Ed course in high school), nor had I any experience driving while living in San Francisco or Berkeley. I lived in Minneapolis for two years before deciding to learn to drive, get a license and buy a car. For one thing, I could finally afford both a car and car insurance. For another, the winters in Minneapolis are sufficiently brutal so that riding a bike can be a miserable, horrible experience for months at a time. But finally, the reason that I decided to get a car was because sharing the road with cars and trucks in Minneapolis was terrifying in a way that I had never experienced when biking in the Bay Area. I feared for my life on a daily basis, and that was beginning to wear me down.

Later, of course, the car was extremely useful for transporting a small child to and from child care as well as for commuting to work or doing grocery shopping. Although a bus runs from my neighborhood to my work, it didn't take me close enough to the child care center to make it practical to use it in the winter.

Recently, Minneaplis police got in some practice for next year's Republican Convention by corraling, beating, and arresting participants in a peaceful Critical Mass event, one which had never had a history of violence in the Twin Cities.
In the ensuing coverage and discussion of whether or not the bikers "provoked" the police or whether the police were just being police when they maced, clubbed and hauled off citizens for the terrible crimes of riding their bikes and getting a little lippy with the cops when told to leave the streets although they had commmitted no crime, very few people talked about the reason why Critical Mass exists: because people are routinely killed and injured by traffic that treats bikers as if they had no right to ride on the street. Local wingnut columnist KKKatherine KKKersten railed about bikers, anarchy and the end of civilization, in the Strib, but for better information about what really happened, I checked out this great site on biking in the Twin Cities. It's starting to make me want to get back on the bike. If only my shoulders were not currently giving me pain, I'd do it, but I have to wait until the physical therapy helps relieve the rotator cuff impingement BS I'm currently dealing with.

In New York, artists have been putting up "ghost bikes" at sites where riders have been killed by cars or trucks. We need to put one up for Adam Finley, a man killed when struck by a school bus while riding his bike near Lake Calhoun.

More about frozen shoulder

Arrgh! the last push of the semester is always such a challenge! Although I have read the rough draft of all thirty senior projects in the last two weeks, I must reread them because they are often quite improved. I also promised I'd write comments for those who want them, and this time most of them want them. Then I have to find a balance between my good wishes for the nice folks who finished their degrees and my irritation at those who made the same mistakes I exhorted them not to make, didn't follow instructions, or in some other way got up my nose. I've found that I can manage to read two or three in a row, and then I must do something else. This week that something else has been going to a daily health appointment, physical therapy, the orthopedist, etc, to see how far I've come with my shoulder recovery.

The good news is that I have much more range of motion and less pain. The bad news is I still only have about half my range of motion, and a lot of pain. It's definitely frozen shoulder, or adhesive capsulitis, and I am scheduled to have a second cortisone injection in a few days, this time into a part of the joint that is harder to reach, so I have to go to radiology and find someone to drive me home (probably due to anaesthesia). Because I showed such marked improvement after the first injection, I'm very hopeful that this one will also make my recovery faster. I'm trying hard not to get down about the slowness of the process, which is just the nature of the recovery for this particular problem. It has been almost a year and a half since I started having these shoulder problems, and I miss dancing, biking, and being able to move my arms without pain. But I also just spoke to may sister who has rheumatoid arthritis, and is facing the choice of taking a very toxic medication if she wants to be able to walk very well, so I'm comparatively fortunate. My hope is that the time between the semesters will give me a break from some of the stress of work so I can rest up.

Poking around on the internet, I've learned that frozen shoulder, as oppose to rotator cuff impingement which was my earlier diagnosis, affects primarily women between the ages of 40-60, is often associated with diabetes (but all my blood work is normal), and is often of unknown cause. Of course! But it's likely that contracture, in part aggravated by subscapular trigger points, is a big part of it. In other words, I suspect that the underlying condition that causes the symptoms of fibromyalgia is a contributor, since the trigger points seem to be the result of contractures in locations other than the shoulder joint.

Why I love my job, part two.

Portability. I can take my work on the road. Today is one of those days when I sit down and crank out all those boring letters so I can get them off my list of things to do: recommendations, reports, requests, meeting minutes, student evaluations. Only a few more left to do, but I need a break. Once again, I must sing the praises of the Midtown Global Market! At the Produce Exchange, I was able to buy perfectly ripe red Bartlett pears, not those rock-hard, sad pears I get everywhere else, even at my co-op. Then I went downstairs to the Hennepin County Service center where I got my drivers license renewed without waiting in line. In fact, they called my number so fast, I barely had time to fill out the form. The kind woman took my picture and then said we should take a better one, so my next picture will not be wacky-looking. Then I had a Cuban sandwich from Manny's Tortas. I always think I'm going to try something new, and I always end up getting the same thing because it is so GOOOOOD. And they have Wi-Fi, so I can keep on working while I watch the rain fall outside, and eavesdrop on lunchtime conversations while I chip away at the list of things-to-do. Hey, maybe I'll even have time to read something something today, what a thought!

I've been to the Global Market more lately because my physical therapy center is right across the street. I've been going once a week for this shoulder problem. Last year it was the left shoulder (rotator cuff impingement they called it. Ouch is what I called it). Now it is the right, the writing arm. The pain when I make the wrong move is so intense I want to cry--effectively, a tendon is being pinched between the bones of my shoulder joint. Imagine slamming your hand in the door, but on the inside. Progress is slow, but real. I'm still feeling intense pain when I move my arm the wrong way, but I've recovered a lot of range of motion, and I can see that it will get better. Patience is not one of the qualities for which I am best known, so living with this limitation has been an exercise in acquiring more patience. Ryan, my therapist, is a wonderworker. I am in awe of his ability to do exactly what is needed to help me heal. This is the first time a physical therapist has given me such relief. I think it is because in this office, they specialize in sports therapy, and the therapists themselves seem to be atheletes. My hope is that my shoulder will heal completely so I'll be able to dance without fear again.

Listening to Bach's Goldberg Variations over the years

I took piano lessons when I was younger, but was lazy about practicing. As we moved a lot, I had a number of different teachers. The last one was sour and mean and would hit me on the head with a pencil when I made a mistake. Needless to say, I quit!--It would take me a few decades to learn how to have a different reaction to such behaviors, but that's another story. I picked up playing again briefly in college when I was singing in the University Chorus. The worst grade I ever got was the C+ in the "Theory for non-majors" class I took from Professor Swackhammer during the summer; I may not have done very well in my little compositions working out figured base lines, but I loved the concepts. Because everything I composed probably sounded like the Scarlatti pieces I had learned, the professor didn't give me a good grade, but I learned what it was like to be considered "adequate but not excellent" in a subject.

I didn't play the piano again until last year, when I took some lessons with my wonderful teacher, Max. For the first time a piano teacher treated me with respect and taught me the rudiments of theory. It was marvelous, but when I started having the pain that announced my rotator cuff problems I had to stop. Now that I'm on the other side of that year and a half of physcial therapy, I'm going to start practicing again.

So, in anticipation, I downloaded this recording by Simone Dinnerstein of the Goldberg Variations by Bach. This wonderful review by Evan Eisenberg in Salon, puts her recording in context: the long shadow of Glen Gould, the evolving relationship of public to live performances and recording, the mythical origin story of the variations (that they were written to be played for a nobleman who had insomnia).
This video has an interview with her


Of course, there will be arguments about playing harpsichord music on a piano, about which interpretation is truer to the spirit of Bach, but I'm not a purist; I'm that enthusiastic C+ student who is enchanted by music.

I'm sure that if there was a recording of the Goldberg variations in our house when I was growing up, it was Gould's 1955 record, so my ear was formed by his first recorded performance. This video presents Gould's 1955 recording and his 1981 re-recording of the first aria that begins the variations, so that one can compare how the same artist changed his interpretation. There is an fantastic interview at the end of the clip in which Gould talks about the experience of re-recording the piece, how he went from the "speed demon" virtuosity of his younger self to the deliberateness of the later version.

Here, for comparison, is Dinnerstein playing the same aria. This video is part of a film project on Bach by Michael Lawrence. I love how he has filmed her hands while she is playing.

But you look just fine!

Good news: I can raise both arms over my head again, after a year and a half of physical therapy; the frozen shoulder and rotator cuff injuries are almost healed. But yesterday I started to get a fibromyaogia flare-up and it's really annoying me. This one is: migraine, tender/trigger points along the left side on my skull, jaw, neck, shoulder and back (ie: painful knots in muscles), inability to concetrate, irritability, bad digestion, sensitivity to all stimuli (light, touch, sound, cold) and fatigue, fatigue. Like having the flu after having been struck repeatedly with a stick.
It's hard to talk about fibromyalgia because it's an invisible chronic illness. I tend to function fairly well in spite of the symptoms, so people assume I'm OK. And if I talk about the symptoms, I've often been seen as a whiner. Sometimes this makes me really mad. This song really gets to me for that reason, and the video text is a good summary of how I feel sometimes as well.


A somewhat less emotional take that shows a good discussion about fibro by two people who have made a documentary Living with Fibromyalgia. It gets to the hopeful side, and talks about how we manage. More women are affected than men, but I think some men have a harder time getting a diagnosis because they are supposed to ignore pain.

My baby comes back today!

I have been immersed in the world of So You Think You Can Dance this week, my antidote to the sad news of the continuing recovery of bodies from the bridge collapse, the hell has been created by our our foreign policy in so many parts of the world, and the fact that I must return to physical therapy for continuing pain from rotator cuff impingement, this time on the right side.
I realize I've made a decision not to blog about most of the things that make me sad or angry right now, not because I don't care, but because I don't want this blog to take a lot of time and energy from my day when the pain levels from the fibromyalgia and muscle inflammation have my energy so limited. It is part of taking care of myself right now to ice my shoulder five times a day, rest a lot, avoid what stresses the inflamed area (like typing this!) and prepare myself mentally for the fact that my baby girl is coming home today from Spain, and we are all rejoicing!

Here's a poem she wrote for me for mother's day when, as usual, I told her I didn't care if she spent money on a present for me.


Love's the New Black:
using pennies to buy magic gems,
cling to her skirt like leeches,
and wait for the lines to dwindle
We all know that,
not just today,
the princess of Hallmark holidays,
does she deserve blueberry pancakes,
toast and coffee,
coffee and toast...
being for the benefit of affection,
she'll love the lilacs she said she didn't want.
"all of your love
is all that I need."
Smile.
As her eyes explode with sunshine.
Try your best,
your very best,
because all she deserves
is everything.

Warning: Don't read this if you don't want to hear me whine

My rotator cuff tendonitis coupled with my fibromyalgia has meant that this semester my normal levels of chronic pain have shot way up. It's bad when I just wake up--I spend about half an hour stretching gently in bed, and that helps, but the pain in my shoulder is acute, and doesn't respond to that. After five o'clock at night, I'm in agony. It's hard to be completely present to my child, continue working, or enjoy time with friends when you're in pain. Some things it hurts too much to do: tuck in my shirt in back, put deodorant on my left armpit, write on the blackboard, raise my right arm above shoulder height, carry things with my right hand or arm, put on and take off my clothes, doing dishes, carrying in groceries, carrying laundry downstairs, putting it in and out of the washer and dryer, getting dressed, wiping a counter. I'm turning fifty, not eighty, but my body feels old and crippled.
I'm going to ask the guys to clean my house as my birthday present. Isn't that pathetic?

I have been seeing a physical therapist, and that has helped a little, but the screwed-up thing about constant pain is that it wears down your body and then it wears down your spirit. I'm starting to get to that well-known point where I am having difficulty coping on a daily level. The shoulder pain has meant that the usual exercise that I do to manage the fibromyalgia pain is out, and the fibromyalgia means that I am hyper-sensitive to the shoulder inflammation and slow to heal. I hate the fact that it is preventing me from keeping my house clean (vacuuming is probably the worst for fibro), and it even hurts to write on the blackboard in class. About once a day, I manage to move my arm is such a way that the shoulder joint pinches the muscles and tendons so hard, I want to cry.

The shoulder pain has become so bad this week that there are times when I can hardly bear it. Icing, pain relievers, the exercises my therapist has recommended, all are a small help, but the need to work so many hours in the last several weeks has me feeling as if I'm sliding back rather than making progress. I'm starting to lose brain function from lack of sleep: I blank out on words, my memory is shot, I react sluggishly. Most distressing is that this kind of pain and fatigue can also kick me into a mental space that I've worked hard to leave: cranky, paranoid, snappish. That's scary.

Then there's the fact that the shoulder pain interferes more with sleep, which causes the fibromyalgia to flare up, so that now I have returned to the state where I feel as if someones has been beating me with a stick--everything hurts, all over, but my hands, arms, shoulders, neck, face and upper back are either aching all the time, or feel as if they are laced with barbed wire.

Ironically enough, I'm actually very happy these days. That's the paradox of the physiology of pain-induced depression; I love what I'm doing at work, my family is wonderful, I wake up thankful for my good fortune. But the pain acts as a curtain that I have to push aside, separating me from myself. I'm familiar with this cycle. If something doesn't happen soon to improve the pain situation, I risk falling into the hole of exhaustion and the effects on mood that this brings.

I don't have many people I can talk to about this because frankly, who wants to hear about it? I suffer from the hyper-competent single mother complex as well: if I don't do it, nobody will. That's not actually true, but it's hard to let go of that mind-set.

Coping strategies for the day: hot bath, walk around the neighborhood to buy birthday presents, gentle stretches, ice shoulder, eat healthy food, breathe, leave work until tomorrow. Long term: see my doctor again, try to get back to twice a week with PT, mental health therapist, massage. All those things take time from work. So I will need to talk with my department chair to document my situation, not something I look forward to doing.

Good news: I got a paper accepted to a conference in Ireland! Bad news: I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to write it.
/pity party>

Fibromyalgia, sleep disorders and adrenaline

I've recently discovered the research of a doctor from Mexico, Dr Manuel Martinez-Lavin, that is the most persuasive account I have found so far (and I think I have read almost everything on the subject) of what fibromyalgia does to the body and how it works. People with fibromyalgia often have unrefreshing sleep; they sleep but wake up tired and achy, as if they have the flu. Pain is both all-over, and located in "tender spots." I used to say this "feels like someone beat me with a stick." This was my experience--sleep that was unrefreshing--until I stopped nursing and my hormones changed. Then I just....stopped sleeping. I would sleep about 2 hours a night. A good night was when I could sleep for 4 hours, whether they were consecutive or not. My symptoms got worse and doing everything and anything was a challenge. My doctor and I tried lots of different approaches to improve my sleep: acupuncture, physical therapy, nutrition, sleep hygiene (better habits), various medications, even birth control pills to regulate hormone fluctuation. Nothing really had much of an impact. Finally after a few years of this, we decided on a sleep medication, one that is normally only prescribed for short periods of time. In other words, it's habit-forming. Now, with the medication, I do sleep between 5-7 hours a night. But if for some reason I run out of the meds, as I did this week, I just don't sleep. The rotator cuff pain, and no meds added up to three nights in a row without sleeping at all. I lay in bed, doing the breathing exercises I've been taught, watching the cat do his nocturnal thing, but feeling the whips of adrenaline lashing through my body. Because this is what is keeping me awake: my endocrine system is whacked out in such a way that the adrenaline just doesn't turn off. I can feel it squirting through my system--sometimes it makes my limbs jump, or my teeth grind. My body is getting the alarm! signal. The hardest part is fighting off the fear--it is not called "fight or flight" for nothing. The adrenaline surges can trigger panic, anxiety, paranoia or just plain fear, even when there is no objective cause. Knowing this helps me manage it, but sometimes I'm so tired, so mentally exhausted with being AWAKE! that I just want it all to stop. I finally slept last night (my Rx arrived in the mail!).

[Whoa, Blogger has a new interface, checking it out.]
I have now met my students for the first week, and I'm happy. I'm learning their names, and getting an idea of what the groups will be like. The novelty this semester is teaching at 8AM for the first time in ages, and having classes meet back to back in the same room. I have to flog myself to get up early enough to be lucid by the time I start, and I have to make sure I have something to eat in between so I don't feel faint, but so far, so good.
This semester, it will be Fridamania.

I am also teaching freshman for the first time in a while, and brings its own challenges. But I also know others are teaching five/four/three loads. I would never be up to the physical challenge--my sleep has been poor for the last two weeks, and my pain levels when I wake are daunting; my shoulder problems with rotator cuff impingement are back.  I will get into the rhythm.
Tonight, Ms R. begins a drawing class that will meet once a week. Exciting! I have a new notebook from moleskine that folds out Japanese-style, and I have done exactly two sketches in it: one of Ms. R's face, and another of a chair. It has been ages since I tried to draw anything. I'm so used to thinking of everyone else as the artist, and of myself as the critic.

Limits

Yesterday I had a piano lesson. I love my piano lessons, but yesterday's was tough.
I have been diagnosed with "rotator cuff impingement" syndrome which means, for the moment, that the left side of my upper body hurts like the dickens. I'm getting physical therapy, but I have been told not to do certain movements, and that I must collaborate in my healing by faithfully doing what the Physical Therapist recommends! So piano practice has been limited to right hand only, and I am working on observing how I sit, move, breathe and perform all kinds of basic actions in order to begin healing. As this situation is a result of an underlying chronic pain condition, I know there will be no quick fix, but I also know that healing is possible.

So I will have to seek inspiration in the playing of others for the moment.Hhere is a wonderful story about the "Mozart Project" that I heard on NPR yesterday while I was driving home, wondering if I'd have to give up my dream of playing the piano again. It was so inspiring to hear these two musicians converse about the experience of playing together and working together on this wonderful music.

Then, of course, I could learn to play Mozart by other means:

P.E., fitness, and getting back into shape

I'm thinking about my relationship to my body and fitness as something that I didn't engage with consciously until very recently, despite the fact that I have been very fit for most of my life, if not terribly athletic. If you are old enough, you'll remember when P.E. was subject in school. This was before sportswear was acceptable street clothing, before everyone "worked out at the gym," before Jane Fonda started her second career as an workout guru, and before Title IX was enacted in 1972 and girls began to have the opportunity to become athletes as children. I don't think young women are aware of how different their experience and the expectations of their bodies in relationship to sports are today compared to the experience of women in their late forties and older. Yet, although most of my P.E. experience was of the separate and vastly inferior kind that was provided to girls in the late sixties-early seventies, we did have to change into special clothing and do exercise or a sport, even if it was only kickball, every day in Jr. High and three times a week in high school. I learned how to play kickball as a prelude to softball, how to serve at volleyball, the rules of flag football and field hockey. We also played badminton, I think. In the name of the President and his physical fitness goals, we were taught how to do push-ups, sit-ups and jumping jacks, made to run laps and throw a softball. We climbed ropes and were taught the basic step of the waltz. Oh, and square dancing, we did that in sixth grade. I remember our gym teachers, all women, made us do something called "squat thrusts," (aka "burpees" but a true burpee has a pushup and a jump in it). In Jr. High, the girls' P.E. outfits were a dark blue, short- sleeved one-piece shorts thingie with elastic around the leg holes for modesty, with a belt. This outfit had a special name that I cannot remember. It wasn't bloomers, but it was something like that, and if you did not have it on for P.E. you got into a lot of trouble.

My mother signed us up for swimming lessons, and I even was on a swim team for one season, but I was never very good at the crawl or the butterfly, and mostly did the breast stroke or the back stroke when I swam laps as an adult.

Despite this level of activity, I was always of the "last picked for the team" crowd, partly because I was myopic and refused to wear my glasses so I couldn't tell how far away a ball was. I was also painfully shy after sixth grade, mortified if anyone looked at me. I longed to be invisible. Yet, somehow in college, when I was 17-18, I ended up being recruited by my P.E. major roommate Natalie to be on our co-ed volleyball and softball teams because, I was told, they needed one more person to be able to sign up the team. Again, I was always the weakest link, but some of the guys took pity on me and actually helped me develop a few skills at throwing and catching the ball, even if I would occasionally just lob it in some random uncontrolled direction. Although they purported not to care, I knew my teammates were terribly competitive and I was alternately ashamed and resentful that I didn't measure up, but also thrilled in a puppy-like way that they included me, the dork, in their group. It was a mixed experience, to say the least.

Once I finished college, my main form of exercise consisted of not having a car: I walked, biked, hauled stuff, and generally tramped all over town for hours everywhere I lived, whether it was in the U.S. or Europe. I also started having the symptoms of fibromyalgia (fatigue, pain) but didn't know why or what it was. I was fit, but I hurt all over and all of the time. Because nobody could tell me why, I just lived with it. I would finally get a diagnosis at age 32 and start doing things like yoga and stretching to help manage the pain.

Walking and biking were my primary ways of keeping fit in graduate school because I no longer hung out with people who played organized sports, the whole world was not yet "going to the gym" and my stab at running proved to me that I would never stick with something I found boring. I had been told by the doctor when I had my first of many childhood sprains that I had "weak ankles" and he told my mother not to let me dance (curse him forever!!!). In my twenties, I did join some friends at the pool from time to time. They were dedicated swimmers; I was not, but I was used to being less competent at sports than most people I knew.

I took two P.E. classes in college: British Isles Folkdancing (loved loved loved it! why didn't I continue?) and the very first weight training class offered for women. Actually the women's section was filled, but they let me and a dorm mate into the men's class. The instructor was a woman, a track coach I believe, and I could tell the guys were not willing to grant her any authority as we gathered on the first day. She didn't say anything, just whipped off ten pullups to the back of the neck with some kind of reverse grip that were clearly of the kind that only Wonder Woman could do, and I saw all the guys visibly adopt a submissive posture. She had proven that she was as tough or tougher than all of them. My supercute friend had lots of guys "helping her" with her weights, but I was happy enough to be ignored. My goal for the class? to be able to do ONE regular pull-up. I never achieved my goal, but I did develop some actual muscle definition and a new relationship to my body. It was very satisfying.


After two years of walking and biking around Minneapolis I finally got a car, and my level of activity dropped precipitously. Walking around the lakes didn't quite replace it. But I also started taking an Afro-Caribbean dance class taught by an amazing teacher, who gave us a 45 minute workout before we even started dancing combinations. It took about a year of taking class from him, first only on Saturdays, then on Tues/Thurs/Sat, to finally overcome the body shame and shyness, get the level of confidence and fitness to finally feel as if I could use my body to express myself. It was a revelation that I could actually be good at something that involved moving my body through space. I owe that dance teacher so much. I stopped taking his class when I was five months pregnant, and then he moved away.


After I was 40, and had a small child, I looked to dance agin for the exercise and pleasure that gym classes never gave me. Until a few years ago, I danced either in ballroom classes or socially at least 2-5 times a week. I was in great shape and it helped me manage my fibromyalgia. But when I had my episodes with rotator cuff impingement and frozen shoulder, I stopped dancing and playing the piano. It hurt too much to raise my hands or my arms above my waist. This coincided, not at all coincidentally, with menopause. Hormanal changes and loss of activity have meant that I rapidly gained weight, putting on close to twenty-five pounds in two years. So I'm both out of shape and
I had to give away my wardrobe. I feel sluggish and weak. My fibromyalgia symptoms are worse. I need to get back in shape, not just because I'd like to lose a few pounds but because my future health as an elderly lady will be better if I get fit again. So, despite my fondness for the YWCA, we have signed up at the new LA Fitness about a block from where I live, and I have plunked down the money to have the services of a personal trainer once a week for six months. I know I will not get back into shape unless someone stands over me and counts those repetitions, and I know that if I don't get back into shape, my health and morale will not improve.

The manager put us through our paces in the intake, and my thighs are feeling it, but I feel so excited to have made this commitment, and I want to return to feeling strong and fit again. Then I had an evaluation session where we took measurements and tested what my limits were with a variety of strength exercises: "Pitiful" (that would be my term, not the trainer's).