Chronicling how we celebrate life

So, the female DG is remiss yet again about not chronicling/capturing last evening’s visit by theologian Dan Clendenin, who the male DG met at the Page Mill YMCA. Like other Y regulars, Dan had noticed the absence recently of the male DG and then gone to gulker.com to learn why. It was a good visit, the male DG reported, when the female DG returned from her dinner with friends.

But it didn’t get captured. So today, she could have posted yet another photo of Big Dish – clouded by very foggy skies taken this morning on her regular Wednesday morning jog. Or she could skip to early this evening when friends Haydi and David joined the DGs at Fremont Park for the weekly Menlo Park summer concert. What better way to say goodbye than share a dance even if it’s “geezer rock”…

Being thankful for foggy dark mornings

The female DG has long wondered why people get addicted to going to the gym. But she’s had to rethink her position the last week when she finds herself betwixt and between. She finds herself pulled in two directions – she can go the the Page Mill YMCA and get good and sweaty or she can return to the paths of the Dawn Jogger. So far this week, the latter has won out. Today she tried another short jog across the second hole of the Stanford golf course (in the dark). And it was only starting to get light by the time she’d made her way around Lake Lagunita and was headed  back to home. Sometime in the last week the kayak that had been abandoned close to the “beach” where the old boathouse used to be got hauled to the other end of the dry lake bed. It’s that kind of discovery that makes walking at dawn a delight.

And then there’s the promise of sunrise

Seeing a sunrise from the inside of a car doesn’t have the same pay off as feeling you’re actually  part of it, which was the case when the female Dual Gimpy/Grumpy was the female Dawn Jogger. But she’s thankful for the month of November nevertheless, a month that displays the dawn in the 6:00 hour rather than the 7:00 hour, as is the case in October (due to daylight savings time) and December and January. And now that it’s light earlier, the hills of the Big Dish area beckon mightily as she drives by on the way to her workout at the Page Mill Y.  She’ll be 16 weeks post Achilles tendon surgery this Friday and is going to get assessed by Heidi up at UCSF tomorrow morning when the male DG is in the MRI machine.

Post surgery breakthrough – hello elliptical machine

It was the nudge she needed for bold action. When the female DG got to the Page Mill YMCA well before dawn this morning, all three of her favorite  too-boring-for-words recumbent bikes were being used. The nearby row of elliptical machines quickly beckoned. Compared to jogging outside in the early morning hours, the elliptical is also boring, but it does provide more of the punch desired from a cardiovascular workout than the bike – and the impact on joints (and tendons?) is minimal. She got back to the elliptical groove with a 30-minute workout without ill effect. Now she needs to pick a new audio book to keep the mind occupied.

The “clunker” hits the gym

The female DG has been reading about other people who are recovering from Achilles tendon surgery – some who have been more proactive than she has about getting back to physical activity. Part of her has had the excuse that her surgeon – Dr. Lawrence Oloff – hasn’t cleared her for physical therapy, let along physical activity. But more truthfully, she finds there’s nothing less fulfilling than the only option available to her, the stationary bike, particularly one that glares how few calories are being burned for the effort. But earlier this week, she decided it was time to get back into a exercise routine of sorts, so this morning she hauled her “clunker” (pictured and so aptly named by friend Pat) back to the Page Mill YMCA and reactivated her membership Her thought is that she’ll attempt a three times a week schedule. The surprise was that by setting the still very boring bike (even worse than elliptical) to a stronger setting she actually broke a sweat. She continued the “workout” with reps on upper body machines. She continues to lust for real walking (ok, jogging but first things first).

Day of surgery anxiety

The morning began like any other. The alarm went off at 6:00 am. The Dual Gs (gimpy and grumpy) rose, dressed and headed for the Page Mill YMCA. The female DG did her usual 45-minute drill on the elliptical machine. The male DG managed to contort his back on some darn machine so severely, he could no longer move his neck from side to side (in addition to having only partial use of his left arm and leg).  Just what they needed on the day of her Achilles tendon surgery.

The female DG  never used to be anxious about medical stuff or being around medical staff. But that was clearly before the idea of immortality vanished. Was that sometime in her late 40s, mid-50s, when the male DG was diagnosed with glioma? She’s unsure.

But anxious she was when she arrived at 9:30 am at Waverly Surgery Center for what the staff kept referring to in an oh-so-chipper manner as her “procedure.” Don’t know if that word was supposed to make her feel better about the fact that some surgeon was about to open up her ankle and whack away at her tendon – or if it’s just more convenient. Everyone else in the pre-op waiting area during her less-than-an hour wait was indeed having a procedure – colonoscopies to be exact.

She noted that there seemed to be an inordinate number of nursing staff and at least one too many lectures going on. A nurse was telling another victim – oh, patient – that Obama was “going where he had no business going because he didn’t have a clue” in reference to the current health care reform legislation.

She was soon joined by Dr. David Berger – at least she’s 90% sure that was the man behind the mask. The usual pre-op pratter took place (pleas from the female DG to do whatever possible to prevent post-surgical nausea and wooziness). By the end of the visit, an IV line was open.

Then a visit from the cutter himself, Dr. Lawrence Oloff, the go-to-guy in the area when it comes to sports podiatry. The purpose of the visit – to determine if he was going to open her up while prone (she thinks lying face down) or laterally. The verdict – the latter.

Then almost 20 minutes earlier than scheduled she was wheeled into the operating room. She’s always curious about these compact spaces – so much smaller than they look on TV. But this morning she had no time to scan the scene – she was out. Then next thing she knew she was waking up and thinking, “Why don’t I hurt?” But she didn’t – and she wouldn’t – at least not that much for the rest of the day.