Now that I am retired, I have time to spend with my husband, work in the garden, volunteer with a pet rescue organization, meet up with friends, play word puzzles, and get back in shape.
Except the getting back in shape part didn't work out the way I expected it to go. For a couple of glorious months, I got up before everyone else in the house and walked two miles, usually listening to a guided meditation for the first part of the walk. Then I would make breakfast for everyone and get on with my day.
At first there was no problem. I gave my body about fifteen minutes of gentle movement before starting the walk. Sometimes I would feel a little stiff but after a half mile the muscles would warm up nicely. But two months into my morning walks, I began to feel pain in my left hip. Cleaning up hurricane debris in the yard, after Hurricane Helene, was extremely painful. I used a rake to clear aside leaves and branches, so I wasn't bending over all the time. I decided to stop walking to give my injury time to heal. That was around the time Hurricane Milton came through and we had company visiting. Much less to clean up after Milton.
But the injury wasn't healing. I sought the help of my chiropractor. She formed a theory and sent me to get an x-ray. Arthritis had degraded the cushioning in the left hip socket and there was a slight flat spot on the side of the head of the femur. I continued receiving ultrasound, muscle stimulation, and massage therapy and adjustments. I also asked my doctor for arthritis medication and a referral to physical therapy. They gave me exercises to strengthen my muscles and recommended an arthritis pain topical cream. They were optimistic that the inflammation could be reduced and the muscles strengthened.
I admit I did not understand the warning signs of arthritis. Several years ago, I began to wake up at night with pain in the hip on the side I was lying. I would turn over and sleep until the other hip woke me up. After the national Covid pandemic lock-down, when we returned to school with most students attending class on Zoom and a few in person, my work became sedentary, with long hours at the computer teaching and grading digital files. We all tried cameras and remote microphones to counter sitting at the computer, but ultimately sitting was what had to happen. I tried to get exercise to balance the computer time, but it was a challenge with all the other things that accompanied teaching high school that year. Then last year, my last year in the classroom, my hip started to hurt while I was standing and teaching.
So here I am, less active now but determined to recover strength, balance, and mobility.
