Hello Fellow Travelers!
One of my daily routines is going to a gym and putting to use some or many of the exercises I learn in Physical Therapy. I'm still spending two or three hours at the gym every day and I've never been in better shape. The idea in neuroplasticity is for the brain to build new connections around the damaged part. In my case the part that received the most damage was the cerebral cortex where the tumor was removed. Patient Spouse is getting impatient for me to heal like yesterday. I don't know what the holdup is, I seem to be stuck in a place where I am assaulted 24/7 with the sensation of the earth falling away under my feet and at the same time my head is completely and utterly dizzy and I feel minute to minute like Dorothy when her house is spinning around. Nothing I've tried or undergone so far has improved my symptoms one whit. If Dracula went through "oceans of time" I'm going through "oceans of pain" most of the time it's no big deal except when anything additional happens. Dental drilling, additional falls, any additional physical trauma I can't handle! I am tapped out and juggling the three running chainsaws as fast as I can. If someone tosses me a ball, I'm afraid I'll drop everything, so I really hope nobody tosses me anything.
I work out every day in an effort to facilitate neuroplasticity. I don't know if that's working or not but since I fall so often and so fast I've learned that being able to snap onto my feet instead of landing on my head is very useful. I still fall but never on my head. So, I'll keep peddling and walking to nowhere as long as I can. What nobody in our Politically Correct world won't or don't tell you (but I, of course, will) is that working out is boring. Sure it's mildly entertaining for the first twenty minutes (it's all new and you're full of energy) and the last twenty (You're a sweaty pig but who cares? You're an in shape sweaty pig! You're a sweat ball that's worked out! ) but there is no escaping the middle. The middle can be twenty minutes or an hour there's just no getting around it, and it's boring!
Everyone has a different coping mechanism to power through the boring part. I probably use the most obvious technique available-I stare vacantly out whatever window the machine I am on is parked in front of for the duration of time I'm on that apparatus. When I'm on the treadmill for instance, I try to focus on the lovely view in front of me. Flowers/Japanese Elm/Pool/Fake Lake/Fountain/Duck Family/Fat Bald Dude in Speedo? Way too small Speedo? Really? Really. How did that old Sesame Street song go? "One
of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong." When I was positively steeping myself in TV I saw some advertisement for-who knows-what? featuring a chubby, hairy, dude wearing swim trunks that are way too small strolling down some beach carrying a rocks glass. I don't care what he's selling, I'm not buying it! I'm an American! I want to be sold cars and liquor by really attractive people who look like they've never seen a problem more significant than getting their spray tans double booked with their Pilates.
Sixty minutes later: Flowers/Japanese Oak/Pool/Fake Lake/Fountain/Duck Family/ Fat, Bald, Dude in Really Small Speedo. I am confused. Why is he still there? I don't expect Vermeer or Monet all the time but if I have to spend hours of my life staring at particular points in space is it too much to ask that the points remain pleasant? Congruent? I guess it is! Since my lifechanging brain surgery in 2011, seeing beautiful things on occasion is essential to my recovery. I have seen sculpture by Rodin, and paintings by the old masters. Most recently I went to see the travelling Vermeer exhibition and saw "The Girl with a Pearl Earring"(and, unlike most things, it is as great as everyone says. Greater.)
That dude at the health club has every right to lie his corpulent carcass wherever he likes. His money is as good as mine. It isn't him personally that I have a problem with. He just spoils the composition of all the treadmillers' ( and I do mean all like, 20) view. And the picture windows are tinted. So, unless someone tells him (doubtful) or he works out on the treadmills himself (really doubtful), this poor schmuck will never know that there are ten people unhappily watching (and making lots of snarky comments about) his every slow movement (Bad French Accent:"The slow-moving manatee lumbers around the Sea bottom" followed by many snickers. For anyone who cares I did a spit-take I was laughing so hard when the guy next to me whipped that one out! The guy with the terrible French accent was doing a hilarious impression of Dana Carvey doing an impression of Philippe Cousteau doing a voiceover for the manatee on the blink-and-you-missed-it Dana Carvey Show! Well, you get the idea.) I am silent. I wordlessly beg the physical fitness gods to remove Mr. Speedo from my line of vision or finish blinding me (Remember I see two of everything) completely!
This prayer, like all selfish/convenient/spur-of-the-moment-requests, goes unanswered. So I resign myself again to the comic situation that confronts me again, and hope that the view will corrected tomorrow. In the meantime I'll watch some old Giants' highlights. That's kind of the deal when you can't walk. You kind of stay wherever you're put. I stay on the bike-to-nowhere for 60+ minutes and the treadmill-with-a-view for 90+ minutes. I forget a few things. I will probably never forget the circumstances around that gym experience - sometimes when the early bird catches the worm, the handicapped bird gets to stare at the worm for the duration of her workout. In other words: "So much for going early!"
One of my daily routines is going to a gym and putting to use some or many of the exercises I learn in Physical Therapy. I'm still spending two or three hours at the gym every day and I've never been in better shape. The idea in neuroplasticity is for the brain to build new connections around the damaged part. In my case the part that received the most damage was the cerebral cortex where the tumor was removed. Patient Spouse is getting impatient for me to heal like yesterday. I don't know what the holdup is, I seem to be stuck in a place where I am assaulted 24/7 with the sensation of the earth falling away under my feet and at the same time my head is completely and utterly dizzy and I feel minute to minute like Dorothy when her house is spinning around. Nothing I've tried or undergone so far has improved my symptoms one whit. If Dracula went through "oceans of time" I'm going through "oceans of pain" most of the time it's no big deal except when anything additional happens. Dental drilling, additional falls, any additional physical trauma I can't handle! I am tapped out and juggling the three running chainsaws as fast as I can. If someone tosses me a ball, I'm afraid I'll drop everything, so I really hope nobody tosses me anything.
I work out every day in an effort to facilitate neuroplasticity. I don't know if that's working or not but since I fall so often and so fast I've learned that being able to snap onto my feet instead of landing on my head is very useful. I still fall but never on my head. So, I'll keep peddling and walking to nowhere as long as I can. What nobody in our Politically Correct world won't or don't tell you (but I, of course, will) is that working out is boring. Sure it's mildly entertaining for the first twenty minutes (it's all new and you're full of energy) and the last twenty (You're a sweaty pig but who cares? You're an in shape sweaty pig! You're a sweat ball that's worked out! ) but there is no escaping the middle. The middle can be twenty minutes or an hour there's just no getting around it, and it's boring!
Everyone has a different coping mechanism to power through the boring part. I probably use the most obvious technique available-I stare vacantly out whatever window the machine I am on is parked in front of for the duration of time I'm on that apparatus. When I'm on the treadmill for instance, I try to focus on the lovely view in front of me. Flowers/Japanese Elm/Pool/Fake Lake/Fountain/Duck Family/Fat Bald Dude in Speedo? Way too small Speedo? Really? Really. How did that old Sesame Street song go? "One
of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong." When I was positively steeping myself in TV I saw some advertisement for-who knows-what? featuring a chubby, hairy, dude wearing swim trunks that are way too small strolling down some beach carrying a rocks glass. I don't care what he's selling, I'm not buying it! I'm an American! I want to be sold cars and liquor by really attractive people who look like they've never seen a problem more significant than getting their spray tans double booked with their Pilates.
Sixty minutes later: Flowers/Japanese Oak/Pool/Fake Lake/Fountain/Duck Family/ Fat, Bald, Dude in Really Small Speedo. I am confused. Why is he still there? I don't expect Vermeer or Monet all the time but if I have to spend hours of my life staring at particular points in space is it too much to ask that the points remain pleasant? Congruent? I guess it is! Since my lifechanging brain surgery in 2011, seeing beautiful things on occasion is essential to my recovery. I have seen sculpture by Rodin, and paintings by the old masters. Most recently I went to see the travelling Vermeer exhibition and saw "The Girl with a Pearl Earring"(and, unlike most things, it is as great as everyone says. Greater.)
That dude at the health club has every right to lie his corpulent carcass wherever he likes. His money is as good as mine. It isn't him personally that I have a problem with. He just spoils the composition of all the treadmillers' ( and I do mean all like, 20) view. And the picture windows are tinted. So, unless someone tells him (doubtful) or he works out on the treadmills himself (really doubtful), this poor schmuck will never know that there are ten people unhappily watching (and making lots of snarky comments about) his every slow movement (Bad French Accent:"The slow-moving manatee lumbers around the Sea bottom" followed by many snickers. For anyone who cares I did a spit-take I was laughing so hard when the guy next to me whipped that one out! The guy with the terrible French accent was doing a hilarious impression of Dana Carvey doing an impression of Philippe Cousteau doing a voiceover for the manatee on the blink-and-you-missed-it Dana Carvey Show! Well, you get the idea.) I am silent. I wordlessly beg the physical fitness gods to remove Mr. Speedo from my line of vision or finish blinding me (Remember I see two of everything) completely!
This prayer, like all selfish/convenient/spur-of-the-moment-requests, goes unanswered. So I resign myself again to the comic situation that confronts me again, and hope that the view will corrected tomorrow. In the meantime I'll watch some old Giants' highlights. That's kind of the deal when you can't walk. You kind of stay wherever you're put. I stay on the bike-to-nowhere for 60+ minutes and the treadmill-with-a-view for 90+ minutes. I forget a few things. I will probably never forget the circumstances around that gym experience - sometimes when the early bird catches the worm, the handicapped bird gets to stare at the worm for the duration of her workout. In other words: "So much for going early!"
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