Category: health

A Season of Mental Wellness

Erica1 Comment

It’s not often I write to share when things are going well – I normally write about difficult experiences and how I have navigated them successfully (or perhaps unsuccessfully…)

I also never wanted to be that person who came off as bragging that everything in her life was going great – I think posts like that are hard to read if you’re in a bad place. It heightens that illusion that everyone else is living their best life except for you (which is not true!) 

However, I do think there is value in admitting to myself (and all of you) that things are actually going pretty well for me lately. 

Last year, I wrote a blog post titled How Do You Thrive? and talked a bit about how I wanted to feel like I was thriving, not just surviving. I can honestly say that I now feel like I’m thriving – for the first time in probably over 4 years, I am thriving!!!

What do I mean by thriving? I mean that I’m noticing signs that I am mentally, emotionally and physically well. For example:

  • I’ve started eating better recently (more veggies and less sugar!) I’ve had very little motivation to eat healthy since before my son was born. 
  • I’ve started working out again (thankfully my foot has recovered enough to allow this), including going on long walks in the morning and doing some strength workouts at home. 
  • I had the motivation and energy to undertake a big home improvement project last weekend (which has now of course turned into a project spanning multiple weekends).
  • I’ve been able to appreciate the relationships in my life more instead of wishing for something different – I feel blessed with authentic friendships and feel like my husband and I are in a solid place of supporting one another right now.

I think one of the most important indicators that I’m thriving is that I’ve come to a place of self-love and acceptance that I haven’t had in years. 

It’s interesting to find myself thriving in the midst of this global pandemic – while I do have to monitor my anxiety levels when it comes to COVID, I actually think the pandemic has helped me to get to this better place. I’ve been forced to slow down, to spend more time at home with my husband and son… it’s been a time to re-prioritize and think about what really matters. I realized I actually really enjoy not having plans every night and weekend – if we ever get back to “normal,” I hope I will continue to leave space in my life to rejuvenate and flourish.

Despite all this talk about thriving, I don’t want to leave the impression that everything is absolutely perfect right now – rest assured, perfection is not what I have achieved! Actually, in the past month I’ve had two different days where I actually felt really down – where some insecurities and feelings of depression kind of came and hit me out of nowhere. 

It isn’t the absence of bad days that equals thriving – it’s how well I navigated the bad days when they came. 

I’m grateful to be able to say that when the bad moments came, I was able to tune into my feelings, process them, and figure out what I needed to do to get to the other side of them. Both times by the end of the day, that dark cloud above me had lifted and moved on.

And if that’s not thriving, then I don’t know what is! I’m hopeful this season of wellness will last for a long time, but realistically I know there will most likely be hard seasons at some point in my future again.

I’m proud of myself for getting to this point in my life, but am also mindful that many of the things that led me here included situations and opportunities that I can’t take full credit for. I am fortunate to have been able to go to counseling regularly over the past 5 years, and to have found an amazing counselor. I am fortunate to have a supportive husband who was there for me at my lowest points and encouraged me to get to where I am today. I am fortunate to have people in my life who spoke truths to me about my skills and talents and how much I mattered as a person.

Not everyone is fortunate to have all of those things – I know that. Maybe you’re a single parent and barely have enough energy to get through the day. That’s okay – just survive for now. Maybe you’re working two jobs and still are barely making ends meet. That’s okay – just survive for now. Maybe you have some toxic people or situations in your life right now that are sabotaging your attempts at getting mentally healthy, but you can’t get away from them at this moment. That’s okay – keep surviving for now. 

Mental health shouldn’t be a privilege reserved only for certain people – but I think sometimes it is. (This could be a topic for another blog post, there’s so much more to unpack here.) 

I guess what I’m left with now, is wondering how I can help others who are on their way to mental wellness – how can I level the playing field and give others the same opportunities to succeed that I had? 

This post took an unexpected turn – but I love that! That’s what’s so cool about writing: sometimes you just don’t know what will come out on the page once you start.

Thanks for reading.

Recovering From Foot Surgery: What it was Really Like

Erica1 Comment

Exactly one year ago, my husband and I had just gotten back from taking an 11-day trip to Japan for our 10th anniversary. That was where my foot problems had started – about halfway through the trip my left foot began hurting so much that it began to be difficult to walk very much. After months and months of wearing foot braces and walking boots, it was finally determined that I would need surgery.

I had surgery on February 4th of this year – it’s been a little more than 15 weeks now. I would say I am about 85% recovered. There’s still a long way to go on building up my leg and foot muscles since they were out of use for so long, and I still don’t have quite the same range of motion that my other foot has, but I expect that over time it will continue to improve.

I had never had any sort of surgery before, so I really didn’t know what to expect. For those who may be in similar situations, or are just genuinely interested, I thought I would write a bit about what the whole experience has been like. Each person is different and heals at different speeds, but the following is what it has looked like for me.

***I won’t include any pictures until the end – there are some who may not want to see them – THIS IS YOUR WARNING, there are post-surgery foot pictures at the end of this post***

Feb 4 – Day of surgery – I was most nervous about being put under anesthesia since I had never experienced that before. It was an outpatient procedure, I went in early that morning and was supposed to be home by the early afternoon. For those who are wondering, this surgery was to address my posterior tibial tendon, which is a tendon that supports the arch of the foot and connects to the calf muscle. (I have flat arches and the arch was “collapsing” so that my foot was not supporting me correctly.) The technical name of the surgery was super long, and the only thing I remember about it was the word “osteotomy,” which involves cutting into the bone and for my situation, placing metal grafts in two places in my foot. I ended up coming out with four incisions, three on my foot and one higher up on my calf (they had to do a calf muscle lengthening procedure).

I remember them wheeling me back to the operating room and seeing those big lights above me. I expected them to ask me to count backwards from 10, but as soon as they put the mask over my nose and mouth, I remember nothing else except waking up in the recovery area. The surgery took between 2-3 hours, and I woke up with a huge splint and wrapping on my foot. I wasn’t in a ton of pain because the doctor had injected a pain blocker into my foot which would slowly wear off over the next couple of days. It was weird not being able to feel my foot or toes, but so far it wasn’t too terrible.

Upon getting home and “walking” into the house (I was using a knee scooter) I suddenly felt extremely nauseous and threw up. I thought it was due to the anesthesia, but I would later find out it was a reaction to the pain pills they prescribed me.

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30 (more like 20) Pushups a Day (more like every few days) for a Month

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My current foot situation (in a boot, not full weight-bearing) has obviously prevented me from running or working out very much at all. I finally decided that I should challenge myself to do something despite my limitations, and focusing on my arms seemed like the best idea. It also was pretty timely, as social distancing became the thing to do… it gave me a challenge I could easily do at home. I decided I wanted to do 30 pushups every day, probably in sets of 10, and see how I felt/looked in one month. Here’s a quick day-by-day accounting of what that process looked like:

Feb 29 – Thought I would do 30 every day, after doing a set of ten, 20 seemed good enough.

Mar 1 – Why am I sore? Oh yeah… I think I should take today off.

Mar 2 – Two sets of 10 in the books!

Mar 3 – Two sets done before work… I was late to work.

Mar 4 – Pushups seemed easier today.

Mar 5 – First set I was able to do 12 – second set of 10 was hard but doable.

Mar 6 – Today was my first day on crutches, I think my arms got enough of a workout.

Mar 7 – Nope.

Mar 8 – Daylight Savings Time, we sprang forward… no pushups but I did get a nap.

Mar 9 – Did a set of 12, then a second set of 8 at lunch break.

Mar 10 – Didn’t happen.

Mar 11 – Two sets of 10, check!

Mar 12-16 – I took an unintended break, stuff has been getting crazy due to the coronavirus! 

Mar 17 – First set of 16 (yeah!) and then a second set of 10. Amazing since I have missed so many days!

Mar 18 – Not today.

Mar 19 – Two sets of 10. 

Mar 20 – Two sets of 10 again.

Mar 21 – 12 pushups and then 10 more. A few sit ups too.

Mar 22 – Rested.

Mar 23 – 20 in a row! (woot woot!) 

Mar 24 – Two sets of 10, plus a little free weight work.

Mar 25 – Took a break, it was Dean’s birthday.

Mar 26 – No pushups, but I did go out for a “ride” on my knee scooter. 

Mar 27 – Two sets of 10. 

Mar 28 – No.

Mar 29 – I thought about it, but was tired.

So… I only did pushups 14 out of the 30 days, which is less than half – so if I was going for a letter grade, I guess I’d get an ‘F.’ But I choose to not look at this as a failure, but as doing pushups 14 more days than I normally would have. And I can always challenge myself again this month to try again, although honestly I think everyday is a bit too much… doesn’t give much time for recovery.

Lastly, if you need some motivating up-beat workout music, check out some of the opening and ending themes from the show Haikyuu – just about every time I did pushups I listened to music from this anime – specifically “I’m a Believer” from Season 2. The kids in the show are so motivated to train (they are on a volleyball team) and I find that their motivation is a bit contagious.

I'm a Believer - Haikyuu!! Second Season OP | Piano Cover ...

Thanks for reading!