BOOT CAMP or BUST!

You could call me the adventurous type. Others might call me crazy or reckless but I don’t think that is it. I prefer to think of myself as extremely unlucky at times. But whatever it is, I tend to spend a great deal of time at doctors and urgent care clinics for “self inflicted” wounds. Which is how I ended up in physical therapy this time. But before I can talk about the great people at my local torture chamber (a.k.a physical therapy) I have to talk about how I got here. I wish this was a story of greatness, some good story that will be retold many years in the future. Although I do have a story like that, alas this one is not it. That one is a story of great fortitude and courage and strength. This one unfortunately, is a story of stupidity. Aren’t most like that though?

The university I work for was offering free exercise boot camp over the lunch hour three days a week during the early spring. Free boot camp!! How wonderful!! I thought this would be a great opportunity to kick start a nonexistent exercise regimen. I even put that on the application, “I want to get back in shape, to be able to use this as a launching pad to great things”. Maybe I would run a marathon! Hike tall mountains! I was so pumped for this! I even talked several of my friends at work in to going with me. This would be a great opportunity to bond as colleagues, to learn new exercise techniques and best of all, it was FREE!

I wrote many e-mails to my friends who weren’t as lucky as I thought I was to be able to go to FREE boot camp. I will try to get those posted as well. The first day we had these great instructors who told us how much fun we were going to have, but first they needed to do assessments to put us with our own kind. I was thinking this was great, we will be able to see where we are starting and where we are going. I was humbled by my numbers, but pledged to trudge on, and make those numbers better!

The second day, we got divided into our platoons. I was uplifted by the fact I was put in to the second group. Most everyone was about my age and looked about like I did. The third group was a lot like us, just maybe a little more out of shape than those of us who were just generally out of shape. Then I looked over to group one. This was the “Ken and Barbie” set who thought boot camp would just be great way to just spend an afternoon while bopping about in tiny workout gear. They became our mortal enemy just by fact that running in place for five minutes didn’t even make them break a sweat.

I always tried to do the little things that I was sure was helping me live a better lifestyle, like taking the stairs. I work on the fourth floor of my building so I always felt good taking the stairs. At the beginning of boot camp I was still taking the stairs in the morning, but after slowly walking back to our building after our sessions, we tended to take the elevator. Telling ourselves that we deserve it since we did just get out of class. By the time we were finished with our six week session, the stairs were evil, another inanimate object that I was sure was just laughing at me as I agonizingly attempted to climb them. I would wonder if there was anybody on floor two that I needed to go visit. Maybe someone would just come rescue me if I just waited long enough. Then I just decided all together that someone had definitely put in more flights of stairs to my floor so to spite them I would just take the elevator constantly. Ha, I would show them!

But none of that has anything to do with why I am now in P/T. A couple of weeks before we were finished we were doing an exercise and I felt a sharp jolt shoot from my shoulder to my elbow. Me, being the stubborn one, thought I had just pulled a muscle. I continued on thinking I would just work through the pain. Cue Rocky music. But it just seemed to get worse. We finished boot camp and a few months later I still had trouble even using it for small tasks. Yes, I said it took me a couple of months to realize that maybe I had really hurt myself. My doctor sent me to a sports medicine doctor that looked like she should have been in the first group I talked about earlier, although she was very knowledgeable. What followed was a great round of steroid injections, MRI’s, x-rays, and various other procedures invented just to laugh at people who were in pain. After spending copious amounts of money, she sent me on to a shoulder specialist. Dr. K is a great guy. He studied all my stuff and put me through more torturous movements just to determine that surgery was needed. For those who like to be impressed with big words, I tore my supraspinatus tendon. I hope that comes up sometime on Jeopardy. I could really sound brilliant. So, during surgery they determine that I also needed some bones shaved and some other stuff cleaned up. It could have been worse, which I am very thankful. But has landed me in months of physical therapy just so I can play basketball with my kids, or throw a ball for my dogs.

So, now my FREE boot camp has cost me a huge amount of money. Would I do it again? Probably. What would I do differently? Probably nothing, I don’t seem to learn the first time. Except maybe to not try to be Rocky Balboa. But, it does make my ordinary life a little more interesting.