Spring at Last!!!

It's been a long dreary winter but it's spring at last!!!   My lilacs bloomed three weeks earlier this year than they have any year before. The daffodils have already come and gone, and today I picked a bouquet or Japanese iris, calla lilies, bearded iris, and the last of the lilacs.  Also have planted my summer basil and two tomatoes in the topsy turvy tomato thingie (we'll see how THAT turns out!!).

I have been trying to walk at least twice a week but it's been hard getting Carol or Judy to commit.  Last week when Carol came to walk with me,  she got all tweaked about the narrow gravel path behind the State Hospital grounds,  obsessing about snakes and "look -- isn't that poison oak?"    No, carol,  that's  a blackberry vine (sheesh).  We had to turn around and head back to the river trail where it is wide open and paved.  We'll see how she does at Alston Park tomorrow.  Today we did five miles on the back roads in St. Helena, ending up at the Napa Valley Coffee Roasting Company.  Nice!    But I also now have an ipod, so I can walk by myself  -- as long as I walk in open areas  (no hiking trails allowed).  I actually did that a couple Sundays ago -- 3 miles only, though.  Because I m such a technophobe, I couldn't figure out how to download songs from my cds to the damned ipod, but I did manage to find a good radio station to walk with.  I have since downloaded three albums (after sitting on hold to the geek squad for at least a half hour, then doing EXACTLY the same thing I did BEFORE I had a techie on the phone, but this time it worked).  I swear that gadgets have it in for me.  Honest to God.

Curves now has Zumba on Fridays, so I will be doing Zumba on Monday and Friday.  And ballroom dancing on Thursday night.  I think tomorrow might be the last class.  It is a REAL workout -- One and a half hours non stop.   I sweat like crazy.  The class is filled with old people who are as cool as cucumbers!!!  But not me.

Had a recent scare with a breast lump that had to be biopsied.  Lucky for me that it turned out to be only a cyst, but very close to the chest wall, so they couldn't get a good reading on the ultrasound.  I went through all kinds of head trips between the time the biopsy was scheduled and until I got the results.  I kept thinking of the complete irony of being in probably the best shape I've been in for fifteen years -- and then this!  But now the bruises are almost gone and I started walking again on the following day.

Tomorrow I turn 64.  How the hell did I get so old?  I think about my grandmother who, even when I was a little kid, wore orthopedic shoes, a hairnet, and an apron all the time over her flowered cotton housedress.  Our generation is so different at being old!   I still feel sexy and I still feel young.  I can do yoga (OK, not the standing on your head kind of yoga, but the stretches and the warrior poses) and I still like to drive fast.  I still want to get my nails done and experiment with makeup.  I color my hair (don't want to think about what color it would be if I didn't).   But oh, god, my FEET are old!!!!   Bunions and a hammer toe, and absolutely cannot wear high heels.   AND  -- the most supreme irony of all -- I didn't have cleavage until I was over 50!!!!  So unfair!!!!!!

But I'm thinkin' I still have a few good years left in me, and I'm thinkin' they're gonna be fun!

In just a year

It was just about one year ago that I was so sick, I thought I was going to die.  I could not breathe and had zero energy.  The day I made a doctor's appointment with a new doctor because I had only been going to Kaiser in Martinez and now I was going to go to the Napa clinic, the mere act of taking a shower to go to the appointment exhausted me to the point that I was light headed.  In sweats with a hat to cover the hair I was too exhausted to dry and style, with no makeup, I had Rod drive me to Kaiser, then go get a wheelchair because I didn't think I could make it from the parking lot to the office.

At the doctor, I found out I had pneumonia and met the doctor who was about to change my life -- Dr. Ines George, a tiny little thing in a white coat.  After 3 days of medication, I felt so good that I cleaned out the refrigerator.  But. Dr. George was not done with me yet.  She set me up for all kinds of tests inluding a chest xray, heart sonogram, blood and urine tests galore.  I found out that my blood pressure was slightly high, I was vitamin D deficient, and then there were the lung function tests.  Dr. George never shook her finger in my face and said "if you don't quit smoking, you will die".  Instead, she said, "When you are ready to quit, I have tools that will help you. "    The lung function tests showed asthma and early emphysema, so a hefty case of COPD and inhalers I will have to use for the rest of my life.  The test technician said that my lung function could be slightly improved by the inhalers, but would never be fully restored.  If I continue to smoke, she said, my lungs would continue to deteriorate.  At that poiont, I was so grateful that my chest xrays looked ok and my hear seemed sound, that I knew I still had a chance.

The day I retired was the last day I smoked.  Since then, I have lost 25 pounds (oh, why won't that other 25 come off?), work out (Curves or Yoga/Pilates) five days a week, and just three days ago started my walking training for the Susan G Komen 60 mile 3 Day walk.  I have not felt healthier in such a long time, and I am so grateful that I found Dr. George.

In just one year, I have turned my life around, I think!