I've been thinking about this topic for a long time in relation to myself. Here I am, 58 years young, a breast cancer survivor, wife, mother, grandmother, quality assurance professional in the nuclear power industry - and dog agility competitor. I'm sure there's more to me such as family tax preparer, dog groomer, dish washer, weed puller, drinkin' buddy, etc., but the aforementioned roles are the main ones for the purposes of this blog.
The breast cancer treatments are all behind me now as of last week. They included a lumpectomy (twice to get clean margins), port-o-cath surgery, knarly chemo (Taxol), radiation, not so knarly chemo (Herceptin), removal of port-o-cath. Now all we have to do is monitor things. Through it all I was told by my doctors to stay active and that would help minimize the effects of treatments. While I was already fairly active anyway because of the dog agility thing and because I live on an acre in the country with a dog training facility that I rent out, I didn't give my physical fitness to keep up with it all a 2nd thought. The breast cancer journey changed all that.
I continued to compete in the dog agility trials on doctor's orders (at least my interpretation of them since that's an activity I enjoy!). It was quite honestly, a damned difficult and frustrating endeavor. My body simply didn't have the "get up and go" it once had. Competition is a funny thing. When you don't win people will tell you what you should've done as if you were perfectly able to do it but just didn't due to some brain fart, lack of focus or bad strategy. I know they mean to be helpful but it got more than a little bothersome to hear things like that when first of all, it was almost everything I could do to even get there, and second, only I knew how badly my stomach hurt, my eyes weren't focusing, my muscles wouldn't move, I wanted to get to the bathroom, and so on.
After I finished the chemo and radiation and moved on to the weekly Herceptin infusions for 9 months, I thought I received a severe injury. X-rays didn't show one but my left hip felt like it had been run over by a Mack truck and my left leg and foot were constantly numb or with that pins & needles feeling. I wondered if the Herceptin had anything to do with it by my oncologist disagreed.
Long story short, I got an MRI which showed some spinal stenosis which explained the leg issues but not the hip ones, went to physical therapy and began to work out at home. It's now been almost 6 months since the left hip/leg/foot pain. Things are better but not totally and...I seem to keep hurting something else. In the last couple of dog agility competitions I worked extra hard to run with quickness and length to my strides. I haven't been running like that in practice to "save" myself for competitions but wound up coming home with a notted up hamstring in one leg and a sore glute muscle and ham on the other side. Sigh.
I don't want to go on like this, working so hard not to be crippled but continuing to be. Don't they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results? Well now, I happen to know I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested......BAZINGA!
So, this here blog is going to be about what I do to (hopefully) get physically fit again. I hope it will document steps that can be taken by "mature" women who want to feel physically well after an illness as well as my home girls who would like to participate in dog agility or any other sport of their pleasure. Here we go!
