PT on my Own – month 2

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I am in my second month of continuing my physical therapy exercises without the rigor of twice weekly appointments. I’ve become somewhat inconsistent – and am determined to get back to a better routine. My biggest challenge seems to be the aspects of my everyday life that have me sitting for too long: road trips, in front of my computer, meetings and classes. Toward the end of the day, I realize I haven’t done enough of the exercises to improve…and maybe not even enough to maintain. And then I have a round of aches at night…poor sleep…a bad cycle begins.

I have been more consistent in getting at least 8,000 steps per day and that is helpful but does not work on all the muscles that need to be stretched and improved.

I’ve started a seated twist exercise that seem to be helping relieve lower back pain very quickly. It is easy to do when I am out and about.

I bought some slats for under the mattress of the twin bed I use for back exercises…to make it firmer. Now I need to open the box and get them in place!

It helps that the weather is warmer, and I hope in the next month to be outdoors more frequently doing yard work which will test how well the physical therapy exercises are keeping my lower back pain at bay.

Previous Physical Therapy posts

Road Trip to Dallas in March 2025

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I left home before 6 AM and, because of the shift to daylight savings time, it was very dark for the first hour of the trip. It had been very windy the day before and cold overnight…with snow flurries. Fortunately, it was too windy and not cold enough for any accumulation. I made my usual first stop at a Loves just west of Joplin, before entering Oklahoma. I have made the trek so many times that I am very familiar with the places I like to stop. The next stop is at the Loves when I get off the turnpike at Big Cabin to go south on US 69/75. I buy a protein drink for breakfast. Stop three is at a QT in Muskogee where I buy gas this time. I stop at the Loves in Atoka for a cookie and then the Anna TX Whataburger for lunch…and then I am at the assisted living residence to visit with by dad.

I find him awake and in his rocking chair in his room. We do a round of physical therapy, and he seems resigned to doing the exercises. I notice when he stands up from the rocker that he seems stronger than he did in February after he’d had a short illness. The PT seems to be helping. We walked a bit outdoors…not around the block completely but about half the distance and he didn’t seem exhausted afterwards like he did back in January. I noticed that the redbuds are beginning to bloom, and the evergreen shrubs are getting new leaves. Afterward we disassemble a completed puzzle and put it in its box….started a new one – almost completing the frame before he complained that he can’t see well enough to continue. It had been about 2 hours since I arrived…about the max that he can enjoy at this point.

When I get to the hotel – there is no one at the front desk so I use that as a prompt to walk around outside for about 10 minutes; the afternoon temperature was in the upper 60s and the sun was shining. It was a pleasant afternoon. I took a few pictures of river rocks in one bed… some fiber curves of a yucca, and some mistletoe in a tree. There were drifts of leaves in areas of the parking lot where cars don’t park frequently….and a cedar branch that got painted red when the ‘no parking’ curbs were re-painted.

I focused on my own physical therapy for part of the evening! The food for my dinner that I brought from home worked well – I was glad I didn’t have to go anywhere else once I got to the hotel. I was still feeling the impact of the walk with my dad – must have been enough of some kind of pollen that caused my sinuses to drain (runny nose and sneezes) that continued until the early morning hours.

The next morning, I was up at my usual time and having the hotel breakfast shortly after 6:30 AM when they opened. I headed to the assisted living residence by about 7:20. It was the morning rush in the Dallas suburbs. The route is a main thoroughfare with lights but there was more honking of horns than I remembered from previous trips. My focus shifted to my dad for the hour and half I was with him.

Someone had opened the blinds on his window, and he was noticing the sun shining on the neighboring house’s chimney and then roof. I remembered to water the outdoor raised beds that my sister has planted; it was too cool outdoors to take my dad with me. After I returned, he was ready to work on the puzzle. We finished the frame and made some progress on the interior. He complained that he couldn’t see well enough about the time the staff started serving breakfast and I left. I took pictures of the rocks around the circular driveway of the assisted living residence…mostly sandstone, I think.

I had noticed on the drive down, that my stress level while driving seemed high so I decided to try keeping my thoughts more concentrated on the present rather than planning for events and activities coming up in the next few weeks. I noticed more things along the way:

  • License plates – Maine and Wisconsin were two further afield ones. Most were Texas, Oklahoma, and then, once I was close to home, Missouri. The Cherokee and Choctaw license plates were the most numerous tribal plates.

  • The cars that seemed to be trying to go faster than anyone else – darting from lane to lane on the highway – had Texas plates until I got into Missouri. Then it was Missouri drivers going way over the speed limit (more than 10 mph faster). They tended to get on the bumper of the car not going fast enough in front of them too.

  • There are some trees I recognize going down the road. Sycamores are easy to spot in winter and they haven’t leafed out yet…so they are still distinctive. The Bradford/Callery pears and redbuds are blooming right now so they are easy to ID. The Callery pears (escaped Branford pears) are more frequently seen near towns…where Bradford Pears were planted, birds ate the seeds and then carried them nearby. Sometimes they are half the trees in abandoned fields…along with eastern redcedars. The redcedars are native but they are more numerous now than they were historically because they thrive in damaged soil without periodic fires to control their numbers. The native redbuds are blooming…full bloom in Texas and buds transitioning to bloom in Missouri.

  • There are the always some roadkill that I notice. The most frequent this trip was skunks, but I saw a few racoons as well.

  • There are train tracks along US 69 in Oklahoma. Most were moving. When they were moving in the same direction I was traveling, I could tell that I was going faster than the train!

  • The wind was picking up dust in some places. It wasn’t always visible, but I could hear it when it hit my car. There was more trash along the sides of the road…caught in fences and trees or it would have just continued moving. My eyes felt itchy for much of the drive.

  • As I go closer to home, I noticed several cars that were packed with belongings – the rear window filled with what looked like clothes. I wondered if it was college student going back to school after spring break – with a lot of clean clothes!

When I got home, I checked the ‘stress’ metric that is recorded by my Garmin Lily…and it was lower than it had been on the previous day while I was driving! So – focusing on the ‘present’ is helpful!

PT on my Own

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It’s been three weeks since my last physical therapy session. I’ve had some ups and downs. The therapy did succeed in dramatically reducing my back pain but now there are other aches that I wasn’t noticing previously. They could be simply a byproduct of me becoming more active and using some muscles that did not get worked very much previously. There were a couple of days I felt like I was coming down with a cold or flu…but then I bounced back feeling back to normal without getting sicker.

No matter how I feel…I do at least some PT every day and try to add repetitions or harder exercise as often as I can. The overall trend is good but not always a straight path. I am challenged to remember the warm-up required for some parts of the routine. One routine that is done on stairs is particularly hard on the knees if I don’t warm-up first!

There is more vigorous activity in some of my other activities now. I fast walk between by car and the geology class I am taking; the last bit is up three flights of stairs. After class I take the stairs down and go to another building to meet my daughter for lunch…with another 3 flights of stairs up to the dining room. We take the elevator down! On those days, I don’t do the PT routine that involves stairs.

I am still challenged to remember to stand correctly when I am out and about – particularly on uneven terrain after being in the car for an hour or more; the result is that my back starts hurting. My husband and I are going to be taking some field trips soon that will give me more opportunity to practice – learn how to get my muscles warmed-up enough after being in the car to enjoy the hiking.

Ten Little Celebrations - January 2025

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January was a relatively quiet month after December…but still plenty to celebrate.

52 years of married life. Every year I marvel that it has been such a long time…and celebrate that it has been an easy accomplishment for us.

A snow day. Now that I am ‘post career’ there are not as many commitments that force me to leave home in inclement weather. It is easy to enjoy snow on the ground from at home! I particularly celebrate watching birds at our feeders on a snowy day…drinking hot chocolate.

Cranberries in oatmeal. I still have frozen cranberries in my freezer from November and December. They are a flavor and color to celebrate in an oatmeal breakfast!

Finding a speaker for the February Missouri Master Naturalist meeting. The person my predecessor as the program chairperson had arranged for February was going to be out of town on the day…so I had an immediate emergency. I celebrated when I found a person to do a talk on Missouri geology and the person originally scheduled for February will talk in March!

Home before the snow started. I can drive in snow but realize that it can be hazardous particularly in hilly areas – so I celebrated that I made it home before it started.

Aquarium at the Boardwalk in Branson. I celebrated a field trip that could be enjoyed on a very cold day.

Leftover baked chicken. An easy stir fry: a few vegetables cut up and chunks of leftover baked chicken – a celebration of flavors in a quick meal.

Shoveling snow…without my back hurting. I am celebrating the success of my physical therapy sessions. One of the success indicators came when I shoveled snow without pain!

Female downy woodpecker. For weeks we saw only a male downy woodpecker….so it was worth celebrating when a female showed up. Maybe they’ll stay in the area and have young this spring.

My daughter in 1st class. My daughter had an awful experience traveling in bad weather – cancelled flights, delays, luggage lost for a few days, getting to the hotel only to have the planned meeting moved to Zoom. We all celebrated when the airline got her luggage to her about 24 hours before she headed home and moved her to 1st class for the longest leg of her return flight. She enjoyed a big breakfast.

Shoveling our Driveway and Sidewalk

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After a snow day….

I decided our driveway and sidewalk was not to going clear via melting…shoveling would be required and the sunny afternoon the day after the snow came down was the prime time to do it. Perhaps my physical therapy would help me do more at one time than I would have been able to 6 weeks ago. The temperature was in the low 40s when I bundled up and headed outside.

I could hear the melt water trickling in the downspouts and see it on the driveway closest to the house; having the driveway on the south side of the house means that it gets sun almost all day long which usually means the snow melts fast enough that we don’t need to shovel. The snow on the front yard this time still measured 4 inches even with the melting. The walkway to the front door was snow covered but looking slushy.

I spent about 30 minutes shoveling the path to the front door and most of my side of the driveway…deciding not to push past my comfort level (i.e. put the gains from physical therapy at risk). The pile at the street created by the snowplow was left for the next day!

Physical Therapy

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I’ve had 8 physical therapy sessions – motivated by lower back pain. At first, I thought it was a long shot that they would help very much but now it looks like they might be as successful as the session I had more than 15 years ago for shoulder pain (which totally fixed that problem).

This time around, I know there are some age-related issues but strengthening muscles is already helping! The exercises I started with were very simple and have built up over the past few weeks. There was a breakthrough around the end of 2024 when I discovered a maneuver that resolved backpain almost immediately just as I did years ago with the shoulder pain. To keep the pain from happening during all activities, the muscles must be stronger…but I feel good when I exercise now rather than afraid that I am going to hurt myself. When I take my road trips, I know exercises I can do that make the prolonged sitting not a prelude to back pain! An open car door (the lower ledge of the opening is a good height to put my foot for the exercises) is all I need to do them.

Now that I have achieved more pain-free time, I am probably going to make more rapid progress building up muscles that had weakened as I had curtailed some types of activity due to pain in 2024.

I am also forming the habit of doing focused exercises twice a day…and that is probably important to achieving and then maintaining the muscle strength required to keep the lower back pain from taking over again.

I am a fan of physical therapy….awed at the skills of the therapists to select the ramp up of exercise to help.

Different in 2025

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What am I anticipating being different in 2025?

It is a better thought process for me than making a list of resolutions…even though to make some of the ‘anticipations’ become reality it will take some intentional action on my part which might be very much like the focus a resolution can have. But I am noticing that what I have on my list this year are things that have been available in some form to me before; I am simply making the decision to follow through…and enjoy the ride.

Last year I enjoyed the Missouri Master Naturalist (MMN) training and in 2025 I am going to explore the opportunities associated with being an MMN. I’ll be organizing the monthly programs for the chapter and ramping up my volunteering. At the end of 2024 it appeared that 20 hours of volunteering per month would be feasible…and I might discover that I can do more during some months of the year.

My husband has pointed out that the local Audubon Society chapter has great field trips and we are already planning to go to 2 in early 2025….and more of those will probably become our norm.

I initiated some Missouri geology themed day trips in December (1st one was to the Joplin History and Mineral Museum and Grand Falls) and want to do more in 2025. We’re planning to go to Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge in February for birding….but there will be geology there too (it in the part of the state that was glaciated)! Maybe I will make a day trip to the Ed Clark Museum of Missouri Geology in Rolla in January. I’ve always wanted to take a basic geology class but never could fit it into my schedule back when I was in college…so I am registering for one during the 2025 spring semester at Missouri State University; maybe they will have a field trip or two.

I hope I can finally renew my friendship with a childhood friend (we’ve been exchanging Christmas cards for years but haven’t seen each other since we were in our teens). We have been communicating via text over the past year but then events in our families made it challenging to reconnect in person. Maybe it will happen in 2025.

The physical therapy I am getting now is beginning to yield positive results and I am anticipating that a lot of the activities I want to do are going to be easier for me physically…so I am very motivated to do what they tell me and continue a routine of exercises that will sustain the improvement.

I am looking forward to the differences from 2024 that I am anticipating!

Physical therapy (1)

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My first session of physical therapy for lower back pain was just before Thanksgiving. I have 2 appointments per week through December – with a week off while I am out of town. It will be fabulous if this round can be as successful as the one about 20 years ago when I had a shoulder problem.

It has started out with very simple exercises for me to do twice a day. I’m sure it will ramp up to more challenging ones soon since the first ones are very easy for me. I am optimistic that it is going to help because of my previous experience and because the therapist has already made some suggestions that are helping me move without hurting!

It feels great to be ending the year with this type of activity…doing something that has the potential to enable me to start 2025 in better physical condition than I’ve been in 2024!