When I have mornings like this morning when I get up and I do not want to face the day because I feel that bad. I just do not want to do it. I am reminded of the disappointment that this little face will have.
This morning was not nearly as cool as yesterday was, but still Lance wanted to wear his frog bike helmet cover with his ear muffs to keep his head and ears warm. He loves them. He was so grateful when I completed them last year. He did not complain about riding in the cold after that. His head was warm. His little ears were warm. His fingers, not so much but we found him some thicker knitted gloves and he was happier. Nonetheless, he was ready to start wearing his cross-eyed, hand-knitted frog bike helmet cover this year. He could not wait.
So far this year we have only missed four days in six weeks, so in spite of the splitting headache that I woke up with this morning and the fact that I felt awful, I crawled out of bed at 6:00AM and tried to pull myself together. I knew that I had a sinus infection. I suspected it for a few days. The past couple of days, I had been waking up with the typical headache, but after being upright for about an hour the headache would subside and I would be fine. This morning, however, that was not the case. I was full-on facial pain on one side of my face. I had an ear ache on the other side, probably a result from the cold weather rides we have had as that is when it started hurting. I had some sensitivity to the light. I was hurting and it was not getting any better. It was not getting any worse, but it was not getting any better. I also noticed some asthma flare-up this morning. I was not too worried as I had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon, but we still had to get Lance to school this morning.
There I was looking at Lance and his excitement about it being cool enough to want to wear his frog cover and how can you deny the child that excitement? I could not. Even in my discomfort, I could not deny him that opportunity. Today could be the last chance to wear it for a few more weeks so we were going to ride.
Here is why I ride…
I ride for this child…
I ride for that smile every morning. I ride because he makes me smile every morning and afternoon when we do this and it is hard. Sometimes it is hard. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes we do not want to do it. Sometimes it is really hot. Sometimes it really windy. Sometimes the sun is really bright and really hurts our eyes. Sometimes we are just really tired. Sometimes…
We can both come up with a lot of excuses as to why we do not want to ride. I can certainly come up with a lot more than Lance can. Then there are always a lot of reasons why I should.
I ride because it is good for me. I ride because in spite of having asthma that we have had problems managing in the past, I can ride. Today I was able to walk into the doctor’s office and announce that I had not been taking one of my inhaled steroids for a couple of months. I had stopped taking it for a couple of reasons and I have seen a couple of benefits from stopping it. I stopped with caution and I do not recommend that just anyone stop taking a medicine. I fortunately, had a rescue inhaler that I could then switch to full-time if I wanted to per the dosage on it. I was doing fine on just the rescue inhaler whereas I did not feel like my asthma medicines were keeping up with my eight mile rides every day before I quit the medicine.
I had been having problems with a sore throat and swallowing issues since January of 2011, essentially since my hysterectomy surgery, and within a month of going off this particular medicine the sore throat started to ease up and so did some of the swallowing issues. I had been on the medicine much longer than that. I suspect certain things. The doctor cannot confirm them. I suspect that if I have problems again with the antibiotic I am now on for the sinus infection that I currently have. What I suspect it was (or is) can flare back up with antibiotics. If it does it can confirm some issues for me and possibly help resolve some issues when treated. Of course, it will not resolve everything, but if it can explain just some of them then we are one step closer to knowing what all of this has been for in the first place. Sometimes the not knowing is worse than the knowing. At least if I know I can figure out how to minimize further problems.
Today’s doctor’s visit was a reminder of why I ride because of as bad as I was feeling, and I was feeling pretty rotten by the time I saw the doctor, my blood pressure check was not as bad as I thought it would be. It was elevated over where it has been down to over the past few months, but it was not as high as it has been in the past few years. It was indicating my level of pain. It makes me wonder just what it would have been if I had not had that migraine with the whole tunnel vision going on in one eye and the aura starting. I wonder what it would have been like if I had not had a sinus infection. Still I am not unhappy with my blood pressure the way it was because I have seen it so much worse. So I ride because I can ride and keep my blood pressure down…
Then in spite of stepping on the scale and it reading more pounds than the last time I stepped on the scale which is frustrating to say the least, when the nurse came in to give me my shots she asked if I had lost more weight. I told her I had not, that technically I had gained weight. She said, “you look like you have lost more weight and you look good.” That alone is a pretty good motivator. Now I already knew that the weight was going up. We figure a lot of it is the conversion to muscle as muscle weighs more. I also figure some of it is my body’s inability to currently keep up with my rate of metabolism with my digestion problems. I am eating because I am burning the calories faster than I normally consume them with my digestion problems and general lack of appetite. With the increased and continual exercise, my metabolism has increased my appetite slowly over the past six weeks but unfortunately I still have to actually digest all that food. My body has not kept up as well as I would like it too. So we are having a balancing act here. It will balance back out, but it will take a little while. Since I am also not feeling well and have not been for a couple of weeks that does not help. Anyway, I had already noticed the general appearance of weight loss because my pants were starting to fall down more. I was doing the general “belt loop tug” on them more often. That was a good feeling in spite of what the scale was saying. It was really funny the says I wore certain pants on the bike to ride and they would slip a bit when I would stand up on the pedals and then I would sit back on the seat and have them cut into my belly and I would flash everyone behind me because they would fall just enough to show my undies. So I would have to pull my pants back up. Needless to say I cannot stand up on the pedals if I wear those pants or I just cannot wear them. It is still a good feeling to know that the appearance of weight loss can be seen by others in spite of that silly not so small number on the scale. So I ride for this…
Alas, today I was given a steroid shot to help me get over the hump of the nasty sinus infection and how bad I have been feeling a bit quicker. A boost. I was given the option to take the oral steroids or the shot. As the oral steroids do not work as fast and they have more and longer lasting side effects than the shots, I opted for the shot this go around. It would work faster and I could just get on with life. It would help me feel better faster and ultimately the antibiotics would work faster. With my lungs making wheezing sounds from the asthma flare-up, I needed to feel better quicker rather than later. I came home from the doctor’s office after running an errand with my sister, stopping to get lunch at Sub-way, dropping her off at work, then stopping at the pharmacy to pick up my prescriptions. I came home and sat down in the recliner and finished off too many fudge covered graham cookies. I have decided that comfort foods are just bad when you do not feel good and you have had a steroid shot to help drive everything into over drive. It is just evil. At least I took a nap. I forgot about the part of the steroid side-effects in me where recently I am just wired. I mean wired! Like going 100MPH and not going to sleep a wink wired. The fact that I did get the nap this afternoon is only going to complicate the fact that I am wired, but it is probably good that I did get the nap because it will help take the edge off. I will not go over 24 hours without sleep if I do not get some sleep tonight as I did have an afternoon nap. It will only be a few hours longer than I want to go without sleep. Of course, I did ride four miles on the bicycle this afternoon after the nap so maybe that will help. Should be fun to ride tomorrow if I do not get any sleep tonight, however.
Today was overall a good reminder of just why I ride with my kid. There are the obvious reasons. I just do not want to sit in the carpool line in the afternoons. It is not so bad in the mornings. In the afternoons, however, I do not want to be in that nonsense. I did it for a year when Andrew was in Kindergarten when the kids attended Krahn Elementary originally. After a year of that, I promptly put him on the school bus because it was a repeat event of me crossing paths with the school bus on the street upon arriving at the house. I could not beat the school bus home because of the wait in the carpool line. I did from time to time go pick the boys up for various reasons but it was the exception rather than the routine after that. Fortunately or unfortunately, the elementary school Lance attends now does not have school bus service and so our only options are foot, bike, or car. Well I suppose he could come up with some other very imaginative ways to get to school in the morning, but a school bus is not an option for him. With the traffic some mornings I am reminded why we ride. I do not want to deal with it. With the traffic every afternoon, I am reminded daily why we ride. I do not want to deal with it. My neighbors all drive. Most of them do carpool. That is fine for them. I just do not understand. Excuses are easy to come up with. Reasons why are so much harder to justify it seems. Or at least it is so much harder to stick with them. So I am going to put my biggest reason up on top and if that is not enough, my personal reasons will be that this is for my health. If that is not enough as I am the first to admit that I am lazy, I will remember just how much I hate to deal with the traffic at the school.
That smile in the morning, however, it is enough for now…
It was pretty fun to look at the day we came home soaking wet too. That was pretty fun. He was talking about that for days.
Be the first to comment