Hydro-Phobia

This summer, in an attempt to get some exercise while still not having to deal with the Texas heat, I’ve been going to water aerobics at the YMCA. It’s a good way to work on strength and flexibility without putting undue stress on my weak knees and ankles.   

Those who know me will tell you that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an athlete, despite my brief involvement in jogging for a few years back when I was in my late 20s and early 30s. I didn’t have any speed then, but I had a lot of endurance, so I ran in several 10K races, all with the specific goal of finishing without getting hurt. And I accomplished that at the blazing speed of 12 to 13 minutes per mile. In other words, only just slightly faster than a walking pace.

I also might mention here that I am not a swimmer, unless you count a weak dog paddle (that looks more like a drowning dog—lots of splashing around and very little forward movement). As a small child on a trip to a local creek to “swim” with my parents, I managed to step into a hole where the water went over my head until Daddy pulled me out. That experience made me fearful of water. Around the time I started first grade, my parents signed me up for swimming lessons, and I did learn to float on my back, as well as face down for as long as I could hold my breath. But when it actually came to swimming, I could never overcome my fear of the water for more than a few strokes. That doesn’t mean that I stayed in the shallow end of the pool during my adolescent years. No, I went all around the pool, everywhere I could go and still be within an arms length of the side of the pool.

As an adult, I had two scary experiences on water, each involving a canoe. I took a relaxing trip down a river with another teacher and some of our students that ended with one short section of rapids. The canoe I was in flipping over, trapping me underneath in water that was over my head until I managed to kick and push upward with my hands to get out from under the canoe and be pulled to safety. Not long after that, I was on a church retreat on Lake Travis. One of the guys from my Sunday School class asked me if I wanted to go for a ride in a canoe, and I foolishly said O.K. I thought we would be just paddling around the little inlet where I had seen canoers earlier. Uh-uh. That would have been too easy. As soon as we got in the canoe, he began rowing toward the middle of the lake.  Ski boats and skiers were passing us on both sides—simultaneously. We were bobbing up and down more than a fishing buoy in a hurricane.

Even with my history, I didn’t anticipate any problems with water aerobics because the part of the pool we use isn’t very deep, certainly not over my head. Also, the water aerobics sessions, at least in the mornings, tends to be geared toward the “Silver Sneakers” group (retirees), some of them recovering from or dealing with limitations associated with strokes and arthritis. I knew I was fairly strong and had only a couple of knee and ankle problems to deal with—and the water should help with those. I surely should be able to do what people 10 to 20 years older could do.

How difficult could water aerobics be? Famous last words.

I’ve been going two days a week, Mondays and Wednesdays. Each day has a different instructor, so the routines vary. To warm up, both instructors use techniques like jogging in place or doing jumping jacks in the water, simple enough for me. To build strength, they asked us to use Styrofoam barbells and foam “noodles” under the water—also simple.

Then they embellished the routines, linking several moves together to music. Sounds a lot like dancing, doesn’t it, and I have almost no sense of rhythm. (One of them incorporates the moves of the “Macarena,” popular a decade or so ago, and I couldn't do it then either.) Even the relatively simple rocking horse move (lunging forward on the right foot while the left foot comes off the bottom of the pool, simultaneously pushing water away from your body with both arms, then rocking back on the left foot as the right foot comes off the bottom of the pool and pulling both arms back toward your body) takes some getting used to. Just look at how many words it takes to describe the action. And then the instructor starts counting—up to 8, then backwards again to 1. We’re supposed to change position every time she calls a new number. I finally decided, if I can start with the class at 1 and end up with the class back at 1, the middle part isn’t all that important. I just keep moving, and sometimes I’m with the class (rarely) and sometimes I’m not (usually).

Another drill one of the instructors loves is when we hold our hands clasped above our heads and run across the pool in chest-deep water as fast as we can, until she stops us and tells us to run backwards. (Did I mention that she’s retired military?) Running in water is less dangerous for me than trying to run on land or even in a gym because I’m not as likely to trip myself and fall by dragging my right foot, the one with the nerve that doesn’t work right. The water offers resistance, which is good exercise, but stopping is more difficult. My momentum always takes me forward another two or three steps when she says to stop before I can initiate the reverse movement. That would be O.K. if I were in the pool by myself, but this is a class, remember? I do not want to be known as the one who ran over some senior citizen in the pool. And I’ve come close to doing just that.

The instructor of the Monday class likes to have us use one of the “noodles,” the ends held securely in each hand, for support in the water as we do some sideways underwater kicks. I don’t fully trust the “noodles” so I keep one foot on the bottom of the pool as I lean forward with the “noodle” and kick with the other foot.  About two weeks ago, as I kicked out with my right leg, the calf muscle cramped. All I had to do was put the right foot down and stand up. Sure, I know that now, but at that moment my instinct was to grab the cramping leg, which meant turning loose of the “noodle” with my right hand, causing me to toppled over backwards and splash everyone within a five-foot radius while I tried to regain my footing. The only thing that could have been more embarrassing would have been if the lifeguard had jumped in to help me, and he was leaning forward with his buoy when I finally managed to get both feet on the bottom of the pool again.

Both instructors like to have us do a cross-country skiing move in the pool, alternating between right leg and left arm forward, left leg and right arm back and left leg and right arm forward, right leg and left arm back. This one has great potential for disaster. First, I have to keep my arm and leg movements coordinated, an almost impossible task for somewhat who can lose her balance and fall while standing still. To complicate the exercise, one of the instructors likes to insert a “tuck” (pulling the knees up toward the body) while changing the foot and arm positions. Second, this is a move based on skiing, and I may be the world’s worst skier. No kidding. No title has been conferred--yet, but I think it probably is well deserved. I flunked ski school years ago in Breckinridge, Colo., on my one and only attempt at the sport after I took the ski instructor down in the snow several times (unintentionally, of course) and then knocked down my whole ski school class just like dominoes as we lined up to climb the bunny slope sideways. (I was at the bottom of the hill when the instructor told us to lean on the side of our skis to hold our position on the incline. I leaned a little too far, fell on the person next to me, who fell on the next person, and so on all the way to the top of the hill.) For my own safety, and that of everyone skiing on the mountain that day, the instructor advised me to go have some hot chocolate and watch the ice skaters on Maggie Pond.

I’ve wondered if I need to put a disclaimer somewhere on my swimsuit, especially on those days when the pool is really crowded: “Warning—Totally out of control waterphobe with bad balance, prone to sudden, unpredictable movements, frantic splashing, and sheer panic. Approach at your own risk.”

Despite the (unplanned) thrills I’ve experienced in water aerobics, I have enjoyed the classes, and I think they’ve been successful in some respects. My upper arms and shoulders seem more muscular, and I do have a greater range of motion in my legs. I’ve also gotten used to the smell of chlorine which seems to cling to me, no matter how much I shower, wash my hair, and launder my swimsuit and towels. It’s not an unpleasant smell, really—mixed with my pineapple-coconut bath gel and body lotion, it smells like summer. 

An Anniversary of Sorts

This past Sunday, July 15, was an anniversary for me. Not the kind that you receive gifts for, like a birthday or wedding anniversary, but an anniversary all the same, one that I expect I will continue to observe for the rest of my life. And like a lot of holidays on the calendar, it is closely paired with another date: Memorial Day/Veteran’s Day, Flag Day/the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving/Christmas, Christmas Eve/Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day, Christmas/Easter, Mardi Gras/Easter, Hanukkah/Passover, etc.   

For me, the paired dates are April 8 and July 15, both in 2012. April 8 was the date I was in a major car accident that could have taken my life. July 15 was the date I was finally released from my tour of North Texas hospitals, nursing homes, and rehabilitation centers. I guess I could add a third date to that list, October 29, 2012, the date I was released from outpatient rehabilitation, but that date didn’t have the impact (no pun intended) of the other two.

At the time of the accident I had very little experience with doctors and hospitals other than routine treatment for an occasional bout with allergies or a sinus infection. I had pneumonia several years earlier and had to miss work for seven days, but even that was really not a big deal. I just stayed home, took my medicine, and slept a lot. I had previously had three broken bones, a toe, and both pinkie fingers, and those were three separate injuries. Other than that, good health.

That night in April, in an instant, I had a broken right femur caused by sliding sideways into the gear shift, a broken left wrist caused by the exploding airbag, and a broken left ankle, cause unknown, just the force of the impact, I guess. Emergency medical technicians worked to stabilize my injuries before getting me out of the car, then took me across the intersection to a field where a waiting CareFlite helicopter took me to Harris Methodist Hospital in downtown Fort Worth. I was there for most of the month of April, including the first three days in intensive care.

Next, I went to Heritage Oaks Nursing Home/Rehab in north central Arlington where I spent a month trying to build up my strength. Most of the residents were elderly people who had had strokes, but there were a few residents who were about my age, although they, too, were recovering from strokes. I was the only one of the residents I met there who was healing from a car accident.

In early June of 2010, I moved to the HealthSouth Rehabilation Hospital in south central Arlington. By that time I was able to move myself from the bed to a wheelchair and then back to the bed. The therapists there were real slave drivers, in a nice sort of way. They really worked us, but again, most of the residents were older than I was and many were in much more serious condition. By that time I was a lot stronger, and I got even stronger propelling myself up and down the halls in the wheelchair. I still wasn’t able to put any weight on my left ankle because some of the bones were still being held together with a screw, so I couldn’t do any standing. My physical therapist could not understand why I wasn’t able to stand up on just one leg, but I told him, “It’s called a lack of coordination. I couldn’t stand up without using both legs before the accident.” I still can’t. So since he couldn’t get me to stand, he had me left weights to strengthen my arms.

At the end of the last week of June, I returned to Heritage Oaks for another stay. I needed to have surgery to remove the screw in my ankle, and HealthSouth doctors determined they could do no more until the surgery was done. This time at Heritage Oaks I was much more independent, although I was still in a wheelchair. I could get myself into and out of bed, go get whatever I needed from the nursing staff, maneuver myself into the bathroom, and take a shower by myself. I was there a little more than a week. I had the surgery on a Thursday afternoon, and the following Monday, I moved one last time.

This time I went to Arlington Rehabilitative Hospital in northwest Arlington. The nurses, doctors, and therapists there were very nice and quite competent. They specialized in working with stroke victims, and they did get me a lot of practical instruction on how to do things around the house: load the washer or the dishwasher, maneuver through a narrow bathroom door with a walker, go up and down steps and curbs. However, a lot of the skills they would ordinarily have taught me I had already learned at Heritage Oaks and HealthSouth.

Finally, on July 15, I was released from that hospital to go home. I certainly couldn’t do much on my own at first. My principal exercise was in walking from the back of the house to the front and back to my recliner several times a day. But I started outpatient rehab and began to do things with my friends from church again. In early August, I bought a Hyundai Santa Fe to replace the Saturn totaled in the accident and went back to school when school started.

So Sunday, as I thought about the ways my life has changed in the two years since I ended my hospitalization from the accident, I noted a lot of changes. I’m not fully recovered, and it looks like I may never regain all the abilities I had before the accident. The broken femur stretched the nerve that affects the ability to raise and lower the front part of my foot by flexing the ankle. The doctor thought that would eventually come back, but so far it hasn’t. I’ve figured out a way to compensate most of the time, but I still have to be careful that I don’t drop my toes, stumble, and fall. I have fallen once that way, and I’ve tripped and caught myself many times. So I’ve had to slow down. My left ankle still swells if I stand up too long or walk too far. And my left wrist is still weak and may eventually develop carpal tunnel problems.

While I usually walk with a cane, I’m notorious for putting it down somewhere and walking off without it. Once, in the spring, I was standing by the classroom door when the fire alarm rang, and I was halfway out of the building before I realized the cane was still in the classroom. Oh, well. I made it outside and back with no mishaps. Some of my friends see that as a sign that I may one day not need the cane, but others, those with less respect for their elders, say it’s just proof that I’m absent-minded.

I’m gearing up to start my third year of school after the accident. This may be my last year to teach in public school. I’ve been thinking I might retire and collect my teacher retirement, while teaching in one of the private schools or community colleges in the area. I might do some writing, or I could just be a substitute teacher in Arlington and Mansfield. That would save me a lot on gasoline if I could work closer to home and eliminate the daily 56-mile commute.

Looking back, I can see how far I’ve come in two years, and I’m still hoping to improve further. I’ve also become more sensitive to the needs of people with disabilities. In the fall of 2010 I went to the State Fair of Texas with the assistance of a motorized scooter I rented at the fair. And in that scooter, to most of the people at the fair I was every bit as invisible as Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility made him. I tried to buy my lunch at one of the indoor booths at the fair and was ignored until my sister DJ happened to pass by and asked, “You still don’t have your food?” She ordered for me, and I finally got my lunch. Fair-goers stepped in front of me and cut me off from the rest of my group all day, only noticing my presence if I was unable to stop in time and bumped into them. (No, I didn’t do it on purpose, but it was tempting.)

I’ve become vocal about the rights of the disabled, especially businesses that don’t have enough handicapped spaces or that pile merchandise in the aisles so that the aisles are too narrow to navigate with a walker or wheelchair. Maybe once I retire, I’ll get involved with some advocate groups.

So on this second anniversary, all in all, I think I’m doing pretty well. I’m still able to work, although really enjoying my summer vacation, and I’m starting to look ahead to life after high school—at last, 43 years after most of my classmates left their high school days behind.