Tonight was the last official night of “Midnight Society” at the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy and they closed the warehouse at 7:30 p.m.
I say last “official” night because I just heard from my supervisor (at least until the new shift starts Sunday) and my favorite security guard/philosopher that there are a handful of people who can’t transition until after Christmas— and Stitch Fix will let them continue working their traditional hours until then.
That was a really nice move on the business’s part. Too nice in my opinion. I have squeezed a couple months of doctors appointments, tests and physical therapy into two weeks. So part of me is a little jealous.
We start our new work arrangement Sunday.
In other news, my blind friend Nancy and I both had physical therapy today. And Aîné and Brigid of the Celtic Pride got spayed so they are ready for adoption!
But back to physical therapy. Nan and I went together. She’s having issues with her shoulder and numbness in her finger.
I have pain in my spine and fall a lot.
I had to ride a stationary bike for eight minutes. She warmed up on a hand contraption.
I did my Cobra poses, and my physical therapist did that thing where he presses on my spine as if pushing it back into place.
I did deadlifts with a 20 lb kettlebell. I had to lay on my stomach and bend my leg at the knee and lift it off the table. That was harder than it sounds.
I stood on a soft cushion square and moved my leg out using my hip while keeping my knee soft. I also did that kicking back.
I did bridges.
I took a giant ball, held it to the wall with my back, and squared as low as I could.
Meanwhile some teenager stood on a balance ball on one leg, tossed a ball onto a trampoline and caught it ALL while standing on one leg.
I can stand on one leg for nine seconds.
On the floor.
This kid was standing on a ball meant to destabilize you.
And throwing a ball.
I am in total envy.
Meanwhile Nan was teaching the staff to read Braille and how to use a white cane.
And the staff was heartily confused at the fact that friends would come to physical therapy together.
After physical therapy, I turned to Nan. “You what to come to my house for grilled cheese?”
Her answer was a hearty yes. I made hers with Colby Jack, Cheddar and Lebanon Bologna and mine with habanero cheddar and Vevan vegan mozza-melts.
The mozza-melts taste and melt like real cheese, but sadly they have no protein. At all. So while they are a cruelty free version of cheese, they have no nutritional value.
I drank four cups of coffee yesterday and three of them were Supercoffee, so does that make it seven?
My back is feeling much better with all my cobra poses and stretches as prescribed by the physical therapist. (Nan and I have our sessions tomorrow. Nan expects she will be released. I suspect my routine will become more elaborate.)
This is the last week that Stitch Fix will run its second shift “Midnight Society” as has offered flexible scheduling to allow us to transition to day shift. For many of us, each night we say goodbye to friends because we are going to different departments and different shift variations. I will be doing the 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. shift Sunday through Wednesday but I am staying in women’s outbound. I received an email from my new supervisor, and it made me a little teary because my current supervisor is the person who hired me.
I have elected to work 3:30 to 7:30 p.m. this week and have successfully gone to bed as early as 10:30 p.m. and roused as early as 6:30. The average seems to be 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. but as my old sleep schedule was roughly 1:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., it is progress. I expect Sunday to be brutal for all of us, especially for those of us older than 30.
To be safe, I bought more Supercoffee. The teenager is already asking if I will feed the cats before I go to work. The answer for now is I may need a few days before I can adjust to having that much responsibility at 5 a.m.
“I don’t know if they are going to allow that,” she replied.
My daily step count is coming in between 4,000 and 6,000. I suppose some of that is due to partial shifts at the Bizzy Hizzy warehouse and working women’s returns. I stand still in QC, but apparently in Returns I stand even more still. In QC, at least I have to move the carts around every 25-30 minutes. The physical therapist also gave me some hints for my aching spine based on my job in QC, so being in Returns this week has not allowed me to try them.
And murmurs have started about voluntary overtime. For those of us moving to ten hour shifts, any overtime means we will have to work on our days off.
Book sales have been slow lately (so please consider my books as Christmas gifts. They can be purchased from me. For more information on how to do that, click here.) but I also have not dedicated any time to marketing and have fallen behind in my social media and outreach plan. But, as I have received one $20 check from Lafayette College for novels of mine on sale at the College Store, I have filed the paperwork with the state to incorporate Parisian Phoenix Publishing Company and to claim the fictitious name.
My weight might be down 5 lbs. That’s an unhealthy number for one week into weight loss. In my past experience, when I make healthy choices and track my macros, there is always an encouraging initial dip. I expect the next five to take much longer. And that’s fine. I’m looking for a trend toward healthier habits and increasing muscle and range of motion.
With the groceries currently in the house, it’s hard to keep my protein intake as high as I would like. My diet tends to be heavy on fat. Not necessarily sweets/fat but fats like nuts, avocado, and half and half in my coffee. Yesterday my macros hit 50% carbs, 20% protein and 30% fat. I’m aiming for 40/40/20. It looks like my weekly average is 40/25/35. I’m also aiming for 1300 calories, and doing well on that.
My protein intake is all over the place. Saturday came in at 120 grams (thank you leftover Thanksgiving turkey). Subsequent days have ranged from 65-85 grams, with 70 being more typical. It’s hard, as I’m not a big meat eater.
So I need to start doing some serious meal planning and keeping lean protein sources around.
I’m going to go get dressed for the gym now, and hopefully make some time for that marketing plan.
I know, like all capital letters and in bold know, that my weight is a problem. I have excuses and plans and can logic everything six ways from Sunday. But it’s time to own up.
And I’ve done that and still failed several times to take control of the situation.
So, on Saturday, after a strong workout and a report from the physical therapist that really suggested I shouldn’t offer any more excuses, I re-downloaded My Fitness Pal and started tracking activity and food.
I challenged myself to make sure I hit 5,000 steps a day, with the intent of increasing that over time. And my current average is probably 4,000. Walked to the gym Saturday. Took the teenager and the dog for a walk. Hit 5,000 by 5 p.m. (And the dog wore down her claws on the sidewalk to the point where she bled. All over the house.)
I entered my gym workout, my water consumed, counted my physical therapy as yoga. Then I dealt with the fact that my eating is half trash, half perfect. Post gym meal? Coffee, Lebanon balogna and a Otis Spunkmeyer Chocolate Chip Cookie.
Yeah, that was the meal choice that made me re-download My Fitness Pal. It’s one thing to accept I made this choice. It’s another to stare at it for the rest of the day.
My dinner plan was more balanced. My Hungryroot box came. Since the teenager was at Petco buying first aid supplies and styptic powder for the dog, I made a lamb Mediterranean salad.
By 6 p.m., my food selections looked like this:
The program defaults to 50% carbohydrates, 25% protein (or is it 30%?) and the remainder fat for the Macro distribution. My diet is always higher in fat than it should be and I know from past experience that protein and fat keep my mood and hunger more stable than a high carb, low fat diet. So I adjusted it. Since I am regularly weight training, my diet should be high protein if I am trying to gain muscle. Which I am. Right now, I am merely aiming for a calorie deficit. If I succeed in shedding some weight, the next step would be to adjust fat and carbohydrates to encourage a leaner look.
The easiest solution to equalize the balance in these macros depicted would be for me to eat a stack of leftover turkey, plain, or perhaps with a little bit of horseradish if I get hungry again. That would shift the ratio of carbs, fat and protein.
So, as a former journalist, I could easily write a summary of every day like a nice newspaper column and post it. I could probably even manage to maintain my sense of humor, style, and tendency to find joy in the ridiculously ordinary.
But this week, every word I wrote felt repetitious. Or perhaps every word I wanted to write felt like it had been done before.
And maybe it has. Because so much of life goes that way. The same struggles, the same events, and often the same answers. And we repeat the cycle over and over probably for two reasons.
It’s hard to break a habit.
And growth, the kind of change that comes from embracing a lesson, presents its own difficulties.
In today’s blog, I’m going to do a generic update, and I’m honestly not sure if any of this is repeating myself. But do you know what? Repeating myself is okay. This is a small droplet in the vast waters of the internet and there’s always the possibility someone hasn’t heard it before and may need to hear it today.
Topics to come in this entry: Update on my cerebral palsy and quest to end my chronic back pain, weight training with the teenager with Dan at Apex, emotional eating, review of Purple Carrot’s vegan Thanksgiving dinner box, and the requisite animal photos.
This week’s personal training at Apex:
I know I frequently mention how amazing the trainers at Apex are. One of their strengths (weight training pun there) is to recognize the needs of each client and to match the client with the right trainer. I’m obviously not in the whiny white women who primarily want to lose weight category, and that’s how I ended up with Dan. As Dan has the unofficial knowledge of a physical therapist (because he’s had enough accidents to know the patient side of it) and he has the curiosity to read, research and think. With my cerebral palsy this is important. Dan has the observational skill to read my knees and lower body to know if it’s a bodyweight/calisthenics kind of day or a weight training day. And this is important so you can build range of motion and flexibility and not get hurt.
Anyway, Dan has been kind enough to let the teenager join my training sessions. I love throwing weights around but lack the personal discipline to do it on my own this time around. And the teenager has a natural muscle tone and build that makes her perfect for powerlifting. But she hates dumbbells and she hates routine and discipline. So as long as we tell her to go throw around that heavy object she’s fine.
And today she deadlifted 135 lbs as if it weren’t even a challenge. I honestly think she could have done 150 lbs easily.
I think I kept up with her through 115. I only did three at 115 because I was really afraid I would blow out my knees. A deadlift when executed correctly utilizes the lower body, and the weight actually (once I get warmed up) helps me lower my butt in the squatting portion, but since my knees tend to point sharply inward, I have to adjust my stance to compensate. While the main gist of the lift is to pull the weight along the shin and lift into the hips and use the legs to support the weight as the hips straighten and thrust outward with the tightening of the glutes, in my case, I have to force my knees to stay in the proper position facing my toes and not each other.
As I start to lift heavier, the dull ache in my spine is a reminder to lift the weight with my legs and not my back. I place my feet in position, point my toes slightly out and stretch my knees in line with them. And, for lack of a better description, I lock them in place and while lifting the barbell I have to concentrate on keeping my knees from turning inward. Because if they would suddenly snap where they want to be, I could not only blow out a knee but also potentially lose balance.
So I did three.
In related news, physical therapy update:
Yesterday I finally had my physical therapy appointment with the proper physical therapist now that neurology has confirmed that my balance and brain are fine. Much to my pleasant surprise, I had the same physical therapist that treated my initial bouts with back pain three years ago. He was at a different physical therapy office, then, and came recommended by my doctor as the guy who really knew back issues. What makes this a funny but pleasant coincidence is the fact that I chose this physical therapy branch because my blind friend Nancy is going there and I thought we could combine appointments and I could help her with rides.
What did my physical therapist Jeff say? Basically, that I need to do yoga. He has me doing “press-ups” 5 times a day for 10 reps. At least to start this week. Last time I had physical therapy with him, he started me super light and then made the exercises ten times harder when I returned in a week. “Press-ups” are cobra pose in yoga. I used to do yoga daily. It always seems like physical therapists are always telling me to do more of what I already or what I used to do.
Random photo of Nala the Goffin with foster cat Touch of Grey
Confession time, emotional eating:
My weight is 160lbs. This upsets me greatly. When I had gestational diabetes at six months pregnant I was 169. I was 142 on the day I brought the teenager home from the hospital and 142 for most of her toddler years. When I finally decided I needed to get my weight under control and regain strength after breaking my right hand while working at Target, I lost 30 lbs in 6 weeks. I lost too much weight too quickly and then gained weight while strength training and got ripped. Over the years, I found a set point at 135, where I could maintain muscle but be more relaxed about eating.
But then, my marriage ended. My boss at the job that allowed me to separate from my husband and support myself turned out to be a sociopath. I mean that in the kindest way possible. She was very sweet, and driven, and perfection-oriented but she had no empathy, no flexibility and no patience for any way other than hers. No views allowed other than her beliefs. This led to high blood pressure and I honestly had no energy left to take care of myself. When she fired me, it took six months for unemployment benefits to determine she was in the wrong. The pandemic was underway by then (Summer 2019). I lived on my savings, a total of $4,500, and foodstamps that kicked in three months after I lost my job.
And this was also when I ended up in the hospital for an infected cat bite and took in a second teenager who lived with us for nine months without her parents contributing to her care.
I mention this only because it is why I lost my discipline. Why I stopped caring for myself like I used to. It was easy and fun to go to McDonalds for a $1 Diet Coke and a $1 McChicken. Cheap dinner.
I thought I would turn this around when I started “picking” at the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy. I walked 17,000 steps a night in the warehouse, grabbing clothes. But then I caught Covid-19. And my stamina never bounced back. So now I fold clothes. Which killed my back.
Even though I had a delightful Thanksgiving, with vegan recipes I prepared from Purple Carrot and leftover pie and wine from my in-law’s meal, I “ruined” it by drinking a big glass of wine yesterday with about 1200 calories of Trolli gummy worms. And then I tell myself, “Well, at least they had protein, iron and calcium.”
And finally, the Purple Carrot Box:
I’ve only made about half the box. The rest is still in the fridge.
I made the Purple Carrot “sausage” stuffing, vegan thyme gravy and cranberry sauce. The thyme gravy was better than I expected as I am not a gravy person. I added local granny smith apples and herbs de provence to the stuffing. The stuffing began life as caibatta rolls, root vegetables, and Fieldstone vegetarian sausage. Let me say again, if you haven’t heard it before, that the Fieldstone vegetarian sausages are amazing. The fact that they come wrapped tight in plastic “skin” casings annoys me, but they are very tasty.
I hope this weekend to partake in some fun activities and lighthearted blog posts, but I also need to do some administrative work for my publishing company, Parisian Phoenix Publishing.
My second novel in the Fashion and Fiends series, Courting Apparitions, releases officially November 29 (my co-founder’s birthday) and could possibly be available Black Friday. Like, damn, when did that happen?
My friend and fellow writer William Prystauk of the Kink Noir series and horror website Crash Palace Productions left me a truly wonderful review on Amazon and Google.
On everyday life and health front, I went to the chiropractor yesterday and like my doctor she approved of my new technique of changing work tables to try and even out my sides. I stopped at the pharmacy and picked up my prescription for muscle relaxer. I also made my last Purple Carrot meal in the fridge: mango glazed roasted vegetables with tahini butter.
Worked went mediocre/well. The night seemed long and boring and I felt like I was getting used to my body again after the chiropractor. I QCed at about 83%.
I came home and several cats were waiting for me— including Minerva, a sweet foster who started in our second foster litter of kittens, The Roman Pride.
I took a muscle relaxer to see how it impacted my pain and my morning stiffness. It didn’t make me loopy and I think it helped with my tossing and turning.
I only got six and a half hours of sleep last night, but still managed to meet up with the teenager my trainer Dan at Apex Training to lift some weights. I felt so much more limber after. The teenager easily did 105 on the barbell deadlift and 95 on the squat. I could lift the 105 but not execute the lift. My squat form is still adjusted for my limited range of motion in my lower body so I maxed out at 85 while the teen hardly had to put any effort into it.
We came home and shared some Little Caesars pizza as I was craving their “pizza and sticks” pie. We even shared with the dog.
So I woke this morning at a ridiculous 8 a.m. to a world smothered in fog and two foster cats (Khloe and tripod Louise) upset that I did not have time to cuddle.
I had a physical therapy appointment for an initial assessment at 10 a.m. and they needed me in the office by 9:45 a.m. to fill out paperwork— primarily questions about my confidence in my own balance.
Now this isn’t my first rodeo. This isn’t even my first physical therapy stint for back pain.
I was referred to the neurology physical therapy department because of my cerebral palsy.
The physical therapist asks me the typical questions — “have you fallen in the last year?” “I fall approximately every six weeks.”
We discussed my work arrangements and she liked my idea of alternating tables.
She determines that my right side is definitely weaker than my left side. But I can be treated for this at a facility closer to home.
She even calls the facility of my choice so she can make sure they don’t refuse to treat me. All while making it perfectly clear that she would happily do it.
But I am the only patient under 70.
And probably the only one without a walker or a cane.
My new physical therapy appointment is next Friday at 9 a.m.
I came home, ate lunch, and headed to my primary care physician’s office.
There, I spoke with a sweet, quiet resident with an Indian accent I couldn’t hear from under her mask. But she seemed very intent on discussing colon cancer screening.
She brought up a back brace.
I brought up muscle relaxers so my body would not stiffen up overnight.
And when she told my doctor, he said that she had a great idea. I didn’t tell him that was my idea, after I conferred with Dr. Google.
He thinks I should feel some relief with a month. Christmas maybe? Starting off the New Year right?
When I was little, my mother used to receive a lot of bad news from doctors. She was told her baby wouldn’t survive. Wouldn’t walk. Wouldn’t talk. Would have cognitive impairments. Would never go to school.
It’s how I got my name— Angel— the baby that wasn’t going to survive. Who stayed in the hospital for months.
So my mom stopped taking me to doctors. The only time I visited a doctor was for school mandated physicals and vaccines.
It has taken me decades to find doctors who listen and care, and now I have a certain respect and not pity… not empathy… but maybe compassion for doctors because we expect them to know so much.
We hope they have answers and cures. And they want to provide answers and cures.
But people are complex machines.
And I’m realizing — my doctors don’t necessarily know much about cerebral palsy. It’s such a generic blanket term. In addition, I have mild cerebral palsy, which means you can tell there is something wrong with my legs but it’s hard to say what.
One friend said when he met me he thought I had a hip issue. A work colleague once asked if my knees were broken as a child.
So last week I received a mysterious phone call from my doctor’s office that was actually from my doctor. I called back, but no one knew why he called. I said I planned on emailing my questions to the office Monday. Which I did. And set up physical therapy. For today. And scheduled a follow up visit. Also today.
But Tuesday night, at 5:20 pm, he called again. And he said (amid other explanations that I already received from my chiropractor) that if I were 70 or 80 the condition of my lower back would be considered normal, but at my age it was definitely cause for concern.
Great.
And he said we may need to look into accommodations or restrictions at work.
Great.
My job isn’t perfect but I like it and I don’t want to lose it. It gives me time to think and focus on my own ideas and I like that.
This caused a lot of fear in my heart, even in the morning while sharing croissants from Lidl with the teenager.
I worked a full eight hours Monday and Tuesday, something we haven’t been doing often with supply chain issues.
Monday I QCed 105 fixes. Tuesday 115. Down from my average 126. And I hurt. Which sucks. So I pledged I would talk to my supervisor last night, to learn what I need to do when I go to the doctor.
Frustratingly, we use an app to organize these things and it’s not been very user-friendly for me. But let’s not dwell on what hasn’t happened yet.
I made the choice to work at a new table last night. On the left instead of the right, wondering if the shift in my pain stems from “leaning” to the right to send boxes down the line. My colleague who has had back surgery recently wonders if it’s something to do with dominant side.
My peers see me struggle (while the person at the station behind me QCed 170 fixes last night.) Even though I have no formal accommodations or restrictions, they bring me work that requires less twisting and bending.
First they parked a whole rack of completed refixes next to me, and when I finished those (with the help of my colleague who had back surgery), one of my peers boxed the bottom two fixes in each cart when he could.
Things little changes help. And they make me feel like part of the team and less broken. With the upcoming change to day shift, I’m worried this camaraderie will be lost.
Pain is exhausting.
Fear is debilitating.
The efforts I (and others) made last night did reduce my pain and it stayed in the middle of my back and didn’t spread or intensify. So maybe fear can become hope.
Reactions are the hardest. I still struggle to navigate people’s reactions to me. Even when they are friends or family or someone I work with everyday. Some people worry. Some people ignore the disabled part of you. Some people crack painful jokes.
I get that people don’t always know what to do. I get that it’s hard. But I also know how it feels to be trapped in your own head with an injury or a disability.
If you’re a regular in my portion of the universe, you probably know I’m struggling with some issues that might be described as middle-age or might be complications of a life with cerebral palsy.
I have been talking about this journey more in recent days but certainly rather frequently in the last six months or so.
Today, I finished talking to the last member of my medical team about my plan for my health and my future. That person was my psychologist. And it sounds like he approved of my plan.
So having spoken with everyone— checking their professional opinions against my fear of an emotional response to my disability— I sent an email to my physician outlining my questions and my plan.
I had an email back within the hour from my physician saying I could set up physical therapy and that I should come into the office for a follow up this Thursday.
My doctor’s office had no preference or guidance regarding where to go for physical therapy so I called the generic phone line. They assured me that I could go wherever I wanted.
I asked for a nearby hospital as that is where my blind friend Nan has physical therapy and I hoped maybe we could car pool. Don’t worry— I wouldn’t let Nan drive.
But when they transferred me the person that answered asked me why I needed physical therapy. I said that the x-ray showed retrolisthesis and arthritis my spine that could be a complication from my cerebral palsy.
As soon as she heard “cerebral palsy,” she transferred me to the neurological physical therapy office. But when they looked up my chart, it said “back pain.” And they don’t do that.
By the very very cheery person on the phone and I had a chat— and I asked her— are we treating my back or the cerebral palsy that probably causes the back issues. We both agreed it’s a good question.
She put me on hold twice to confer with the actual physical therapists and they decided to keep me.
I am in my 40s, and struggling with the effects of a life of always walking crooked thanks to cerebral palsy, a disability I have but, until recently, have known nothing about.
And issues in my spine, while not serious, are affecting my mobility and causing me pain.
But today— in part because we only worked until 7:30 pm at the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy— I woke up well rested, only minimally stiff and only minimally hurting. At 8 am no less.
Our charming mutt F. Bean Barker refused to go to bed in the teenager’s room last night because one of our fosters, a former community cat named Georgie, intimidated her. Bean expected me to let her sleep in my room and when I said no she retreated to her crate in the living room. So I let her spend the night. I have spent a lot of time with this dog in the last 24 hours.
I tied a rope around her tire toy gifted to her by my trainer, Dan, at Apex Training and now it’s the best toy ever. See video here.
I was the first one out of bed which meant a swarm of hungry cats outside my door, and I couldn’t keep them all at bay. It was easier to let them in. But our foster Mars totally knows how to knock over the birdcage. Which he did. While I was on the phone with my blind friend Nan and consuming my first cup of coffee.
Nan recently started physical therapy for an issue in her shoulder causing pain and finger numbness. The physical therapist had never worked with a blind client before and was a quick study. He even discovered that some of Nan’s issue might be mobility issues in her neck— because when you’re blind you don’t have many reasons to turn your head or look up and down.
Finally, things settle down and while the parakeet is out he is safe. The teenager and I head to Apex where she gets that barbell and deadlifts 135 lbs. I still felt good at that point.
And then the matriarch from laFamilia Velez stopped by and brought me chili which I had for a late breakfast and we talked about marketing for my Fashion and Fiends books. And my goals for Parisian Phoenix in general.
She left, and I finished proofing Darrell Parry’s soon-to-be released poetry book. I placed a few more essays in the nonfiction identity anthology.
And the poor teenager has had a hectic and exhausting couple days— so I cooked.
She has options for dinner when she returns from the diner. She’s given notice at the diner as she has accepted employment with a local pet care company.
First I made sausage and peppers to put over spaghetti.
Then I also made the Purple Carrot Peanut Tofu Stir Fry which I jazzed up with some edamame and sesame sticks.
Mostly I am just sitting around marveling at how pain free I feel. I miss that.
Learning about your own body, exploring treatment options and trying to survive while doing it is exhausting.
I shared my plan to advocate for myself with my life coach from Ginger. And we also discussed some of my fears of where this could go.
And today I asked Dr. Nicole Jensen of Back in Line Wellness Center her thoughts.
She was kind enough to get out her spine and explain things to me. And she said I moved beautifully today, which could be a sign that the short shifts I’ve had this week are taking stress off my body.
She had never seen retrolisthesis in a group like this — and reported that the pedicles appearing in tact was great news. But basically that slight shift in the discs from the retrolisthesis would put pressure on the nerves.
And that the disc space narrowing was arthritis.
So to continue my work with my trainer— and she is impressed by his attentiveness and ability to adjust workouts to medical needs, pursue physical therapy, and try an inversion table. It might stretch out those irregular curves of the lumbar spine. Core exercises will be super important, and I wonder if my commitment to my core throughout my adult life has contributed to this good report.
Dr. Jensen asked for business cards from Dan at Apex Training. Because based on what she’s heard from me she would recommend him to her clients.
I’m noting these discussions and plan to email my doctor Monday.
Angel Ackerman 