2014 in Review and What Comes Next?

A lot has changed in my life in 2014.

There has been an overwhelming sense of accomplishment as well as the associated 'well what now' that inevitably follows completing something that you never thought would ever be possible.  This was the theme of my homework set by Julie for the Christmas holidays.

I'm in Bangkok at the moment on my annual break.  This is something that is only relatively new in my life, taking holidays!  The first year that we came here was in 2010, just before I met with the surgeon for the first time.

Travel was never really that high on my wish list - it was uncomfortable, I suffered for days after the flight with pain and stiffness, I could never do as much as I wanted to and it was just easier not to think too much about it.  I also worked a lot...  like a crazy person in fact.  Work was something I could do, something that I could achieve with.   I'm not entirely sure that I had time from the start of 2000 until 2010 that I could have actually gone on holidays overseas for too long.  This isn't to say I never travelled.  I did a few trips with work in the privilege of business class and no time to do too much that was physically demanding.  (There was that one trip to Vegas...  but that's for a whole other post)

So the last year pre-op I went to a city that I knew people and they knew what I could and couldn't do.  They also didn't feel the need to do too much that was touristy and required too much walking.  Taxis were in abundance and were extremely affordable and I had a holiday that fit in with what I could do.

We now return and the holiday has changed a little - we do walk more.  I still don't go to the gym or the local pilates studio as I promise myself each year as I pack my gym gear but my life is substantially more active than it ever has been before.

So the homework....  to figure out what my 2015 goals are going to be.  In trying to come up with something, I spent a fair bit of time reflecting on the year and what I had actually achieved and what had changed.

The highlights:

• I can get up and down off the floor without leaning on anything above ground level
• I can walk 15km and pull up fine in the morning (I could possibly do more - but it's at that point where I'm kind of bored with being in my own head and just want to do something else)
• I walk and people don't know that I've had hips replaced
• My posture has improved substantially 
• I can wear heels (Hey, I know bad for the body and I've always claimed flats are the way to go but it is nice to dress up some times and slide into a pair of Ferragamo peep-toe heels.  My physio says it's ok on occasion too - so I'm in the clear!)
• I sleep better than I ever have before.  I can exist on substantially less sleep than I ever have before.  I prefer to get more hours and quite often do but I can now wake up in the morning before the alarm and be where I need to be without the 
• I can easily do up my own shoelaces.  I could earlier post-op but it still had it's challenges.  It's now just part of real life these days.
• Getting in and out of car - completely changed - it's so much easier to not slide in like a lady and then bring legs in.  
• General flexibility.  It amazes me sometimes that I don't think twice about picking things up off the ground.  That I can bend and reach.  That my balance has improved.
• I actually like physical activity.  It turns out that my old belief that I didn't was really just a function of what I was physically capable of - not actually what was real.  It surprised me.  

The things I've learned:

• To accept that these great accomplishments just aren't as impressive to others.  The things that I get excited about and have shared with friends have often been met with the blank oh great stares.
• To accept that the most important thing to the outside world is the weight that I've lost.  About 14kg.  I know this is awesome and it's been fun buying a new wardrobe and fitting into things that I haven't worn for years, but to me this is just a nice little positive side effect.  I never did any of this to lose weight.  That was never a factor in any of the decisions I've made.  The strength and new found freedom, the blank stare stuff is just so much more important.

My world has changed.  I'm finding myself.  The person that I never thought that I was.  The person that I never even thought about being because it was so far removed from what my reality was.

I didn't quite make it to figuring out what the goals were.   I started by looking at the suggestion of Kokoda Trail - but it didn't jump out at me.  It's not the distance.  This is a pretty great challenge that meets the criteria of a suitable challenge in that I would require a fair bit of training to be able to achieve the goal, and yet still it's just not quite right.

The Bhutan Trek to Happiness walk as a fundraiser for the Black Dog Institute interested me more - but it wasn't really challenging enough to be a goal for the next stage of my development.  I think I might still do this one day - but it won't be a goal, just something that I'll do for fun.  The fund-raising side to this event would be the biggest challenge.

I'm still looking.  I'm sure it will come to me soon and in the meantime, the search is fun.  I've thought of and found a lot of activities that require another look at now that I have this new found freedom.

Things like:

• Going to an all day music festival and be in the mosh pit at least once.  
• Indoor rock climbing
• Abseiling

If you can think of anymore - please post!!

I'm looking forward to spending more time on this little homework project in the coming weeks.

Body Leader of the Month

Hey check me out, I've been awarded the title of Body Leader of the Month!

I've answered some different questions as part of the interview than I've covered here in the past so the article might be interesting to you.

A couple of notes about the article and pics:

Yes, Lori is short for Lorraine.  It's funny how different people know you by different parts of your name.  My husband calls me Lorraine (just as I use his full name rather than Mike as just about everyone else calls him) and this usually extends to certain groups of people where I've been introduced by him, or introduced where my 'legal' name has been provided. My brothers and sister still refer to me as Rain. One of my best friends used to call me Miss Rainee and that's now Mrs Rainee since I've been married.  Mostly though people call me Lori.  It's a lot easier to spell for people, too!

For the locals, you should be able to spot the venue of the first picture.  This was my very first outing and I wanted it to be somewhere that I felt safe so it's somewhere that I spend a fair amount of time. You can see my crutches in the picture.  If you can guess where it is, there might even be a prize for you!

The Pilates picture is actually from this morning.  We took a whole series of them and I'll post some more of them here.  This is a picture of roll ins from curls (bridges).  I've been doing these for a little while and think that some of the other exercises are a little more impressive, so I'll post those soon!

The final picture is from the hospital when I was first learning to walk again.  At this time I was still using the rollater so there was a fair amount of weight being put through my hands on the rails to walk.  The white lines helped me with my alignment.  There was a lot of looking down and focusing on my feet while I was walking within the rails.  In the beginning it almost felt like the messages from my brain  didn't get through to my feet unless I looked really hard at them!  (That plan doesn't really work all the time.  Sometimes you can look really hard at the offending limb and it still won't move.  They do now, so that's the main thing!)

Unified Healthcare

The RA Guy

I read an awesome blog post on the RA Guy's blog called: Rheumatoid Arthritis Healing Center.    It's an old post definitely worth revisiting.  The key idea I love about in this post is that all your health professionals are in one place and work together to help you have the best possible life all in a spa like setting combining the traditional medical appointment with your rheumatologist  with everything else that can make a difference; yoga, acupuncture, Physio, hydro, support groups, psychologists, doctors in other specialties and more.  The list was pretty comprehensive and the only thing I can think of to add is Pilates as it's something that has made a big difference for me.

I think that bringing all of the health professionals together like this would be awesome.  The people that would choose to work in this kind of environment would be ones that I would want to see.  People who understand that it isn't going to be just the medicine that is going to help.  Healthcare is slowly changing and the professionals that I have found to work with have been great.  For a long time and for a lot of doctors that I have seen anything out of the ordinary is seen as 'new fangled hippy rubbish' that doesn't do anything.  I once had a rheumatologist remark that the physio treatment I was receiving probably wasn't doing anything for me.  I was pretty upset by that as I when I came to him I was so happy with the increases to the range of movement that I was seeing and the improvement in my overall health and wellbeing, I couldn't believe that he would discount the effectiveness of the treatment.  Seriously, even if it was all in my head, what was the harm?  Why criticise? He went on to tell me that I couldn't afford to put on any weight and I pretty well had no options to improve my quality of life.  I found another specialist.  Thankfully, not all doctors are in the stone age. The team that I eventually found is one that I would expect to fit in to this concept quite well.

Attitudes are changing and it isn't just health professionals that need to come to the party.  We do too.  Having a community centre like feel will help visitors to maybe explore other services that will help them reach their full potential.  All aspects of life and body maintenance in one place is an awesome way to kick start the process.  The alternative is to spend years finding them which is something many don't have the confidence or resources to do.

The RA Guy has since updated his concept and posted it on his blog at: Autoimmune Wellness Center.  There is even a picture of what it might look like.  Check it out.  I'm sure you'll like it as much as I do.