Apricot
senior
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United Kingdom
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Seems its the resistance of the water....
THR Seeing the Light!
- Thread starter lovesstars
- Start date
OP
OP
lovesstars
graduate
I would think so. It is an AWESOME exercise.
SurreyGirl
supremo
Cant wait to do some water exercises in nice warm water. My local pool is freezing. Usually I like this but not this time.
Has anyone tried actual swimming yet and kicking legs?
Has anyone tried actual swimming yet and kicking legs?
- Joined
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OP
OP
lovesstars
graduate
@SurreyGirl i was kicking with kickboard maybe six weeks ago (at 2 months) and found it totally wiped me out for two days after. I need to try again.
OP
OP
lovesstars
graduate
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Hahahahahahaha! 
Does that answer your question?
You're my very last post of the morning and I'm off and running now.
Safe travels back to the frozen tundra. Although upper 30's and sunny isn't too bad for being stalled in traffic and fighting crowds with all the other procrastinators today.
Hope you have a good one!
@lovesstars
Does that answer your question?
You're my very last post of the morning and I'm off and running now.
Safe travels back to the frozen tundra. Although upper 30's and sunny isn't too bad for being stalled in traffic and fighting crowds with all the other procrastinators today.
Hope you have a good one!
@lovesstars
I announced to my family that this season I am taking off the pressure and celebrating Christmas in January! My son got a good laugh out of that. But a person can only do what a person can do! 10 weeks and counting...
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Good Morning, lovesstars
I hope you enjoyed your vacation and made it home safely, no worse for wear.
You've had a busy few weeks traveling, you jet setter
Wishing you a happy Tuesday!
@lovesstars
I hope you enjoyed your vacation and made it home safely, no worse for wear.
You've had a busy few weeks traveling, you jet setter
Wishing you a happy Tuesday!
@lovesstars
OP
OP
lovesstars
graduate
OP
OP
lovesstars
graduate
Hey everyone!!!!
You were all my best gift this year!
Happy and healthy holiday to all of you!
You were all my best gift this year!
Happy and healthy holiday to all of you!
- Joined
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What a sweet message @lovesstars
I'm sure many will appreciate your thoughtfulness expressed above.
I can't seem to get my rear in gear to finish up my shopping.
Sadly, I work better under pressure. Time is running out
I'll bet some
will take advantage of the weekend running right into the holiday. At least we're making use of one of those days for a family gathering.
Happy, Happy, Merry, Merry :dancing: I'm sure by Tuesday night I'll have my fill.
I hope your Christmas is happy and filled with love!:tree lights:
I'm sure many will appreciate your thoughtfulness expressed above.
I can't seem to get my rear in gear to finish up my shopping.
Sadly, I work better under pressure. Time is running out
I'll bet some will take advantage of the weekend running right into the holiday. At least we're making use of one of those days for a family gathering.
Happy, Happy, Merry, Merry :dancing: I'm sure by Tuesday night I'll have my fill.
I hope your Christmas is happy and filled with love!:tree lights:
Hope your holiday season is happy and hopeful, @lovesstars
:tree lights:
:tree lights:
OP
OP
lovesstars
graduate
@Layla suggested that I share this publicly:
“Craving the Shredded Potato”
Months ago, before my surgery, we had dinner at an Asian restaurant with a Chinese friend, M.
She ordered us a dish — a dish, she said, that she makes at home.
“I can always tell how good a restaurant is by the quality of this dish”, she said.
When the dish arrived it was white and opaque and long and lovely and sour and spicy.
It was shredded potato.
From that day on I have craved this dish. Two weeks passed and before I was admitted to the hospital I had to have this dish again. I went back, twice.
Then, of course the total hip replacement. The darkness. The loss of strength, of hope. The bone saw.
While laying on the couch in an opiate-induced stupor I dreamed of the shredded potato.
What was the magic of this dish?
A simple shredded potato prepared with chilis and oil and vinegar and peppers. So pure in its form and surprising in its taste.
In the weeks that passed, as I moved from walker to — walker. From couch to actual bed. From one flight of stairs per day to the courage of doing more than one flight. From opiates to other opiates to other anti-infiammatories and other pain meds to finally pain meds only occasionally. Weeks and weeks and weeks.
Moving finally from walker to cane and then, finally without, I continued to crave the shredded potato dish.
Finally a bit more mobile, we went back to the restaurant with friends. I tried to describe the dish. The server shook her head. She had never heard of such a thing and I was of no use. I was so disappointed that I couldn’t have the thing that I had really wanted.
So disappointed.
In some ways I thought that after what I had been through I was, in a way, entitled to have that dish I craved.
Pain, indeed creates all sorts of feelings of entitlement. For so many. In so many ways.
We texted M. She sent the chinese characters for the dish but not in time for that night’s dinner.
So I went back again. With R this time. Using my phone to show the server which shredded potato dish I wanted. She smiled, nodded and perhaps in her eyes I could see how weird she thought it was that the non-Asian needed to show her the Chinese for what she wanted — on a screen.
Alas and finally, the dish arrived. It tasted like life, to me. Just like life.
Like life, it was spicy and a little sour. Cut into long bits, cooked lightly and served up with a little color. And oh so craveable.
I cannot get enough of it. Of the dish. Of life. Of the unnameable.
That thing I want that is unnameable. For one young man I know, it is a life partner. For another the unnameable thing is employment.
For another they crave the return of their loved one — their husband, wife, dearest friend — recently deceased. Or not so recently.
Folks want diamonds, fame, social media presence, followers and likes.
They want to live in a country where their lives are not constantly in danger.
They want stability and sanity.
They want a roof over their heads. Sometimes a family. Sometimes a family of friends.
I want to live.
Yesterday, on the sparkling day of entitlement — or of joy — or of pain, from wherever you hold, I went to that place — the place of the shredded potato.
I asked for the dish. I showed the server the chinese characters. She nodded her head.
When it arrived…it was a bit different than usual. Truth is, it is always made a bit different than the time before. Again, like life — like my life, anyway…never quite what I expect.
Now confession time: I wasn’t sure I would recover from the darkness. It took too long. It took too much time to get strong again. My biggest confession: I couldn’t see my way forward. I was shredded, like the potato. Somewhat literally, in fact. I had been cut and shredded and somehow had to regenerate. As new.
Like a caterpillar in its chrysalis, I had melted inside and had to regrow into something else.
Then vulnerable and weak…like an emerging changling, I had to dry my wings in the sun.
I have slowly had a return to confidence.
I am walking, without assistance. (I am looking at you, snow and ice!)
I am eating the shredded potato.
A reminder of the longness of my bones, the sour, the spicy, the unexpectedness of my life.
I am walking forward. I am. A step at a time.
Not quickly, sometimes not surely.
But forward.”
“Craving the Shredded Potato”
Months ago, before my surgery, we had dinner at an Asian restaurant with a Chinese friend, M.
She ordered us a dish — a dish, she said, that she makes at home.
“I can always tell how good a restaurant is by the quality of this dish”, she said.
When the dish arrived it was white and opaque and long and lovely and sour and spicy.
It was shredded potato.
From that day on I have craved this dish. Two weeks passed and before I was admitted to the hospital I had to have this dish again. I went back, twice.
Then, of course the total hip replacement. The darkness. The loss of strength, of hope. The bone saw.
While laying on the couch in an opiate-induced stupor I dreamed of the shredded potato.
What was the magic of this dish?
A simple shredded potato prepared with chilis and oil and vinegar and peppers. So pure in its form and surprising in its taste.
In the weeks that passed, as I moved from walker to — walker. From couch to actual bed. From one flight of stairs per day to the courage of doing more than one flight. From opiates to other opiates to other anti-infiammatories and other pain meds to finally pain meds only occasionally. Weeks and weeks and weeks.
Moving finally from walker to cane and then, finally without, I continued to crave the shredded potato dish.
Finally a bit more mobile, we went back to the restaurant with friends. I tried to describe the dish. The server shook her head. She had never heard of such a thing and I was of no use. I was so disappointed that I couldn’t have the thing that I had really wanted.
So disappointed.
In some ways I thought that after what I had been through I was, in a way, entitled to have that dish I craved.
Pain, indeed creates all sorts of feelings of entitlement. For so many. In so many ways.
We texted M. She sent the chinese characters for the dish but not in time for that night’s dinner.
So I went back again. With R this time. Using my phone to show the server which shredded potato dish I wanted. She smiled, nodded and perhaps in her eyes I could see how weird she thought it was that the non-Asian needed to show her the Chinese for what she wanted — on a screen.
Alas and finally, the dish arrived. It tasted like life, to me. Just like life.
Like life, it was spicy and a little sour. Cut into long bits, cooked lightly and served up with a little color. And oh so craveable.
I cannot get enough of it. Of the dish. Of life. Of the unnameable.
That thing I want that is unnameable. For one young man I know, it is a life partner. For another the unnameable thing is employment.
For another they crave the return of their loved one — their husband, wife, dearest friend — recently deceased. Or not so recently.
Folks want diamonds, fame, social media presence, followers and likes.
They want to live in a country where their lives are not constantly in danger.
They want stability and sanity.
They want a roof over their heads. Sometimes a family. Sometimes a family of friends.
I want to live.
Yesterday, on the sparkling day of entitlement — or of joy — or of pain, from wherever you hold, I went to that place — the place of the shredded potato.
I asked for the dish. I showed the server the chinese characters. She nodded her head.
When it arrived…it was a bit different than usual. Truth is, it is always made a bit different than the time before. Again, like life — like my life, anyway…never quite what I expect.
Now confession time: I wasn’t sure I would recover from the darkness. It took too long. It took too much time to get strong again. My biggest confession: I couldn’t see my way forward. I was shredded, like the potato. Somewhat literally, in fact. I had been cut and shredded and somehow had to regenerate. As new.
Like a caterpillar in its chrysalis, I had melted inside and had to regrow into something else.
Then vulnerable and weak…like an emerging changling, I had to dry my wings in the sun.
I have slowly had a return to confidence.
I am walking, without assistance. (I am looking at you, snow and ice!)
I am eating the shredded potato.
A reminder of the longness of my bones, the sour, the spicy, the unexpectedness of my life.
I am walking forward. I am. A step at a time.
Not quickly, sometimes not surely.
But forward.”
NanaKP
senior
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2018
- Messages
- 277
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Female
Very poignant @lovesstars! I can empathize with the feeling of being shredded, of not being sure I would be strong, or whole again. It IS a journey, a journey that is yours alone and though we all can share parts of it, each of our 'trips' are different. I do hope you continue to share your successes and your challenges. I believe that as each of us share with one another, we gain a bit stronger so that when we're knocked down, we have more strength to get back up!!
That time you made yourself go buy a new bathing suit and then go swimming, despite being in pain? I think about your words from that day frequently. It has been the beacon for me these last few months, something I have thought "soon I will be going to get a bathing suit and I will be getting into the water to move my body". As I have moved from surgery to surgery (4 total since May), I have latched onto that day you shared with us and so I want to thank you!! Your words resonated with me and the post above has brought me to tears. Thank you.
That time you made yourself go buy a new bathing suit and then go swimming, despite being in pain? I think about your words from that day frequently. It has been the beacon for me these last few months, something I have thought "soon I will be going to get a bathing suit and I will be getting into the water to move my body". As I have moved from surgery to surgery (4 total since May), I have latched onto that day you shared with us and so I want to thank you!! Your words resonated with me and the post above has brought me to tears. Thank you.
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OP
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lovesstars
graduate
@NanaKP @lovesstars I love how you think about things and then write in a way that I cannot. You speak to me. Thank you for sharing.
OP
OP
lovesstars
graduate
Great analogy for transformation...
Chronic pain for extended periods...a solution we aren't excited about...the uncertainty and struggle of recovery...
The shredded potato...
I shall have to look one up next time I'm out for Chinese...to have in your honor.
You have alot of improvement coming your way. Hope 2019 brings you hope and happiness!
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OP
OP
