Temporary Victory to the Other Me

I was fine when I last went to the gym.  Completely fine.

Except for my ankle, of course.

Five days earlier, my ankle had started being stiff.  It hadn't been twisted.  There was no event that hurt it.  I got into a hot tub and let it soak, then massaged it while still in the water.  I took Ibuprofen.  I wrapped it.  I did those things more than once.  I babied it.  Well, some.  

It's hard to completely baby your ankle at this time of year when you have so much sugar-repenting to do.

Finally, by Saturday, though, I was humbled.  My ankle had become much worse.  I could barely walk on Friday.  I'd asked all the pregnant women I'd had to lead up the stairs, "Would you prefer the elevator?"

All of them said, "No, I'm fine."

All of them.

Dang!

So, even though I'd joked with my boss that I'd baby my ankle around the ten miles I planned to run on it, I became humbler and humbler until I really did baby it.

I took a novel with me.

I hardly ever read or even watch TV when I'm at the gym.  I'm working too hard.  And I'm concentrating.

But, last time, I took with me a new novel that had shown up in my bedroom (thank you, mother-in-law, I think), and I set the treadmill on my slowest usual walking pace, and I just walked and read.  If you saw what I usually do, you would understand that that is babying.

After a few minutes, I turned the speed down.  Then, again, and again.  I turned it down five times, and, in the end, had not walked very far at all.

I ran out of time, but, also, I told myself to stop worrying--I really did need to baby my ankle, and that was enough exercise for the day.  At times like this, there are two mes, and they argue.  One me says, "You have to take care of yourself and get some rest."  The other me says, "Exercising is taking care of myself."  And they fight a lot and I have to be the referee.

"You're a big baby stepping off the treadmill already," one me says to the other me.  "And you're a big baby, too, for not wanting to be careful with us!" shouts back the other me.

I wasn't even sweating.  I had to keep self-talking all the way out the door, because, aside from my ankle, I was just fine.  FINE.  And I knew the 128 calories I'd burned while walking and reading would not put a dent in the sugar I'd eaten over the holidays.

Right after I'd gotten home, though, and moved clothes out of and into the dryer and had a glass of water and my shower, I felt a little tickle in my throat.  I typically go into denial at that point for as long as I can, but I grabbed an Airborne just in case.

A half hour later, I was lying in bed on my heating pad, trying to warm up my freezing cold feet, hands, arms, and even legs.  My husband offered to gas my car if I met him at the store, and I declined.  "Actually, I feel like I'm getting sick," I said.

And my other self stuck out her tongue at me in my head and said, "Baby!"

An hour after that, I had a full-blown sinus infection.

"We're in trouble," I told both mes, and they stopped fighting and went to see if I had any antibiotics left from last time.

I've had doctors simply not believe I could develop a sinus infection as fast as I can.  But that's only because they are not one of the two mes.  "You'd have to have had a cold for at least ten days," one doctor once told me.  And, another, when I described all the copious green disgusting symptoms that I won't go into here, said, "Sounds like a virus."  I wanted to slap him.  Everything I'd described had been the opposite of a virus.

Another doctor tried to tell me that my symptoms were the result of blood.  She may have green blood, but I do not.  

I'm not dumb.  I know what a virus is.  A cold is from a virus, and I know that an antibiotic won't touch it.  But a cold has certain symptoms that last a certain amount of time and then go away.  Unless they develop into a secondary infection.

I guess I'm just special, but I have that secondary infection just waiting there, like a bad dream, ready to come out at any time.  I'm the champion sinus-infection developer of all time!  If it were an Olympic event, I'd have the gold medal.  Usually, though, it takes getting chilled, extreme stress, a cold, or a night without sleep for it to happen to me.

Sinus infections have put my life in danger before (long story), and I'm fierce about staying here to raise my children.  

"I'm sorry," I apologized to my husband for being sick.  "But I didn't do anything to cause this."

I called my doctor's nurse first thing this morning. Well, not first thing, but as soon as they were open.  My doctor is famous for operating on a chimpanzee at the zoo.  I try not to think about that.  His nurse has told me that I'm to call her as soon as I come down with something and doesn't say any of the stupid things other doctors have said.  "I haven't heard from you in a long while," she said.  "I thought you didn't love me."

"Oh, believe me, I love you," I assured her.

We talked varieties and symptoms and over-the-counter measures and time-frames and all kinds of things only interesting to people who live in the sinus infection culture.

So, no gym today, either, and I'm making that me just shut up.  My white flag is out.  Victory to the ankle, the sugar, the sickness, and the lazy me.

("Temporary victory," whispers the other me.)