Category: psyched out

Redefining Health

Nina Chapman5 Comments

Hi guys! Long time no talk… er write.

I’ve been MIA because I’ve been busy well… living.

I’ve been known to go off the grid. I’ll “lose” my phone or let it die (and not charge it). And when it’s not lost or dead I’ll have half a dozen text messages that were semi constructed during the red lights I hit during my commute home. And by lights I mean just the one light. I live less than a mile away from work, so I don’t have enough red lights to finish my texts. They tend to be forgotten the moment the light turns green.

I’m one of those.

It’s really annoying for most people in the age of instant gratification.

But for the most part I’ve been busy with work and hanging out with my family. I’ve been rearranging my priorities. I’ve been giving myself head space, taking long walks and pondering life and how I want to live it. You know, the usual.

I haven’t written quite as much lately because I haven’t needed to. I’ve been getting my creative outlet through teaching. I spend a lot of my creative energy manipulating the education system in a way that allows me trick kids into enjoying school. This is actually pretty funny because in my latter high school years I spent the majority of my creative energy manipulating the education system by skipping school.

I was a master I tell ya. I mean, I literally walked through the front door, waved to the office ladies on my way out, and made my way to my car which was parked in one of the temporary parking spots at the front of the school. So cheeky! I know.

The past couple of weeks I’ve also been busy redefining what health means to me. My perspective has changed quite a bit since my surgery. Right before spring break I was feeling particularly weak and unhealthy. I stumbled upon a Pinterest article on how to use social media to motivate you to live a healthy lifestyle. Mostly it consisted of women dedicated to attaining the perfect body.

When I first saw the before and after pictures I was super impressed. I followed them on Instagram and then slowly as I watched them pop up on my feed I began to notice what was really going on. Hidden behind their inspirational quotes about not giving up was a lot of loathing and self doubt. It seemed to me that the “Don’t Quit” theme started to warp itself into, “Don’t quit picking out the parts of you that you hate… because there is always something that needs to be improved!”

What started out as a motto of belief in oneself turned into a motto of “You’ll never be good enough”.

I soon discovered that these women were just using social media to scrutinize themselves. You could tell that they were relishing in the attention they gained from their success and were feeling the pressure from it. Through this they were beginning to lose sight of what it means to be healthy, constantly comparing themselves to these unrealistic standards.

Being a middle school teacher I can spot this type of desperation a mile away. These grown women were doing the very thing I try to encourage my daughter and all of my students NOT to do.

Instead of finding freedom in their newfound health they were chaining themselves to an unending torrent of selfies in which they judge themselves. I’m talking ab selfies, butt selfies, arm selfies, boob selfies, stretch mark selfies, food selfies… It’s never ending.

It made me wonder if that is what I had been doing all along and maybe that was why I was losing interest in my blogging journey. I mean, I’m not a huge selfie fan but look at the title of this blog. “Too Hottie For That Body” what does that even mean?

I’ve been thinking about my own journey and all of the self-deprication I’ve dished out to myself. I would make healthy choices in order to lose weight, end up feeling really good about myself regardless of whether I lost weight or not. But I would ignore how great I felt because I felt obligated to focus on the superficial end result. At one point I did it for you. I felt like I needed to apologize for being happy with myself the way that I was.

By putting my journey out there I felt like people were waiting for me to succeed and by succeed I mean posting a final AFTER picture of myself in a bikini.

With this vision in mind I would calculate how long it would take me to reach a certain number. I would come up with these restrictions that I felt needed to happen in order to obtain my goal. I would implement these restrictions, get pissed off by the restrictiveness of it all and then rebel against it.

I don’t think that’s healthy.

Maybe I was rebelling against all of these restrictions because deep down I knew it was shallow and unfulfilling.

I hate to break it to you but I kind of doubt I’ll ever post that bikini picture. Not because it can’t be done, but because even if I did get to that level of fitness I wouldn’t need your validation on it. I don’t have anything to prove. In fact, I like my imperfect bathing beauty look just fine…

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When I was in 8th grade I remember being in the locker room with a bunch of girls. Somehow we all started talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up. I thought about it long and hard. When it was my turn I said that I wanted to be happy. Everyone thought I was a weirdo, but it didn’t matter because that was truly what I wanted.

Over the past few months after my injury I’ve been thinking about that more and more. What does it take to be happy? Lying there with my crippled leg I wasn’t happy and I rediscovered that a true piece of the happiness puzzle is health.

In reality, true health feels good. I’ve learned how to tune in to my body and acknowledge what feels good to it. Real food makes me feel good, sweating on purpose feels good, sore muscles feel good, the sun on my face and a good endorphin pump feels good. Taking a deep breath and feeling grateful for that very moment… that, that’s what feels good.

I’ve decided that this whole diet culture has screwed around with my head long enough. Healthy is just a path you choose, it’s a road I’ll have to choose for the rest of my life. Because in reality, there is no end result… not unless you’re dead. And that’s kind of the opposite of what I’m going for here.

The Monday Diet

Nina Chapman3 Comments

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Teaching is taking over my life guys.

Seriously.

I came upon this realization the other day while I was putting on my quotation mark earrings.

Seriously? 

This isn’t the only questionable fashion choice I’ve made recently. I’ve also taken to wearing jeggings to work.

Yep.

My normal pants are just a wee bit tight. Not tight enough to cause me to run to the store to buy more, but tight enough for me to want to avoid them. You see, I had been on the Monday diet for the whole month of February. You know how it goes, you decide that Monday will be the day that you will be super strict on eating. You make all of these plans and get all hyped up. Then Monday sucks, so you come home, eat cookies and drink wine. Then Tuesday rolls around and you are just one day away from Wednesday which is practically the weekend, soooo you might as well just wait start again next Monday…

I was on that diet.

Lately, I had been treading water just trying to keep up. Work life was kicking my ass, family life was kicking my ass, the size of my ass was kicking my ass. This doesn’t mean I’m not having fun. I just have a whole lot of life happening all at once.

It appears I am allergic to many things in life (stress, knee injuries, having babies, almost having babies, working full-time, surgery) all of these things make me fat.

I’m fat again ya’ll. True story.

For some people this may be a one time thing, but for me I have a trigger in my brain that causes me to get fat. I’m not alone, I know that, but it still bums me out.

Every time this happens (I hate that I have to write that phrase out) I go through the same cycle. It goes a little something like this…

  1. Oh shit I’m fat!
  2. How did this happen?
  3. Don’t worry it’ll go away.
  4. It’s not going away!
  5. Do something about it.
  6. What the hell do I do?
  7. Oh shit I’m fat!
  8. This is stupid, get it together.
  9.  I still don’t know what to do!
  10. Ok, I’m ready now.
  11. What was my problem? This is much easier than I made it out to be.

It takes about a month to go through all of that emotional turmoil. It’s exhausting, and kind of ridiculous. Which is probably why I didn’t want an audience while I went through it. (That and I didn’t have time to write it all out.)

I’m pretty sure this cycle has a little something to do with my own biological seasons. I have my own summer, fall, winter and spring. Having the predisposition to depression can cause any season to show up at any moment. For the past month I was plunged into winter… sluggish and unmotivated. But suddenly little buds are starting to pop up, and I just know that it won’t be long before I’m blooming all over again. In fact, I can feel it coming now.

I think it all started with a walk around the block.

I hadn’t exercised (other than my weekly physical therapy sessions) in months. Walking around the block was such a hard core workout. I was sweaty and my right leg was exhausted. But I finally got to just listen to music that I wanted to listen to. I got to feel the fresh breeze on my flushed face. And I got to gulp down clean fresh air. It was divine.

After that, I started walking every day, going further and further.

Then I started waking up earlier than normal just to have a moment to myself before the day begun. I swapped my nightly wine for morning tea. I gave myself some time to read, or write. You would be amazed at what can happen if you force yourself to relax and be mindful.

 

Slowly I started to come a live again and in addition to my quiet time in the mornings I chose two days out of the week to go to the gym in the mornings before work. It took some bartering with Brent to make it work. He’s in paramedic school, so he works out in the mornings since he’s in school all day. I begged him to give me two days of his five days. He agreed but said that he would take them back the first time I didn’t do it. This only motivated me more.

I’ve also gone back to having my weekly sunrise walk with my friend Andrea. We switched it to a weekend morning, so I don’t have to rush to get to work. Last time we ended up walking for almost 90 minutes just talking and catching up. It didn’t even feel like a work out, but when I got home and looked at my fit bit I had already walked my 10,000 steps. I ended up burning somewhere around 3,400 calories that day.

After a while other things started to fall into place again. I guess all of my previous attempts at being healthy and losing weight weren’t a complete waste after all. It turns out I had developed some healthy habits before that I was able to jump right back into.

A few weeks ago I felt like I was missing out on life because life was consuming me whole. I didn’t think I could add one more thing to the equation. I was just too busy and too stressed out. But surprisingly, the key to my happiness was adding more and prioritizing it. I added more alone time, more self-reflection, more yummy clean food and fresh clean air. It is surprising how quickly the little things add up.

Before I knew it I was five pounds down and that much closer to shedding my jeggings.

It works the other way too. The little things can be what derails you from the life you want to live. I always forget this, but it really is a matter of deciding what kind of life you want and simply living it… one step at a time.

More, more.

Nina Chapman1 Comment

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I know that winter has just begun but for some reason I feel like spring has suddenly bloomed inside of my head.

It must be the fresh start I feel coming. I just keep waiting for it to peek it’s head around the corner.

I have a tendency to hit a refresh button this time of year. The holidays are over and a new year is upon us. I’ve usually obtained some form of sugar addiction by this time and have had a few weeks off of work to contemplate how I could be more present, more organized… more, more.

Don’t get me wrong all of those things have happened this year as well. I’ve got a million unrealistic expectations listed out in my head for the new year. But it’s also very different.

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This year my hibernation pattern has been compromised. I missed the final opportunity to frolic outside and smell the rotting leaves before the earth was coated in snow. Every winter I get into a bit of a winter time funk due to my inability to play outside, but this year the funk hit early because of my leg injury.

I took so many things for granted before I had this surgery. Each week after the surgery I could feel my inner light shining dimmer and dimmer as I waited for my freedom of movement to come back. I felt like a butterfly stripped of her wings. And I couldn’t bare to write to you and tell you about it. I didn’t want to pull you down into my little dark chamber.

Each week seemed to be worse instead of better and I was unbearably frustrated because of it.

Until finally… I turned a corner.

Yes, my leg looks like a patch work quilt but after having surgery again I no longer need to worry about a gaping wound on my leg. I no longer have to wear a brace, and I don’t have to use crutches anymore.

My leg aches everyday as my muscles struggle to make a return, but every day I can feel myself getting stronger and stronger. My physical therapist said that I’m doing exceptionally well. She said that she’s never seen anyone undergo the same surgery and recuperate as fast. (Thank you Haus legs of yesteryear.)

Over the fast two months I have had a lot of time to sit and think. I debated on whether or not I would continue to write this blog. At the time I didn’t really have anything nice to say, and honestly I felt like a failure as I sat there in the worst shape of my life.

Then suddenly I began to bloom again and I couldn’t wait to write just to say hello. It seems I had forgotten why I write in the first place…

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It has nothing to do with perfection because perfection is boring. Nor does it have to do with success because how exactly do you measure success?

I write because I like you. And because apparently I am compulsively drawn to new beginnings…

So, as you may have noticed this little section of the internet looks a little different. I figured a fresh face for a fresh start was appropriate. Especially considering that I will be starting from the beginning all over again.

 

My answer to that is… shut up.

Nina ChapmanLeave a comment

Welp… it’s been nearly 6 weeks since my surgery and I’ve finally gotten to where I can walk without crutches. This is a good thing because I have proven to be a questionable motorized cart driver.

A few weeks ago I was cleared to drive a car. That morning I dropped Penelope off at preschool for the first time in a month and was so excited about my newfound freedom that I decided a little trip to Target was in order. I figured I could grab a coffee and roll around the store looking at home decor.

I had, after all, spent an entire month watching HGTV. I had big plans for the house by the time my couch stint was over.

Once I got to Target I crutched my way into the store next to three other moms that I recognized from Penelope’s preschool. Not being part of the stay-at-home squad I shyly smiled at them acknowledging that I had just seen them… and that I was indeed still wearing my pajamas. Once I made it through the door I hobbled my way to my motorized grocery cart and headed toward Starbucks.

The next thing I new my granny cart was crashing into a mug display and I was being extricated from the rubble… I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Ultimately, I opted for laughing even though I seriously contemplated the crying option. I joked it off with the employees, got my coffee and scootered my way away from the scene as fast as I could. Unfortunately the cart only had one speed… painstakingly slow.

This may cause you to ask how I managed to crash if my cart was so slow. My answer to that is… shut up.

I slowly made my way through the aisles of the store alternately cursing myself and laughing at myself for the scene I had caused at the front of the store. (I’m sure I looked quite manic.) As I scootered I kept running into one of the women from Penelope’s school. We would smile and carry on, until we bumped into each other again. Finally after ending up at the same spot in the store for the fifth time in a row she asked me if she could help me with anything.

I smiled at her and politely declined her offer, but told her about my mug display crash. She laughed with me and said, “I just had to ask. You are just the most joyful person I’ve seen in weeks.”

As soon as she said that I could feel the threat of tears rising up against me. Because joyful is that last thing I’ve been since going through this surgery and  I felt like a liar smiling at her the way that I was. I wanted to tell her so just to clear my conscious. But then again, I didn’t want to ruin her illusion and instead opted to smile even harder and thank her for her kind offer.

Slowly things are getting back to normal. A few weeks ago I started walking with crutches and then I graduated to one crutch. It didn’t take long to build my strength and before I knew it I was walking off without my crutches. I still have to have my leg locked straight, however.

The Thursday before I was scheduled to return to work I started to feel sick. By the time Monday rolled around and I had a full on cold. I thought I had reached the worst of it. But it only got worse. That Tuesday morning I woke up at 3 in the morning because I felt so awful. I made my coffee and cried in my chair as I waited for the day to begin. I couldn’t call in a substitute because I had been gone for so long. It wasn’t fair to my kids. Then to my surprise, we had a snow day.

I swore I heard angels singing when they made the announcement.

I returned to work the next day but my voice was giving out on me. By Thursday I had absolutely no voice. My poor students felt so bad for me. Every time I tried to tell them something they would answer me in a whisper and every time I dropped a crutch they scrambled to pick it up for me.

On Thursday afternoon I went to my family Dr. for my cold, but while I was there I had her take a look at the wound on my leg. Shortly after my surgery it had become apparent that I was allergic to the steristrips that they had used to close the bone deep cut. I kept developing blood blisters over my scar. Lately, it had been my main source of discomfort but I thought it would eventually go away. Unfortunately it didn’t.

Over the past week my physical therapist was becoming increasingly concerned with the way my leg was looking and wanted me to get it checked out anyway. As it turned out, under my nasty scab was a gaping wound which explained why it was oozing. (Yeah I know… gross!) It wasn’t healing properly due to the reaction I had to the strips. My family doctor called my surgeon and I had to take off of work on Friday and go in to see him.

(This is typically where I would insert a picture of my leg, but it’s gross so I’ve decided to spare you.)

Upon looking at my wound he decided that another surgery was in order to fix it. He said that there was a good chance that if my scab were to fall off I would be looking at the screws he had put into my leg. EEEW! What?!

My surgery is tomorrow. Wish me luck!

 

Post-Op Hysteria

Nina ChapmanLeave a comment

 

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I’m trying to go with the whole Thanksgiving vibe and say that I am grateful for my good health and I appreciate the fact that in the not too long future I will have two functioning legs to go along with my strong and able body. The bullshit faker in me will also tell everyone that I have a whole new perspective on life since having the ability to walk taken away from me. That this tibial tubercle osteotomy was a blessing in disguise because I needed to stop and appreciate the little things.

But I’m not really feeling it this year. Instead I’m going to go old school Thanksgiving. Think pilgrim pulp fiction style. The kind where you aren’t satisfied with the kindness of others and you want what you want and you won’t be grateful until you get it. Because the truth of this whole situation is this…

I hate it. I HATE IT. I HATE IT!!!!

If I could kick my leg freely without popping a screw I would definitely perform the melt into the ground groaning fit that turns into a twisted screeching mess that heaves its fists and feet into the unsuspecting carpet. I imagine myself to be the damsel of hysteria who would contort her face and pull out her hair in her despair.  I want to scream until my throat is sore and my face is red and sweaty. Then, maybe just maybe after getting that all out, I would be okay with sitting down for another two weeks while everyone else merrily goes about their business.

I tried to throw such a fit during Thanksgiving preparations…  I kept accidentally flinging mashed potatoes around the kitchen while trying to balance my crutches and whip potatoes at the same time.

Brent suggested I sit down and I managed to stomp off toward the couch downstairs (quite a feat considering I only have one good leg for stomping with). Once I made it safely to the couch I hurled each crutch across the room one after the other so I could revel in the sound of each individual crutch rattling as it hit the ground. Once I lugged my leg safely on the ottoman, I let out a grunt of frustration, followed by another more obnoxious one because the first grunt didn’t do justice to the amount of frustration I felt.

That wiped me out for a good hour where I remained with my jaw drooping open thanks to the pain meds, looking at the tv but not really watching it. Behind the catatonic facade I was planning my next outburst. I just needed to gather my energy and resources together.

Feel sorry for my husband, feel really really sorry. He has been my man servant throughout this whole thing. He not only has to deal with my tantrums but he also has to clean the house, take care of the kids, and prepare for paramedic school (which starts first thing in January- super big deal).

I cry every time he has to help me out of the shower because I don’t want him to see me this way. He doesn’t seem to mind but in my head there couldn’t be anything less sexy than seeing your wife helplessly sitting on a plastic chair in the shower. There just something too… geriatric about it.

I cry every time I make it back to my bedroom to wrestle my clothes back on. Tears are kryptonite to my husband. He can’t stand them. When he sees them he has to fix whatever is causing them, and if he can’t fix them then he gets super frustrated. There is nothing he can do, but hoist my leg out of the tub, help me out until I can sit on the toilet and watch me cry. Poor guy.

In the mean time I’ve been taking leg selfies so I can see the progress in my healing.

I had my surgery on Thursday November 12th. I was super nervous that morning and could feel the insides of my stomach contort as we drove to the surgical center. Before I knew it I was naked under a flimsy hospital gown wishing they would just hurry up and knock me out.

I wrote “yes!” on the leg that I supposed to have surgery on and rung my hands together while I watched them give me a nerve block in my leg.

Brent gave me a kiss as they wheeled me away. The next thing I new I was laying in my own bed admiring my Britney Spears socks (aka compression socks).

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The next day was a disaster. The pain meds made me throw up continuously and the only container I had to catch the mess was a glass bowl. This then made Brent gag which then made me throw up harder and simultaneously yell at him to stop gagging. It was awful… again, poor guy.

Later that day I managed to keep everything down long enough to take a nap. Brent left to get anti nausea medicine and I woke up feeling woozy. I didn’t have my handy glass bowl and couldn’t maneuver my body fast enough to make it to the bathroom. Even if I could make it to the bathroom I had no way of leaning over the toilet effectively. Fortunately,   my friend KJ kindly came over and retrieved some crackers for me to eat so I could ease the urge to puke every where.

After I learned how to keep the pain meds down I spent the first week in bed. 12240234_10207681127416880_2602744032673377177_o

Scout was very worried about my condition and yelped every time I got up to go the the bathroom on my crutches.

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My friend Andrea came over at one time and relieved Brent of his care taker duties so he could fit in a workout at the gym.

She brought me a goodie bag including her Keurig so I could fetch myself a cup of tea while safely seated on my ass.

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She also helped me safely take a shower which, entailed a lot more naked Nina than she had anticipated after my shower chair broke. After the shower debacle was over she put me safely back to bed. She kindly fetched me a snack and painted my toenails before I drifted off to my pain-med induced sleep.

After a week my dad flew in to help Brent with all of the duties that lay solely on his shoulders.

It was at this time that I finally got out of the house long enough to capitalize on the freedom motorized wheelchair grocery carts provide.

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I even snuck off to the movies to watch the new Hunger Games Movie with Bridget and my dad.

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Despite those snippets of freedom, I began to feel confined in my circumstances…. literally. My leg and foot was bruised and swollen. At one point both my knee and my foot had a muffin top.

I would wake up in the middle of the night and my leg would swell into my brace until I felt like it was about to explode.

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Then came the muscle atrophy. I was not prepared to see my leg muscles dwindle away as fast as they did.

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I’ve been going to physical therapy which pretty  much entails having the therapist rub the crap out of my leg to try to get the swelling to move, a few quad contractions and icing and electric shock stuff.

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I am proud to announce that my quad has refused to give up hope. Most people’s quads shut down after a surgery like this. I was able to flex it and my Physical Therapist was super impressed. She said she’s never seen someone with quad skills like mine after a tibial tubercle osteotomy.

The worst part about this whole ordeal is not being able to do anything by myself. I have to rely on people to do everything for me. Sitting on the couch and watching Netflix on a snowy day sounded like paradise a few weeks ago, but the only thing I want more than anything is my independence back.

I can’t wait for the day that I can do whatever the hell I want- without the support of crutches. In the mean time, I’ll just continue to have my little temper tantrums you know… just to keep me preoccupied.