Return of the Cardio Queen

Surprise! It’s January and I’m back at the gym.

Jane, my first fitness guru

No, this is not some half-baked New Year’s resolution. I returned to the gym in August, though it’s been a bit stop-and-go. After a blissfully carefree summer, I was ready to shed the twelve pounds of flab that I’d accumulated over eight months of chemo, surgery, and radiation. The "no joiners' fee" promo from the local YMCA spurred me into action. The timing of my return was tricky because I had follow-up surgery scheduled for mid-September, but I threw myself into zumba and spinning with wild abandon anyway. After all, they say that fit people are more likely to recover from surgery quickly, so what did I have to lose? (Except for that tire around my waist, of course.) I was so giddy to be back in the saddle that I insisted on seeking out a spinning class in Colorado while vacationing there. It was fun, even if the instructor did decide to refer to me as "Boston." She kept shouting, “You okay over there, Boston?!!” She seemed nervous that I might pass out because I wasn't used to being 5000 feet above sea level. Either that, or she saw my port-a-cath and thought I had a heart condition. It was a little scary looking.

Now you see it....

Fortunately, it’s always been easy for me to start a cardio regimen and get up to speed. (I refuse to accept that I can never brag about my health again, thank you very much.) Furthermore, my heart rate and blood pressure have always been on the low side. On the day of my surgery an anesthesiologist actually flagged my file because of my heart rate, which fluctuated between the high 40’s and low 50’s.  

My heart rate earned me an exclamation point!

I told him I felt fine, but he wanted to be sure that this was my ‘normal' before going ahead with the para-vertebral block.  This meant that I had to remain under surveillance for an extra hour.  Not fun when you’ve been at the hospital for four hours already and you’ve been fighting the urge to run across Cambridge Street and hop on the T in your hospital-issued johnny the whole time.  So what if I made the front page of the Boston Herald?  I didn’t care. 

A nurse reassured me that a slow heart rate, in the absence of dizziness, is almost always a good thing.  Still, I was a bit freaked out at the prospect of getting drugs that would slow it down even MORE.  As they wheeled me into the OR I asked the anesthesiologist in charge whether my heart rate meant that I was half-dead already.  (I do things like that when I'm nervous.)  Fortunately, he took my question in stride.  He simply smiled and assured me that he had drugs that could speed it up again if necessary.  After chatting for a little bit about our favorite pizza places, I transferred myself onto the operating table and handed my life over to him and my trusty surgeon. 

To make a long story short, I survived. I had a silicone implant put in where a tissue expander had once been, and I had a mastectomy and reconstruction on the other side for good measure.  (No more mammograms!  Ever again!  Yippee!) As a bonus, I had them take out the port-a-cath while they were at it.  (Oddly enough, I was a little bit sad to see it go...). 

Now you don't...

Of course, I was knocked flat on my butt again for a while. Not that recovery was hard. Instead of using the painkillers they gave me, I just popped Tylenol, as I had done the first time around. I was up and driving again in two-and-a-half-weeks. However, my surgeon said that I shouldn’t do too much bouncing up and down and that meant no zumba for a while. Trying to do zumba without bouncing is like trying to eat without chewing. Or trying to swim without getting wet. 

In December I headed back to the gym feeling only a little bit worse for wear. Sure, my knees are so creaky that I can actually hear them sometimes. I blame that on all of the aerobics and kickboxing I’ve done since I first discovered Jane Fonda’s Workout Record in junior high school.  After Jane, I moved on to the Thirty Minute workout, step aerobics (absolutely terrible for the knees), and kickboxing, in turn. Nothing - not even pregnancy - could stop me. I continued spinning for the first eight months of my first pregnancy and I found that my heart rate never exceeded whatever the guidelines were at the time, no matter how hard I pushed myself. So I never worried that I was putting myself or the baby in any kind of danger. On the other hand, I sometimes wondered what effect the instructor's taste in music would have upon my son's developing mind... and his temperament. After all, he didn't have Mozart or Bach piped in to him in utero. He got Bon Jovi and The Baha Men (of "Who Let the Dogs Out - Who, Who, Who, Who?" fame). And the music was LOUD. That explains a thing or two.

It’s been hard ceding my place in the cardio studio to younger folks when I was once the Queen of Cardio. At least I don't go to a Gold's Gym or any of those other meat markets. Young folks might try to muscle out the old at my gym, but there are plenty of "mature" members and the young don't mess with us too much. (There are even a couple of swingin’ grandmas in my zumba class.)

I now have a bum shoulder to complement my creaky knees. I injured it during the summer and the injury was exacerbated by my surgery. They call it "frozen shoulder" and it makes me feel, and look, like an oaf. It's hard to look smooth on the zumba floor when you can only move one arm. (Especially if you're not a great dancer to begin with.) It’s easier to avoid awkward arm movements in my spinning classes. Easier on the creaky knees, too. So I do a combination of both each week. I start physical therapy for the shoulder soon.

Is any of this unique to my situation? Nope. It's simply a part of the aging process. I look and feel older than I did when I last belonged to a gym over two years ago. Well, actually, one part of me looks younger than before. They're made of 100% silicone and it looks like they will resist the aging process quite nicely. I’m told they might "wear out" and need replacing someday, but I sure as hell hope not. My knees and my shoulders are bound to give me enough trouble down the road as it is. ;-)  For now, I am simply enjoying my aches and pains in all of their complete and utter normalcy.

Now if only all those folks who made New Year's resolutions would stop hogging all the spinning bikes!