Never Trust the Numbers

I really like my glaucoma doc, which is why I'm willing to look past her unprofessional staff even when their actions make me furious. For example, if you are scheduled for a 2 pm appointment, the office should be open at 1:55, or earlier. The door should not be locked, with people waiting in the hallway, while you can hear the staff moving about and talking inside. At 2:01, I pound loudly on the door with my fist. I'm pissed off and I've only been standing there for 10 minutes, not like the two elderly women who have been in the hall since 1:20. A new staffer (who thinks I'm 40 yrs old) takes my eye pressures and tests the vision in my left eye. 20/20 and egads! IOPs of 18!

Eventually the doc does the pressures herself and they are better and worse: 14 left eye, 19 right eye. Another staffer tells me I still have to pay an additional $1450 to satisfy the insurance deductible because the first $1500 is not applicable. Ugh. When I get the 2nd eye operated on, I will have to shell out an additional $1500 on top of that! But if I act before the calendar year is up, my deductible will have been satisfied and I shouldn't have to pay anything further. Yeah, we'll see about that... I ask the doc about options should the iStent not be suitable for the right eye. We discuss shunt surgery, which requires cataract surgery first. Because it cannot be done concurrently with cataract surgery, I'm looking at a long recovery time. Ugh. Shunts make me nervous because they drain into a synthetic reservoir placed under the surface of the eye, toward the top back where it's not noticeable. Ugh. My left eye feels achy and still itches.

My doc wants me to wait until next week before resuming normal exercises. She only says this after asking what it is exactly that I want to resume. She's a bit concerned when I tell her HIIT cardio, weights, pull ups, push ups and kickboxing the machine. Considering the patients in the waiting room, I'm not surprised since half of them are so elderly and out of shape they require walkers and other assistance.

Today I decide I'm going to ease back into some things, but not others. My son and I do cardio first. The heart rate monitor jumps to 200 the moment my fingertips touch the metal bar then drops down to 109. Well, that's going to skew my average ridiculously. WTH? I'm warm and slightly damp when we exit the treadmills. My son is not very limber and struggles with the Cage stretches. However, he does knock out 9 pull ups today. Hurrah! His left forearm always aches afterwards, but I can't convince him to do hammer grip pull ups instead. Today, I do my first set of pull ups in 5 weeks. I'm nervous that I won't be able to do any. Still, I do more than 9, but not as many as I used to do. Instead, I get to just about half at 15, and that seems more than reasonable.

We got into the classroom to do push ups and other core exercises. My son is happy to do just 20 and I join him, then decide out loud to "oh, let's do 5 more!" and he does 5 more. So we both do 25. Then we both discuss our frustrations with various plank positions while performing them. Hands, elbows, shoulders going numb and falling asleep. Yep. We ease into the free weight area through a side door from the classroom. Luckily the place is fairly empty. Earlier I saw The Mayor with his kid again. But they were done before we finished our cardio. I see a few other regulars, mostly Little R and Maroon.

Since I'm trying to teach my son and still keep the workouts interesting and fresh, I have him do movements with variations. Three days a week means cardio plus full body exercises. Today we're on the flat Breaker Bench for just 3 sets. But I have my son change his hand position each set, starting with a standard shoulders width, then a wide grip to stress the chest, and finally a narrower grip that emphasizes arms. We're still just using the Oly bar but at 45 lbs, it's enough weight as my son struggles to stabilize the bar while pressing. I don't actually tell him where he should feel the stress until after he's performed the set, and then I ask him. When he confirms, I tell him he's done it correctly.

He's less than thrilled to be doing DB Shoulder Presses, but feels better about it when he's seated at a stand-alone seat. The backing helps his posture and he's able to focus on the shoulders. I tell him to rotate the DBs as he presses up to change the feeling. The only thing he resists is bringing the two DBs together over his head to make the little clinking noise. Because like me, he doesn't really want to call attention to himself. Lastly, Seated Cable Rows and I start him at 60 lbs because I know he can pull more. He complains when I up the weight to 70, but he's still able to do two sets without breaking his form. That's enough. After some hip stretches, time for me to shower. He's happy to just change his clothes, dab on some deodorant and wait for me. He says the Mens Locker Room smells yeasty. Yuck, that's pretty gross!

My son and hubs go away to Boy Scout Camp for a week, and I'll be left to my own devices. I'm planning to ease back into weights, starting as if I was a newbie. Because 6 weeks is a long time. But since I was able to do half my pull ups, and half my push ups (probably could've done more, but I don't want to discourage my son), I'm less worried now.

BTW, Ant-Man and The Wasp was actually a very entertaining movie, with so much going on (including the requisite Stan Lee cameo) that it'd be worth seeing again. Those familiar with the Marvel® universe know to wait until after the initial credits roll to see the quickie cliff-hanger that ties in to the Infinity War movie. Sadly, we missed that one, but once it's streamable, we'll have to catch up. Seriously.



Wednesday Humps

15 Recumbent Bike
Level 1
Calories 67
Miles 2.23
Average Heart Rate 115 (68%)

30 Treadmill
5% Incline
Speed 3
Miles 1.49
Calories 191
Average Heart Rate 121 (72%) /200 (!!!)

Max Pull Ups 9
HGPU 15

Max Push Ups 25
Push Ups 25

Bicycles 50
Crunches 30/20
Side Planks 2 x 60s
Elbow Plank 60s
Bird Dogs 2 x 60s

Max Flat Bench
45 lbs (bar) x 12 x 3
Max DB Shoulder Press
10lbs ea x 12 x 3
Max Seated Cable Rows
60 x 12
70 x 12 x 2

Stretch