TMI time, but you'll thank me

You know your physical therapy on lower back pain is working when sex pain dramatically decreases.

Sex and Low Back Pain
Best and Worst Sex Positions for Back Pain

I've been in and out of physical therapy for low back pain for a couple of years, and this round is more fine tuning specific weak spots because I started getting shooting nerve pain down to my foot several months ago, on top of a few other new pains. It wasn't exactly back to the drawing board, but I'm evidently still doing something that triggers enough extra nerve compression at L5S1 that it felt like everything suddenly got way worse. Well, they say it's a little worse, but still manageable, and the two big things I'm working on now are being aware of what I'm doing so I avoid the trigger movements (no more picking up little kids, basically) and tightening up my core strength around the muscle areas allowing the compression to worsen. Some people have more damage than me and less pain, others have less damage and more pain, so low back pain is a very individual experience.

I bet a lot of you didn't know that sex pain can be caused by nerve compression in the lower back. Even if you have no other back or leg pain, whatever position or movements you're doing could be all it takes, and wham, it feels like someone ripped a new hole or a stab goes down your leg, or suddenly your hip locks up and you're beating out a charley horse in your glut.

When my lower back first flared back up again, I couldn't tell it was my back. I had nasty pain all around my pelvis and it kept feeling like I had a terrible bladder infection. Over time I've been checked and cleared for several things, including cancers and tumors. Nothing was ever wrong. It wasn't until I went to physical therapy and started core strength training that I could tell (feel) it actually started in my back. The nerve compression made that spot in my back feel numb. I could tell, though, that simple things like sitting or standing too long made all the other pain worse, and I had to learn all over how to properly stretch, move, and even walk.

Part of all that was sex pain, and it got pretty excruciating off and on. I could never tell when it would be bad, and it would hit so hard and fast in the middle of it that I'd double up in pain. I blamed it on aging, a mild cystocele that my gyno assured me wasn't a problem, hormones, fibromyalgia- but it always gets better with physical therapy for my lower back.

The L5S1 is the most common site for lower back pain because that joint connection takes the most weight, and the nerve there branches out in such a way that all kinds of weird sensations or pain or numbness can travel around in the oddest ways, even if you still seem to be fully functional and capable.

Describing a new syndrome in L5-S1 disc herniation: Sexual and sphincter dysfunction without pain and muscle weakness (click)

"A syndrome in L5-S1 disc herniation with sexual and sphincter dysfunction without pain and muscle weakness was noted. We think that it is crucial for neurosurgeons to early realise that paralysis of the sphincter and sexual dysfunction are possible in patients with lumbar L5-S1 disc disease."

That basically means that sex pain and/or dysfunction might be a first warning sign of disc degeneration years ahead of disc damage showing up on x-rays or MRI. This goes for both men and women.

I can tell you from experience that pain meds and sitting around on a couch do NOT make this any better, even if the pain lessens. The only thing that has genuinely improved this kind of pain for me is core stretches and exercises specifically designed to strengthen the muscles that support the spine. (That is why it's called core.)

Even if you normally don't work out and hate exercise, you will love core if you spend a little time getting through the tough first day or week, and after that it becomes the tough first few minutes, and over time your body will almost beg you to do something core. Like hang a leg off a bed a certain way. I didn't know that was a core stretch that can relieve pressure right there on that spot, and after I've done the core stuff, which takes about 15-20 minutes if I do everything I'm told, the pain lessens quite dramatically, especially now that I've been using physical therapy somewhat regularly to control my pain. No pills I ever took made the pain lighten up like that, and I've taken handfuls of gigantic and very colorful pills in my life. I was even crippled for a couple of years because the pain was so bad. My worst year I thought I'd never be able to dress myself again.

Or have sex.

I'm having sex, guys.

mean is how I show my love

There's a new policy agreement I had to sign before my physical therapy assessment this time. They have so many no-shows and cancellations that they're losing a substantial amount of money flow, and THAT, my friends, is why insurance is so stupidly high. Don't blame it all on poor people and ERs. Blame the people who have insurance and medicare who are purposely noncompliant with care plans.

Physical therapy is hard work. It's not for the faint of heart. I've been there- in and out of wheelchairs, using a cane, needing a driver and assistance in and out of the shower, and help getting dressed. I know exactly what it feels like to be a burden and spiral down a black hole of hopelessness. I'm such a good friend with pain that I actually miss it when it's gone, because I almost get high off of it, even without meds.

It's so easy to take the whiny way out. I hurt. Yeah, join the club. I have a headache. My worst headache lasted 6 weeks and I got at most ten minutes of sleep at a time that entire time, because it was so bad I couldn't even lay down, so I hear ya. It's hard. So is having babies, and that's not stopping anybody. I can't do it. Then curl up and die, you big baby.

That's me talking to my head. I have said all the things everyone else has said. And then I kicked my butt and slammed my head into a wall and GOT TO WORK. I got pissed off enough to get up and do something about my whining.

It was hard believing I could do this. Every morning I had to actually literally SAY "I can do this." Sometimes it was just a whisper in my mind while I cried. Sometimes it was a hopeless defiant shout in the dark. But many times I really did say it out loud on my way in to physical therapy.

Yesterday was hard. I'm in a better place than I've been in years, but it was still hard getting through another assessment and core review. I'm not out of the woods. I can't just flop my body into a chair and pop pain pills when I sit too long. I can't be lazy without backsliding into more pain and disability and eventually major surgery. Yes, I can ask them to turn the pain off and risk paralysis and sepsis and a whole list of other possibilities in a 50/50 gamble, because that's what surgical pain management is. It doesn't fix anything. It actually harms the body even more so you just can't feel it. There's no guarantee how long it'll last, and once it's done you can't go back and undo it. I know too many people this has backfired on. It's way too easy to skip ahead to the last resort and then hear the horror stories- multiple procedures melting down into meth addiction trying to handle pain that simply can't be killed off. Procedures that went well but then catastrophic fail happened after a blood clot in the spine, making the disability so much worse than it was before. Pain being replaced with maddening numbness. Asking someone to cauterize a nerve is such a leap of faith, I can't imagine doing that unless I was ready to commit suicide anyway. My psychologist told me a few times I'm a cynic. That's putting it mildly. I look at it like this- if a surgeon tells me he won't do pain control on me even in radiology with a needle because my history contraindicates success (nice of him to be honest), then I'm going to find another way to live like this.

There is this wonderful program in place to help people who are sinking into quagmires of pain and disability. It's called physical therapy. It's there for just about everyone- medicare is very supportive, and most insurance plans will take the brunt of the cost. All it takes is a person telling their doctor they'd like some help with a specific pain- how to move correctly, how to strengthen that area, how to become more functional around the house. I can say from experience that it's like working miracles, but it takes participation. You can get a whole team of people in on it, and they'll all tell you the same thing- pain shots, PT, and even surgery all work better with regular stretching and exercise, and good nutrition and hydration. You wanna heal? Cut the crap. You don't make a car run better pouring sugar in the gas tank. You don't stick a cigarette in your dog's mouth. You don't give babies beer bottles. You don't pick a fantasy football player who doesn't make the workouts. The logic is sound. All we have to do is apply it.

Several years ago I made a decision. Do I want to LIVE? If I don't save myself, no one else has to. Get out there and GET TO WORK. It made differences nothing else ever did.

I went through a little backsliding the last 8 months, so I'm back in GET TO WORK mode. I'm slapping myself to get up and MOVE, I'm plugging my ears and singing lalalalala when my head whines that this is too hard, I'm gritting my teeth and psyching up and telling myself that actors and professional athletes are where they are because they were willing to work for it. There is nothing in this world saying a writer doesn't need that kind of one on one physical training, as well. Sitting in a chair writing words isn't easy. Anyone who thinks it's easy is an idiot.

I know I sound mean. Sometimes you gotta get mean if you wanna stick around longer for your family. Whining my way to an early grave is unacceptable to me. I've got things to do, people to meet, a world to change...

Why isn't my weight loss program working?

This will take a month to read, so grab a sandwich. If you are needing moral support with a weight loss plan because it sucks plugging in numbers, here you go. I'm your tour guide through what went wrong (for me, that is).

Last month I started a loseit account. I have spent the last 41 days figuring out how to make it work (better phrase- how to correctly use it) and I think I have finally got the numbers set right. One good thing came out of it even though my net loss this morning is only 1 pound- I haven't gained any new weight, yay!

I originally lost 50 pounds in 2011 very simply by stopping at 1500 calories every day and avoiding everything bread, rice, and potatoes, like my doctor told me. Back then I had lots of incentive- I was so disabled I could barely walk across my own house. let alone get  out and do anything on my own. You might get the idea from this that I was absolutely huge, but not so, just simply so ketoned up from diabetes that my fibromyalgia locked up like cement and pain and meds finished me off. All it took was cutting the carbs way down and stopping at 1500 calories to change my life. People hate hearing "changed my life" from enthusiastic newly emerged butterflies, but when it's your turn to hover close to death, let me know how it goes with hating everything instead of fighting to survive.

My problem with a weight loss plan is numbers, forms, and way too much information. You guys have heard me mention my glitchy brain, well, it was so bad last week that I had to call an 800 number for help filling out simple personal info for a billing problem. I explained that part of my disability is cognitive and that I am easily confused with forms and manage to answer the simplest questions wrong. I know that's hard to believe given how I never stop typing, but it's true. I've even written about how the publishing forms for the book I still haven't submitted yet freak me out to no end, which is hellishly ironic.

Ketones have a way of stacking up so that your body can't take out the trash very well, as it were. Diabetics who don't or can't control well always have ketones in the way of everything they do. One of my doctors made a note about my ketone level in 2008 but waved off a diabetes diagnosis. Another doctor in 2011 turned my life around with a diagnosis, but by then my brain fog was so bad that I was a goofball. Even though my blood sugars were never officially caught above 200, I'd already had the breathlessness and fruity breath for a couple of years, to the point of needing a daily inhaler just to breathe, so I personally don't think a low level ketone problem isn't diagnostically assumable to not affect whole body function. The doctor who waved me off just kept throwing prescriptions at me while I felt mired and sinking in tar.

Brains function on glucose. How does the brain use food as energy? Counterintuitively, this doesn't mean that the more sugary soda pop you drink, the smarter you get, as we read in that article.

The brain is an energy-hungry organ. Despite comprising only 2 percent of the body’s weight, the brain gobbles up more than 20 percent of daily energy intake. Because the brain demands such high amounts of energy, the foods we consume greatly affect brain function, including everything from learning and memory to emotions.

Just like other cells in the body, brain cells use a form of sugar called glucose to fuel cellular activities. This energy comes from the foods we consume daily and is regularly delivered to brain cells (called neurons) through the blood. Studies suggest the quality of the foods consumed over the lifetime affects the structure and function of the brain. For instance, the consumption of omega-3 fatty acids found in fish provides structural material to maintain neurons. Studies also suggest omega-3 fatty acids are essential for the transmission of information between brain cells. In contrast, foods that are rich in sugars and saturated fats have been found to promote oxidative stress, which leads to damage of cell membranes.

The food you eat also affects molecules in the brain that support cognition. Some foods, such as those with turmeric, support cognition by helping to maintain molecular events related to energy metabolism. Recent studies suggest lifestyle choices that affect the metabolism of nerve cells, such as diet and exercise, may in some cases provide a noninvasive and effective strategy to counteract neurological and cognitive disorders.

Brain fog is a real thing, and although not medically diagnostic, has crept into a number of medical observation articles related to chronic illnesses. A diabetes diagnosis carries more weight than chronic illness. Is Diabetes Treated as an Acute or Chronic Illness in Community Family Practice? Some of you with diabetes might not be aware that a rapid very high spike or very low drop in your blood sugar is life threatening. It is sensible to assume that diabetics live with some pretty hefty brain fog and have difficulty managing their lives. I know I sure did. Even when we have a healthy day or week  and are able to fool the world and pass for normal, we can experience 'brain fail' in the middle of being our brilliant selves, suddenly our thoughts wink out and we stumble over what we were saying, we must follow a list, and once in awhile wonder how in the world we didn't just have a nasty traffic accident. Diabetes is a big deal on a daily basis because a crippled metabolic process logically cripples a brain completely reliant on smooth metabolic processing.

That's a lot of stuff I've just written to explain this- Plugging numbers into weight loss plans on the internet is hard. Looking up every jot and tittle for calories and carbs is hard. Forcing eyes to work that much harder, doing simple math, keeping track of what we were thinking and doing while we work on the end goal of plugging in a variable IS HARD.

I aced my way through a college algebra class on my first try. If I say using an online weight loss program is hard because of chronic illness brain fog, it's hard.

The people who need help the most must work the hardest to achieve what other people take for granted. It's not fair, no. It sucks, yes. Is it worth it? I can say honestly that any blinking in the light is definitely worth it.

Here's the thing. My first mistake was feeling frustrated with the built in calorie counter and guesstimating my caloric intake because it was easier and faster on my eyes and my brain. My second mistake was feeling frustrated with the built in exercise calculator and, again, guesstimating. My third mistake was assuming I was getting enough nutrients every day and I doubled my original workout schedule. I had originally been walking 30 minutes every other day with occasional stretchy band and other core strength maintenance. When I joined loseit, I started exercising every day.

I lost 2 pounds. Then I went up one pound. Then down one pound. Then back up one pound. Then down 2 pounds, Then up one pound.... I basically got caught in a loop, and nothing I did changed it. After 4 weeks of laughing about being caught in the same 3 pound revolving door I got a little angry and started snooping around the groups yapping and even contacted a moderator. He told me to adjust my calorie calculator and linked me to a BMR calculator. I adjusted. No change. By the end of 4 weeks everything stopped and I laid in bed for 3 days.

I was lucky. As I laid there I realized 1- this didn't feel like the old depression from several years ago where all function stopped and I took to my bed for weeks, 2- my brain is working even better than ever, what is going on???, and 3- it's making me cranky to lay here and I don't seem to be sick, so something must actually be going on. I have many years of experience with chronic illness, and this didn't feel like that. What did it feel like? After some thought I decided it felt like I had very simply just run out of energy.

My beginning plan with loseit was for around 1200 calories. That is what their calculator gave me when I plugged in my height and weight and how quickly I wanted to lose X amount of pounds. I was obviously way under the 1500 calorie plan my doctor gave me in 2011, and this time I was exercising. A lot. Way more than I used to, which I find thrilling after so many years of being a super wimp. Anyway, obviously something was way off if I wasn't losing weight.

I found a better BMR calculator. I noticed that it linked to a really good BMI calculator. And that led to this-

Once you know the number of calories needed to maintain your weight, you can easily calculate the number of calories you need to eat in order to gain or lose weight:
Calorie intake to gain weight
Calorie intake to lose weight

AND the number of calories we need to eat doing all that exercise without killing ourselves...

Do all of those in the same order that I linked them. After I discovered I needed more than 1200 calories just to sit around and watch TV all day, I also ran into articles that talked about how when we don't eat enough, our bodies get really good at hanging onto every shred of stuff it gets, so I'm pretty amazed that 3 1/2 weeks of double my workout on way too few calories didn't budge my weight down more than 3 pounds the whole time. That means my body is incredibly efficient. Our bodies are wondrous things, even when we're chronic.

So I went back to loseit and adjusted my plan again, and I noticed this time there there was a tiny embedded link (squint squint) that lets you set your own daily calorie budget after you've set your time schedule, assuming you know your BMR requirements. The inbuilt calculator then automatically adjusts your daily log and from there...

Ug. From there, the only way the calculator can work correctly is if I stop guesstimating. Especially when I find atrocious mistakes in their calorie catalog. Don't know who input this particular data, but evaporated milk does NOT have 150 calories in 2 T, good grief. Time to pull my brain out of my pocket and read labels and create my own calorie catalog, which loseit allows, thank goodness. That actually makes it easier later because it keeps track of the foods you like to eat, and if you eat the same things over and over, just point and click once you've got the numbers set correctly.

But that wasn't enough. Loseit also calculates nutrients, and you can pick and choose which ones you'd like to keep track of. Like protein. It occurred to me that 3+ weeks of heavier exercise on fewer calories probably put me in a severe protein deficit, and I was right. I found an awesome protein calculator and found out I needed way more than I thought, so I started changing some of the things I was eating. Reaching a protein goal without going over a calorie goal is harder than you think, and I learned real fast that even as an aware carb counting diabetic, I was still eating way too many carbs and sacrificing other nutrients at the calorie line. My old habits had snuck back in. Carb calories are harder to lose than any other kind, which is why the South Beach diet is such a success.

So on top of counting my own carbs and calories, now I had to start counting my protein. It's really hard to create your own calorie catalog when the weight loss plan's built in calorie catalog isn't very helpful, but I found this super awesome nutrient catalog site that makes it way easier.

I'm only a couple of days into all this new more correct stuff, but I've already got my energy back. I've been eating my calorie budget and my body is so relieved to be getting more food, especially now that I've added more protein. All systems are going back to normal, my nerves are calming down, and I feel more capable of handling the holidays coming up.

One question- if I was so worn out from a calorie deficit, why was my brain working well enough to puzzle this stuff out when I hit my lowest point? I was very surprised by this. I'm going to guess it's because I had managed to get my ketones down lower than I've had them in a very long time between restricting calories and extra exercise, which made what glucose I did eat go straight to my brain. Ok, truth- I don't know. I've lived with brain fog so long, I'm just really surprised I was able to plug my brain in and think my way through this jam. And now I'm sharing it because I know some of you need a more step by step moral support to stay plugged into a program that isn't making any sense, right?

It's possible to do a weight loss program all wrong and actually hurt yourself, like I was doing. I was getting warning signs galore, like anxiety attacks out of nowhere, blood pressure surges, skippy heartbeats, and weird charley horses moving around all over my body. If I'd gone to a doctor for that stuff I'd have been handed more pills, which would've only masked them without solving anything. I'm lucky my body finally just said stop and I laid in bed for 3 days resting. If your body is STOPPING, that's a pretty big sign that you need to stop doing something you're doing or that something else is going on that needs attention, like illness.

I know people say drinking more water helps prevent charley horses or working out more keeps you from getting sick so much, but these things don't help if you're not getting enough protein to stay healthy or enough calories to even be a couch potato. If you are diabetic and feeling frustrated with an online weight loss program, take a break and spend some time digging a little deeper. If 'normal' people are also frustrated and inputting data wrong, you know it's going to be even harder for us. It's ok. Main thing is that we're all still learning and you're not alone feeling frustrated!

I don't know if I'm being brave or stupid

Anxiety attacks are no joke. My blood pressure hit 171/92 at 7:20 this morning because of stuff I was writing elsewhere that kept hitting and pinging some of my worst triggers and took 20 minutes to come back down below the 140/90 line that my doctor freaks out about. I was kinda proud of that, usually takes an hour or two, in the past, even longer, and it's gone way higher than that, too. But my stomach and chest have still been tight all day and I'm doing maintenance workouts in small batches that won't trigger the fibro after all that hooplah.

Some people say "Get a grip." I have to very seriously UN-grip my whole body. It's been an all-day job staying on top of this while I keep working on that other writing, also in small batches. So why am I even doing it???

Because I can. Because I've come this far. Because I want to.

They say face your fears. They never say what to do after that. My biggest fear is my own body over reacting to everything. To me, anxiety attacks are like facing down a dog that is about to leap and bite or getting on a big horse that wants to bolt. (I've actually done both in my life several times, and honestly, I'll take the dog and horse any day over anxiety attacks.)

One of the jokes around my house is that if the world falls apart from some doomsday scenario, I'll be among the first wave to die, if for no other reason than because I won't be able to get my thyroid pills. Ever think about that? Five years ago I was on handfuls of medications, and I very clearly wouldn't have lasted through a major crisis like a nationwide economic crash.

I'm changing all that. I used to be real tough. An accident and a couple of illnesses changed all that for a long time, but I'm changing it back. Because I want to. Some day my anxiety attacks will last only a few minutes while I face even harder triggers, if they don't give me a heart attack first. I'm working on lowering that risk, not because I'm scared, but because I want to.

I used to be able to run. It's been a long time since my sister and brother and I pushed 200 head of nearly wild cattle between woods and hills through 2 miles of pasture to a chute, but we never stopped until it was done, and then the real work began.

I want to be able to run like that again.

a plan that works- spoonie survivalist

Yowza, back to start another round of physical therapy yesterday. Ideally, lower back core strength would be pool work, but being around the pool sets off asthma (chemicals?) and winds up counterproductive. I started out that way in 2008 and loved it, but breathing kind of takes precedence.

So yesterday it was back to balance workouts, and then deep tissue ASTYM, which I think actually gets more work done in half the time anyway because it pinpoints and concentrates on problem areas instead of continuing to use general overcompensation while strength training. I work with weights, balls, stretchy bands, and sometimes foam pads that force me to fine tune balance even more.

I am usually the youngest person I see in physical therapy, unless someone else has come in for athletic or accident related injury. Most of the work is older people trying to regain mobility and lower their pain levels. Since I've already been through nearly complete immobility and screaming high pain levels, I have a lot of empathy for them being old on top of it.

I was told by the very first doctor I saw in my mid-20's that I would be living in a nursing home by the time I was 40. Back then, before 'fibrositis' was a thing (now fibromyalgia), it wasn't that uncommon for people to wind up in severe contractures as they grew older, to the point of great suffering and losing ability to care for themselves. One of the focuses we learned in nursing school was how to care plan around patients with contractures. I saw very clearly where I was headed if I didn't get a handle on living with severe fibromyalgia complicated with autoimmune flare ups. Having diabetes with it makes it monumentally worse because ketones further slow down vital nutrient flow through the muscles. I watched my mother disintegrate into 'frozen shoulders' and severe physical and cognitive deficits before she finally died in a nursing home. If everything I'm going through is genetically inclined, I know exactly how it's all going to end.

click this for cute story

But not if I can help it! There is so much new knowledge nowadays. In 2008 I made the decision to taper off medications that didn't improve my quality of life in either function or pain control, and now I'm nearly free of meds. I put together a care team of my own that included my regular doctor (who refers me as needed to pulmonologist, rheumatologist, cardioloist, ENT, allergist, etc), psychologist, and chiropractor. I coordinated all this with my endocrinologist and gynocologist. It helps being in a system like Mercy that is software integrating all my medical info, but I started this self integration before they had that technology in place. It takes some effort and focus, but taking that first step to become my own health care advocate was the beginning of me changing my life. I know a lot of people who still have unsynchronized medical charts between widely disparate clinics and doctor groups, and I can see how this hampers the help they hope to get, especially if they're not very good yet at communicating to every doctor they see. My psychologist helped me learn to communicate my needs and goals to my doctors, and that made a lot of difference.

Disability is an unfortunate part of my life, and I resisted for years. I hid my problems as best I could until I quite literally could no longer function and started making big mistakes at work. It felt like my body and mind were closing down and I was trapped inside, and everything got really hard. It was hard to move around, hard to interact in social settings, hard to think. I even discussed becoming a nondriver with my doctor. My driving got pretty scary.

funny pix when u click

Fortunately, I discovered that Medicare has strong physical therapy support and encourages people to use their yearly programs that are designed to channel the patient's needs through one-on-one assessment and training. I couldn't see how this could help at first, but a new wave has been sweeping the country- ASTYM is all the rage now. I am one of the first in my area to go through comprehensive ASTYM therapy along with core strength training with several different therapists because I'm stubborn and want to get healthy. Because I accept that 1- I must work for this, 2- pain is ok and not to be avoided (many people stop because the pain doesn't stop right away), and 3- it really is up to ME being persistent to properly heal, I have regained not only a world of mobility I had lost for years, but also the strength and endurance to keep moving. I am able to do things again that I held no hope for in my future, and much of it with drastically reduced pain levels.

I still have rough days, weeks, even months, but I know now that I don't have to backslide to darkness and despair. It's up to me to be a vital person. It's my choice to work hard so that I can continue to be useful in this life. It took quite a lot of grit with no promise to cling to when I first started out. It's been 6 years since I began my first physical therapy. I've been able to avoid several spinal surgeries, many cortisone shots, and have probably reduced my fall risk by at least 80%. I'm not pain free and probably never will be, and every time I take a break from physical therapy the old stuff tries to creep back up on me. This isn't a cure. But it has become a lifestyle, and I'm grateful that I stuck through it this long because I'm reaching a place where life feels better, I feel happier, and I actually have hope for my future now.

I'm writing all this down because I remember how I used to search through the night for other people like me- how does one survive? How does one get through this hard stuff? How does one hang on when everything utterly sucks and life looks so sad? Especially in the wee hours of the night when there is no one to talk to.

I am drawing a road map. I'm finding my way through this jungle, and one day I'm going to make it easy for all of us to follow the map. In the meantime, this is me checking in on another prednisone taper and another round of physical therapy.

lol

wrapping my mind around bird brains

I know a guy who used to race pigeons, mostly as a small time hobby. I was responsible for feeding his pigeons for a week while he was on vacation, so I'm familiar with how a pigeon loft works. I don't know much else except that it's common to cull slow racers if they haven't already gotten lost finding their way home during practice flights, or maybe choose not to come home. My dad was curious about about it when I told him what I'd picked up about pigeon racing and asked, "How do you know you're not killing the fastest one? Maybe it had to fly through a thunderstorm, or outmaneuver a hawk. Maybe it went through all kinds of challenges the others never made it through, wouldn't that make it the best one?"

Humans have an odd way of looking at things, and I see all around me that we are torn between compassion and efficiency. I learned in my sociology degree during a class about the industrial revolution that our group thinking radically changed when a person's work load became closely associated with the time it takes to produce a good or service, and that makes a person worth more or less to an employer. I know it's hard for us to imagine, but this is not intuitive thinking for humans and wasn't a world standard even just 300 years ago. We have to be taught to think this way, but once we do think this way, it's hard to think outside this kind of box. We can see by looking around us at coworkers and at children growing into the work force that the 'work ethic' truly isn't instinctive.

Compassion doesn't make money, and we often talk about living in a throwaway society. People who can't keep up or pull their weight are often thought of as losers and drags on the system, whatever the system is in our minds, even though the ultimate goal of the system is group survival, if I'm understanding my history correctly. The best of religious and political arguments highlight whether humans are literally going through the shredders along with the words that keep churning around and around, and somewhere someone like me slips through all the cracks and realizes there is no 'side'.

I try to keep up a workout routine. It's hard, but I'm doing the impossible, so I don't mind so much. Today I walked a brisk pace for 25 minutes while I did my arm stretches, something I've not be able to do at the same time before without having to stop right away. In the long slow climb up a mundane little hill, I forget sometimes that I've already climbed the steep escarpment that loomed above yet another long climb up a mountain base with threats of avalanche all around me. A handful of years ago I was barely walking at all, and not for any distance.

Sometimes a pigeon gets home from a race several days later than the others from its loft, only to be immediately culled. Without any kind of tracking or camera on that pigeon, no one has any idea why it took so long. No one knows that it may have suffered calamity another pigeon in the loft didn't live through, or it may have been courageous and compassionate and stayed behind with a mate who'd been attacked by a bird of prey very high in the air, and stayed with it till it died. We love that our dogs will go back to save kittens from something, but we somehow miss that pigeons and humans perform unsung brave and compassionate deeds through dark and terrible anguish.

I do a lot of thinking while I work out.