Yoga

In November of 2014 I started having trouble with my left shoulder - pain and limited movement.  In the spring of 2015, I was diagnosed with a frozen shoulder and started physical therapy.  It was HORRIBLE painful - it hurt to breathe or move and if I got bumped, it would make me want to scream.  I could barely move it so good thing it was my left arm.  My kids called me T-rex.

I went to physical therapy 2-3 time a week from March 1st until school got out in June.  It hurt soooo bad.  They did acupuncture and pulled it and did all these exercises.  It wasn't improving fast enough so I went to a doctor to get a cortisone shot.  It slowly started improving.  During the summer, I had a hard time lifting heavy things or moving my arm very far.  I started PT again in August until Nov.  They got it as far as they could, then said it would just get better with time.  I started Yoga in January.  Ratish comes to my house to work with me for an hour for 1000 rupees ($15).  It has improved quite a bit.

18 months after it started, I'd say have about 90-95 percent mobility now and the pain is a lot better.

Yoga has improved my flexibility and balance and I am working on my strength.   I had been working with a personal trainer, Nilendra, for three years, but our work was greatly compromised due to my shoulder.  Basically I just did squats and lunges for 6th month with him because I couldn't use my arms, not even to get down on the ground to do abs.

Ratish does a lot of breathing exercises with me too and I am sleeping sooooo much better. Since I was diagnosed with Lupus 12-13 years ago I have slept horribly.  I wake up 10-30 times a night - no exaggeration!!  The doctor makes me count.  Now I'm waking up 2, maybe 3 times a night!!

Another Indian Hospital Adventure

One of the best weeks of the school year is spirit week where we get to dress up - crazy hat day, mismatch day, superhero day, and the best...... pajama day!!!  I have the best elephant pajama bottoms  and I never get to wear them in India because it is hot!  Last year pajama day was on a Monday and I FORGOT.   My kids and I were so bummed.  This year it was on Friday so I talked it up all week.  On Thursday night, one of my sweet girls emailed em to remind me because she knew how disappointed I was last year.  I replied to her and said I had them all laid out and ready to go.

Then my chest started to hurt - not like it normally does, but straight in the center.  I get weird pains all the time due to my Lupus so I thought it would pass.  My yoga teacher, Ratish, came at 6:30 - I told him it hurt, but we started doing my normal stretching warm up and it immediately got worse. Really bad pain in the center of my chest and I was struggling to breathe and swallow.  I got down on the floor and had Ratish get my phone and call Karen who lives in my building.  Then I had him call Alison, out school nurse.  By this time I was in so much pain, I would barely move.  Karen came down and called Kylie who lives a block from us to come over (she is the athletic director so she has good first aid skills).  It didn't get better no matter what position I was in, so we decided to go to  Lilavati hospital.  They all three came with me which is necessary in Indian hospitals :)  We went into the casualty ward and they did an ECG, blood sugar test etc.  They hooked me up to an IV in my hand to give me meds in case it was gastric related.  Karen and Kylie filled out the paper work and Alison made sure they didn't put me in the wobbly bed that was totally unsafe.  They decided I needed to stay for observation, but they didn't have beds so they transferred me to Hinduja Khar Hospital. They let me keep my IV port in so they wouldn't have to redo it at Hinduja.  Alison and I laughed that they would never allow that in the US or Australia because people could inject drugs through it.

Alison called the school doctor so he could call the hospital and pave the way.  They took me in the ambulance - with sirens!  and the cardiac specialist was there waiting for me.  They repeated the ECG, blood sugar, etc.  I was feeling better, but they put me in the cardiac ICU anyway.  I really wasn't that sick, but they do things differently here in India.  Karen had gone to my apartment to get some clothes, toiletries, my ipad etc...  but they wouldn't let me keep anything.  They took my clothes, took my nail polish off, and wouldn't let me go to the bathroom or keep my ipad.

I was feeling better, but the night was rough.  It was loud, busy, lights were on, and I was only allowed to use a bed pan.  At 2 am, I asked a nurse to get me some cotton balls to put in my ears and that helped a little.  I managed to sleep a couple of hours.  At 6 am, a nurse came in and offered tea and biscuits, then they did a sponge bath and changed the bed with me in it.  Doctors would come and go and every time I said the pain was gone and they kept saying it wasn't likely to be heart related yet they did a chest x-ray and an echo (even though I just had one like a month ago) .  Alison came back at 8am and helped me navigate the system. It took me awhile to get discharged and she did a lot of work getting the insurance payment squared away.  Our school has an insurance representative to help with this stuff and he came and he had a lot of problems too - they make things so hard sometimes!

No real answers as to what it was, but they ruled out the big things - heart stuff and blood clots.  Kylie and I were hoping it was worms!!  Alison and I thought it might have been esophogeal spasms because the pain was in waves and I was having trouble swallowing.

I'm totally good as new though and feeling fine except sad about pajama day!!  

Traveling solo

There are many blogs and articles about traveling solo.  People do it for different reasons - friends don't have the same time off, other don't want to go where you want to go, or you just want to be alone.  Many of the articles deal with safety (especially for women), how to eat alone, what to do by yourself etc.  I know quite a few teachers that travel alone occasionally especially to beach locations - great time to relax and recharge.

I travel with friends sometimes, but a couple times a year I travel alone.  Usually its because I want to go to a place that my friends have already been or something like that.  I'm pretty good at it - I don't mind eating alone most of the time and I am good at navigating airports and new cities.  Sometimes I get a little bored, but I like that my itinerary is not attached to anyone else.  That if I'm not feeling well or tired, I can take a nap or skip something in the itinerary (like when I fainted in Sri Lanka).  I love to walk for hours on end and not everyone likes that.

I have traveled alone to Israel, Spain, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and many cities on a cruise. Even so, I prepared mentally for traveling alone in India this weekend.  When you travel in developing nations, you can expect a certain number of beggars, hawkers,  rickshaw drivers wanting your business, and men following you.  I got some of that in Sri Lanka and Cambodia - even in Mumbai where I live, but Varanasi was a whole other level!  It was so bad, that I spent a lot of my time just relaxing in my hotel.

I purposefully got a hotel away from the ghats trying to guarantee more peace.  On the first day I got a rickshaw to take me where to meet my guide for a walking tour.  He took me right there and it was great.  My guide was good, we got a little separated a few times but no one bothered me.  We ended as it was getting dark and he said he'd walk me along the ghats for safety reasons because it is sparsely populated there.  He left me at the main ghat where there were tons of people and he had shown me earlier where to walk to get an auto rickshaw.  He left, I got a bottle of water and thought the 10 minute walk was going to be fine.  I was immediately accosted by two guys - one in front, one in back - bothering me, trying to convince me to go with them.  It took me a few minutes to shake them.  Then a shopkeeper started following me and trying to get me to go to his shop or hire him to be my guide the next day.  He kept asking me to take him home with me so he could find work.  I found a auto and got in the back.  The shopkeeper and his friend both got in with the driver in front (there is only one seat up there!)  I didn't like it at all - why are there three men in the rickshaw with me.  I kind of knew where my hotel was so I knew we were heading in the right direction.  and we were going slow enough that I could jump out anytime I wanted.  The shopkeeper talked to me the entire time - practically begging me to take him to Mumbai or the US.  The next morning, I got a rickshaw to the ghats at 4:30 am.  The driver was fine and didn't try to scam me or anything so I asked him to take me to Sarnath after breakfast.  I get in and another guy gets in too.  augh!  they took me to Sarnath and when we got back, I paid the driver what I had agreed to pay him and the second guy wanted money too!  I said that I didn't ask for him.  At least he let it go pretty easily when I said no.  I stayed inside for the afternoon and went to try a walk in the evening and after 10 minutes, I went back because I had been bothered like 30 times.  I couldn't even enjoy a walk!

When I went to Amritsar (a Sikh city) I could feel peacefulness and spirituality in the golden temple even though it wasn't my religion.  I expected to feel the same in Varanasi, but I didn't because I was so concentrated on my safety.  Being with someone else makes it easier to ignore some of these people, you can just act like you are in a deep conversation with your friend.  I don't think I will be traveling in India alone again.  I still enjoy traveling alone, but I want to have fun and be comfortable and that doesn't happen in India.