A Routine.... More or Less

Apparently I have once again reached the point where I say “things have finally slowed down” immediately before my calendar fills up again.

The good news is that the truly urgent medical things have mostly settled down. The less urgent things have apparently been waiting patiently in the queue.

I’ve finally gotten established with a PCP who is looking into some of the more chronic issues I’ve been dealing with, which has led to a growing collection of follow-up appointments and specialist visits. A lot of the current focus has been on physical therapy and the chronic pain I’ve had in various combinations of my ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, and lower back. There’s also a pretty strong suspicion of some sort of hypermobility disorder, and auto immune disorder which is still being evaluated.

PT has been interesting, and by interesting, I mean that I absolutely love my physical therapist and have no intention of ever seeing anyone else, despite the fact that I have become increasingly convinced she was a dentist in a previous life.

She is definitely a little bit of a sadist. In the healthiest and most beneficial way possible, of course. She enjoys pushing me through increasingly creative ways of making my muscles question the decisions that led them here, and I think she’s having an especially good time because I may be one of the stronger patients she’s worked with. She’s also the first person in my life who has ever looked at me and apparently thought, “Yes, this is an athlete.” So naturally, her response has been to torture me. I think we understand each other.

Outside of the medical world, I’ve also been making a little more progress on the whole actually meeting people and building a life here thing.

A couple of days after my last update, I met up with a new friend and we drove out to Rooster Rock State Park, about half an hour outside Portland. It’s a really beautiful area with several riverfront beaches and plenty of places to walk the dogs. It also has a designated nudist beach.

Neither of us participated in that particular activity, but it was still an interesting choice of location for a first meetup.

At one point I mentioned that it seemed a little silly to have a dedicated nudist beach in Portland when public nudity is basically legal throughout the city anyway. She paused for a moment, then admitted that I had a point.

We spent the afternoon mostly chatting, snacking, and getting in the water, which seemed like a much better idea when it was one of the last 90+ degree days of summer. Apparently my body has decided that 90-degree air temperature does not actually make 60-something-degree water warm. The sunset, however, was absolutely gorgeous and made the entire trip worthwhile.

I’ve also gotten to spend more time with some of the people I met while volunteering with Portland’s Healing House.

EJ, the founder, was kind enough to host a dinner for the volunteers as a thank-you for helping with their fundraiser. He cooked everything himself, and it was genuinely fantastic. I also finally got to see the Healing House itself, where people recovering from surgery can stay when they don’t have a local support system to help them through recovery.

It’s a really beautiful property, and I think what EJ is building there is something pretty special. I’m hoping to find a way to get involved more regularly.

Although I may have a slight problem when it comes to volunteering. Apparently I inherited this from my father. The moment I walked around the property, I immediately noticed approximately eight things that needed doing.

“Oh, that gutter is leaking. That definitely needs to be cleaned.”

Walks toward shed.

“Oh good, there’s a ladder.”

Looks around.

“And there’s a bucket.”

At which point I had to remind myself that I was a guest at a dinner specifically being held to thank me for volunteering, not a maintenance contractor who had just arrived for a work order.

Even offering to help with dishes or carry things out to the table was met with a very polite but increasingly firm version of, “Thank you, but today is for you to sit down and let us thank you.” Apparently I am bad at being thanked.

I did, however, get to talk more with one of the friends I made there about dancing. After my previous attempt at country line dancing ended with me discovering that my knee and jumping apparently remain enemies, I told them about another option: contra dancing.

There’s a big event coming up on the 20th that combines traditional contra dancing with more modern music, and assuming my knee continues behaving itself, I’m planning to make that my return to more impact-heavy activity.

I’m hoping it goes well enough that I can eventually make both contra dancing and country line dancing regular parts of my time here.

My friend seemed pretty excited about the idea too, so there’s a reasonable chance I’ll have someone to embarrass myself alongside.

I’ve also officially started working as a substitute paraeducator and I absolutely love it.

Most of the jobs I’ve been picking up are with Portland Public Schools and involve working in special education programs. It’s actually been a really interesting combination of things I’ve done in the past.

I spent time tutoring, and teaching English when I was younger, and I also previously worked with intellectually disabled adults, so I’m getting to pull pieces from both of those experiences and apply them to a completely new group of people.

So far, I’m really enjoying it. The only downside is that I apparently work with a demographic that occasionally licks people.

Which brings me to my latest medical development.

A few days ago my throat started hurting, which isn’t particularly unusual for me. I’ve been getting occasional throat irritation lately, especially if I’ve been talking or singing a lot.

Then yesterday, after I got home from teaching, swallowing started becoming uncomfortable. I took a look at my throat and found some rather suspicious white patches.

I’d also been wondering for the past couple of days why I was so ridiculously exhausted. So I went to get tested. I have strep. Again.

Apparently five months was enough time for my immune system to forget the previous experience and decide it was worth trying again.

Fortunately, I caught it pretty early, so I started antibiotics before it reached the truly miserable stage I experienced last time. Unfortunately, that meant cancelling a classroom job I was supposed to work today so I don’t spend the day generously distributing bacteria to elementary school students.

It’s an occupational hazard, I suppose. Especially when the children are licking me.

I’ve also finally started getting back onto the hiking trails. I’m still being pretty cautious with my knee, so I’ve been sticking to hikes around five or six miles with roughly 1,000–1,500 feet of elevation gain rather than immediately going back to the kind of hike that resulted in the fracture in the first place.

My knee is probably about 91% healed at this point. That is not a medically calculated number. It’s just how healed my physical therapist tells me it feels.

There are still a few very specific movements and impacts that make it complain, but otherwise it’s been fantastic to be back out exploring again. I’d gotten pretty tired of repeatedly visiting the same handful of nearby parks because they were the only places I could comfortably walk for a while.

Oregon has an absolutely ridiculous amount of beautiful wilderness, and I am very ready to start seeing more of it.

One of my recent hikes took me up to the peak of Larch Mountain. There are placards at the top showing all of the different mountain peaks you’re supposed to be able to see from there — Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens, and several others.

Unfortunately, wildfire smoke had other plans.

So instead of getting a panoramic view of Oregon’s mountain ranges, I got a panoramic view of a giant wall of haze. Still pretty, just considerably less educational.

Ragnar and Altan are also thrilled that hiking season has resumed, although the changing weather has introduced a new logistical problem.

These two are adventure gremlins. They love the woods. They love water. And most importantly, they love finding the single muddiest, wettest, filthiest patch of ground available and rolling around in it.

Rain itself doesn’t bother me much. I actually quite like it. Cleaning two enormous muddy dogs, however, is a considerably less appealing proposition.

So I’m adding go to Goodwill and buy a ridiculous number of old towels to my to-do list. I figure a pile of cheap rags that I don’t care about destroying should make it considerably easier to hose the boys down and get them reasonably dry when we get home from our adventures. I still have almost another month with them, so I suspect this is going to become important.

I also spent two days hiking around Dry Creek Falls over Memorial Day weekend. The area was absolutely beautiful, although I never quite managed to get as close to the falls as I wanted. Both times I reached the falls, there were people sitting underneath them having lunch.

And while I have nothing against people enjoying their lunch, I did have two dogs with me who were extremely interested in the concept of stealing it.

So I decided that trying to squeeze past a group of strangers while managing two food-motivated dogs near a waterfall was probably not worth it. I didn’t get to swim in the falls. But I did get to see them, and I’ll happily take that trade.

At this point, I’m finally starting to feel like I’m settling into something resembling a routine here. Weekdays are mostly work, doctor’s appointments, shorter walks and local nature with the dogs, and the occasional festival or event in Portland.

Weekends are becoming hiking days, especially for the places that require a little more driving.

There are still plenty of appointments and medical things to sort out, and I’m sure there will be plenty more unexpected developments along the way.

But the difference now is that those things are happening while I’m actually living my life, rather than being the entirety of my life.
I’m working. I’m meeting people. I’m finding places I like. I’m dancing, or at least planning to dance. I’m hiking again. The dogs are getting muddy. And apparently I’m collecting contagious diseases from children.

So all in all, I’d say things are going pretty well.Read more