THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 2, 1996 TAG: 9605310228
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Random Rambles
SOURCE: Tony Stein
LENGTH: 75 lines
Now and then, this column endeavors to pose The Great Questions of Life. Questions such as what nature of beast is it that lurks in the dryer and devours half of every pair of socks we own?
Today's philosophical poser is how come all joggers look so grim? I don't mean grim for a second like ``Ouch, that pebble gave me a twinge.'' I mean permanently, indelibly grim like ``If I ever stop jogging, a regiment of cloggers will use my body for a dancing floor.''
I know the feeling. I was once grim about fitness. It like to killed me.
The year was 1975. I was in my mid-40s and determined to be the leanest, meanest middle-aged man in town. So I exercised. One, two, three, four. And I pedaled my stationary bike into a blur of spokes and a shower of sweat. And I ran up every flight of stairs between here and the Carolina line. Got to where I didn't even puff after four flights. Elevators? Hah! Real men take the stairs, put ketchup on their scrambled eggs and eat cold pizza for breakfast.
It was working. I was in great shape. So there I was one night, lying on my bed doing leg lifts. Hold your legs stiff, slowly raise them, slowly lower them. Feel the muscles in your abdomen get tighter than a hippo in a Honda. I hit the end of my usual routine and then figured one more for good measure.
It wasn't the weasel that went pop. It was me. I gave myself a hernia. Goodbye leg lifts; hello surgeon.
I woke up from the surgery with phlebitis in my right leg. Nasty redness up the blood vessels. Scary because there was a blood clot in my personal plumbing. Nine days later, I got to go home, still on medication to thin the blood so Son of Clot, the Sequel, wouldn't happen.
I was taking a bath one night when I bumped my left hip. It hurt. Next day, it still hurt. Next week, it still hurt. Hello, doctor, what's happening? No indication that the blood thinner was causing problems, so the verdict was a deep bone bruise. Be brave. Be patient. Who, me? I took pain-killers and whined a lot.
After a couple more mornings, the leg was not only still hurting but I was limping on it. I felt like John Henry, the steel-drivin' man, was using it for sledgehammer practice. Finally, I fainted in the office. Flat out flopped on the floor. They hustled me to the hospital, decided it was a problem with blood pressure medication and sent me home.
The pain just got worse and I was mortally dizzy. Then my wife, the incomparable Miz Phyllis, took charge of the case. She ferried me to the emergency room and told the doctors I was in big trouble of some kind. I was. They X-rayed me and found out I had been bleeding internally. There was a three-pint blood clot in my hip so large that the hip was just about dislocated.
And so, after a swift kick in the butt from Miz Phyllis, medical science did good. They gave me the right stuff, including two pints of blood.
But there were at least two more times when my nervous chain got yanked hard. One was minor. It happened when a mixed-up orderly wanted me to get up and walk. I was still horizontal by doctor's orders and he went away.
Not so minor was the day my door opened and two surgeons came in, eyes sad over their masks. ``It's time for your heart transplant,'' they said, and made like they were going to wheel me out.
Whoa! Wrong guy, I told them. They just laughed. And then I laughed because the ``surgeons'' were actually Jerry Alley and Gene Owens, two newspaper colleagues playing a joke. Good sport that I was, I called the cops and tried to have them arrested for impersonating doctors.
After a total of 21 days in the hospital, I was finally home, clotless and cured. Cured especially of the fitness craze. Oh, I do enough random exercise to be able to button my size 36 britches in the morning. But no more leg lifts and no more leanest and meanest.
I talked to Herman West, the physical therapy guru of Great Bridge, about this. Herman, who used to run the physical therapy department at Chesapeake General Hospital, said that a lot of people tend to overdo exercise. Forget the ``No pain, no gain'' mantra, he said. A good workout makes your muscles sore but the soreness goes as the muscles strengthen over time. Pain that is recurrent or consistent can indicate muscle damage.
Common sense is the key. If you insist on crashing the pain barrier because you want to be tougher than a two-bit steak, it's your lookout. I tried it once. No, thank you. by CNB