healthy living | betsybeadhead

I can’t let other people’s fear keep me from taking care of my health.

I didn’t get a mammogram for years because everybody told me how painful it was. Friends and comedians would joke that getting a mammogram was like slamming your breast in the freezer door, or putting it in a vise. Who would want to do that?

I didn’t go to a gynecologist because my mother never impressed on me that I should. She never went as far as I knew, once she had stopped having children. She thought that sex was dirty. Sex was something you did once a week as a duty to your husband. So she certainly didn’t teach me how to keep my female parts healthy.

Also, friends talked about how uncomfortable it was to go to the gynecologist. Awkward, unpleasant, strange – they really weren’t selling it as something I should do. They always talked about going for a checkup as a chore, kind of like how my Mom talked about sex. One even said she’d rather have a root canal than go to the gynecologist. Either she has a great dentist or a terrible gynecologist.

Then three years ago I read “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” and I realized that a woman in her 30s could die of cervical cancer. For some reason I thought that was an older woman’s disease. So I went for my first checkup in 20 years. I found that I had moderate to severe cervical dysphasia. Not cancer, but cancer’s next door neighbor. I had surgery to get it removed. If I had waited, I’d be dead by now from something totally preventable.

Fear and ignorance could have killed me.

Now I’m going to a chiropractor. My friends are now saying what they’ve always said about chiropractors. They are quacks. They insist you come a lot and they don’t promise anything. They heard of somebody who got paralyzed by one. But if I’d gone to a regular doctor for my slipped disc a week ago I would have been given pain pills and muscle relaxers. I still would have had a slipped disc. I just wouldn’t have cared.

I’m sure there are true stories of chiropractors who have accidentally harmed patients. But how many regular doctors have perfect records? There is a reason medical malpractice insurance is expensive. Nobody is perfect.

My chiropractor has a good point. We get our teeth checked twice a year, and if one of them goes bad we can get a replacement. We can’t replace our spine, yet we never check it.

Sure, I’m not happy about having to go several times a week, but it isn’t forever. It is just for a few months, then it won’t be that often. Plus, it feels amazing.

I like to think of my back as like a bonsai tree. Change can’t happen overnight. When I had braces it took 4 years to get my teeth straight. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and my back won’t be healed overnight.

Meanwhile I’m going to try to unlearn a whole lot of nonsense that I was taught, and try not to spread any more of it around.

Sometimes my yoga class really bores me. The teacher does the same moves over and over. She uses the same words over and over. I feel that I’m not improving, not getting stronger, not stretching my boundaries. I feel stifled.

This is supposed to be a vinyasa class. I’m given to think that this is more advanced than the basic classes that are normally offered at the Y. I’ve taken the basic classes, and they are pretty basic. Sometimes they are so basic that we never even stand up. This is for 75 minutes. They certainly never do a downward facing dog. Planks are right out. Old women with oxygen tanks take this class. This class I go to is certainly more advanced than that, but it is still pretty easy.

Sometimes I think it has to be hard to teach a yoga class at the Y. You constantly have people who are at different fitness and experience levels showing up. You can’t start with beginners and train them and then do expert moves, because this week half your class has never stepped foot on a yoga mat.

You can’t expect them to do handstands or mermaid pose. They will never come back. But conversely, if your signature move is forward fold, your experienced students will get bored. There are a lot of forward folds in this class with this teacher.

Recently the teacher for the class I go to was out for several months on maternity leave. Her first substitute was hard core. Plank was her favorite move, with a lot of upward facing dogs. I’ve done yoga for a year and that tore me up. I was unable to get out of bed normally for three days. I had to roll over on my side and push myself up with my arms.

I kept going back. I was grateful there was a week between classes. I needed it to recover. I got stronger. I started to see a line in my abdomen that I’d never seen before, and it was going vertically. It looked awesome. I’m in my mid 40s and I’m developing a pretty amazing core. I didn’t think this was possible. I thought only rock stars with personal trainers had nice looking abdomens.

Then the sub got a sub. She taught us crow, and dolphin, and wild thing, and half moon, and handstand and headstand. I was over the moon. I surprised myself. I grew even more. I’ve incorporated some of these moves into my daily home practice.

But now the original teacher is back. I feel bored again.

But there is something to yoga. Even if it is the same move, over and over, there are micro adjustments to learn. I’m probably standing with my back foot wrong. There might be something about my arm alignment that is off. Even if I’ve heard the same instructions for a year, I probably haven’t really listened to them, so I’ve always got something to learn.

And there is always a way to push yourself. This time I was strong enough to do upward facing dog instead of plopping to the ground from plank and then going to baby cobra, or if I’m brave, full cobra. I did this the whole class. My arms and core have gotten stronger. I didn’t need to take a break in child’s pose. Previously I could do bridge, but I couldn’t do wheel. Now I can do wheel. The first time I did wheel I surprised myself. I decided to try it. The next thing I knew I was looking upside down, and I was happy.

The funny part is I still won’t do camel. It is the same as wheel in the backbend, but because of the angle, I think I won’t be able to get out of it safely. To me it is like climbing up a tree – I may be able to get up there, but I also have to be able to get back down.

So yoga is about stretching your limits and surprising yourself, but it is also about knowing your limits and respecting them. Yet, it is also about sticking it out when it is so boring you want to quit.

Yoga is the same as life, but with a cool soundtrack.