What Fresh Post-Menopausal Hell? And Updates...

Last week I went off to my monthly appointment with Liz,  the physical therapist who's straightening out my posture.

"Any trouble spots?" she asked me at the beginning.

"My arm hurts when I reach around to do up my bra," I said.  "It's not big deal."

Wrong, oh, wrong.


"Show me," she said, looking concerned.

I demonstrated the motion and winced.

"You probably have a rotator cuff injury," she said.

Rotator cuff!  Isn't that something that happens to baseball players?  Do the rest of us even have rotator cuffs


"It's common in post-menopausal women," she said.

She told me that "dryness" is key when this injury happens in post-menopausal women.  I won't go on about how rampant "dryness" is in post-menopausal bodies, but you get the picture.  The joint is not well-oiled.  We are vulnerable.

Tell me it isn't so.

She did some very deep massage on that shoulder, and when I put my bra on: no pain!  A miracle.

The next day, I felt pulverized.  Couldn't go to the pool.  Had to take Extra Strength Tylenol and eat white food and have a morning nap.

Today, I read up on rotator cuff injury in the Mayo Clinic Health Letter and a depressing article called "Asymptomatic Rotator Cuff Tears More Common in Postmenopausal Women" on a website called "Bone and Spine."

Four muscles and a tendon are involved in the rotator cuff, and injury to any one of them is a problem.  Besides an out-and-out tear of one of those muscles, says the Mayo Clinic, you can hurt your rotator cuff "with overhead movement of your arms, and poor posture with slouching your neck and shoulders forward [my italics] contributes to pinching your muscles or tendons under your shoulder bones".
 
Oh, boy.

 Grim, innit?  Note "more frequent with age."

The Mayo Clinic and Liz recommended resting the shoulder, icing it, and taking non-prescription pain meds.  You want to avoid surgery at all costs. 
One more thing!

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Quilt update:  After struggling trying to construct this quilt:

Note the irregular spacing between blocks

...and becoming sewing-avoidant and hating the whole thing,  I said to hell with it and sewed the blocks together with 1/4" spacing between them all. I think it lacks the interest of the first version, but whatever:

Version 2

Here's the second version on a pale green background with a narrower border:

What think?

Thanks to Debbie, Deanna, Claudia A., and Ann for their suggestions, which ranged from applique, raw-edge applique, and to using graph paper, etc., to figure out how to fit it together with seams.  Couldn't face it.  I'm a weenie.

I'm thinking of making a few small quilts that could be auctioned off as Christmas presents, with proceeds to the Berkeley Food Pantry.  Anyone interested?

* * * * *

Our fridge, which is only 12 years old, has become incontinent and confused.  (I know, more aging.)  Every morning we find a pool of water on the floor in front of it, plus it's freezing the lettuce.  We've already been told it's on its last legs, no point in putting any more money into it.

What a mess!  Didn't see it until I looked at this picture. 

I started checking out fridges online, and guess what?  Today's fridges are MEGA.   We do not want a mega-fridge, nor do we need one.  All the fridges are wider and taller and deeper than the space we have.  It looks as though we'll have to take out the cupboard over the fridge to make room for a taller fridge.

I think the world is telling us that we need a kitchen remodel, but it's not happening.  Especially with a bathroom remodel about to get launched.

* * * * *

Newest relaxation exercise:  Put a 10-pound weight on your diaphragm and breathe.  I'm not kidding.  I tried this with Liz-the-physical-therapist, and I instantly felt calm.  Doesn't have to be 10 pounds or a sandbag, just some sort of soft weight.

Helps slow me down in this hyper world.