The Brain Behind The Curtain

When I went to college the first time around, I was a bona fide arts student. I took Art History classes (my major) and English and Photography and Theater and Film, and spent hours sitting around tables discussing Kurosawa and the Italian Renaissance. I had a science requirement that I fulfilled by taking those arts major standbys, Rocks For Jocks and Shake and Bake. I didn't do particularly well in either of them, either.

Flash forward to now, and not only am I taking much more challenging science classes, I'm doing pretty well. I'm not talking about grades - it's too early to call, and I still have a non-scientific fear-of-jinx reflex - but I actually understand what's going on when my Bio teacher is discussing the parts of a cell and their functions. I totally get how to figure out formulas for double replacement reactions in Chem lab. Not only that, but in my 'spare' time now, I'm writing articles about anatomy or reading books with titles like "Fascia: Clinical Applications for Health and Human Performance" (thank you Jill Miller - it's a cracking good read).

It feels like there was some part of my brain lying dormant for all these years, and suddenly a curtain has been drawn back to reveal a laboratory with bleeping blooping lights and whizzing dials and reams of paper coming out of machines (the lab is from the seventies) and a white-coated person with a clipboard who looks up at me and says, "Ah yes. Here you are. We've been waiting for you. Right this way, please."

How did this happen? Is it because I'm older, and I'm less distracted than my youthful peers? Or because this isn't my first time at the rodeo, and I have a handle on how to take good notes and what to learn for the quiz? I don't know - it feels like I've got some new person's brain. Hey - did I have a brain transplant and I can't remember because it was a brain transplant? Someone help me out here.

Uncle

Ok... so, in true overachiever form, I overreached. Stress-induced malady in the form of a hacking cough and snotty cold, coupled with a sudden complete inability to sleep past 6am as I *boing* awake with crazy brain has convinced me that perhaps I don't need to be taking so many classes at once while also teaching a full schedule, leading weekend long anatomy modules, guest writing articles, writing this blog, etc.

As a reformed overachiever however, I don't feel badly about dropping a class. Old me would have seen this as a failure, especially since the teacher of said class threw down a pretty serious gauntlet about who would pass and who would drop out, and I find that kind of challenge nigh irresistible (and I've never dropped out of anything in my life - are we sensing a pattern here?). New me sees it as a chance to still have a life while I'm going back to school, rather than a) feel guilty if I'm getting a pedicure or hanging out with my amazing twin nephews instead of studying in every possible free moment or b) actually be studying in every possible free moment, have no life whatsoever, and be miserable.

So yay! Let's count this as a win. A win for my toenails, if nothing else.

We Interrupt This Broadcast

To bring some slightly unrelated (school-wise), yet on a macro level, somewhat related (anatomy-wise) news. Please know that this topic has been duly covered from every single possible angle that you could ever single want to read about (and many you don't) over here, and this will not be another blog about my hip.

However. There has been a lot of pain in my hip recently, and more worryingly, now in my knee as well (sharp shooting pain out of apparently nowhere). I made an appointment to see Dr. Snibbe in Beverly Hills (only the best for Hip) as recommended by PT extraordinaire Sean Hampton, and as it turns out Dr. Snibbe knows surgeon extraordinaire Dr. Robert Buly at HSS in NYC who did my surgery. (And yes, that entire paragraph was about linking to the people I know and love who have performed miracles on Hip, in case you ever need them.)

As you can probably imagine, a waiting room in Beverly Hills is a pretty funny and entitled place, and yes, there was a celebrity there discussing crudites and lunch meat on the phone (I'm not making this up) but my favorite moment occurred as I was walking in to the back area to get X rays, when a woman with a walker yelled "DOOR!" at the closing door behind the nurse and me. These are always the moments when I wish I had the ability to raise one eyebrow at a time. In fairness, she had a walker and was going to have a hard time getting the door open, and she also retracted slightly and mumbled "I mean could you open the door for me please," and while we're at it let's be generous and assume she would have done that anyway, regardless of my unsuccessful eyebrow raise and meaningful stare.

Back on topic!

Ugly gym shorts, freezing exam room, same old same old. And then I got to see my hip in X ray for the first time in four years. Let's just say, time has not been kind.

Anatomy lesson (to keep this on topic)

A happy, healthy hip joint (femur bone and acetabulum) is two smooth, sliding surfaces with no jagged edges or rough points. The head of the femur, in particular, should look like this:

And yes, by 'this' I mean 'John Travolta.'

My femur looks like this:

Which is pretty in the night sky, but not ideal for pain-free movement, as the lumps and bumps grate over the acetabulum, and also get 'caught' on the side, also known as impingement.

The bottom line is that hip replacement surgery is basically guaranteed in my distant-ish future, and in the meantime, an MRI will show if Synvisc injections would be a good idea. Hey, science dorks: Synvisc is a synthetic synovial fluid made from rooster combs. Crazy.

Also: I will be a fascinating cadaver for dissection. They'll be able to trace the spinal scoliosis right down to the hip wear and tear! It's just like CSI!

Everyone is so kind to me about this, and says such nice things, and I truly, madly, deeply appreciate it. The real point of this is to tell you that Dr. Snibbe specifically attributed my relative lack of pain (relative) and real solid range of motion to yoga. I attribute it more specifically to Yoga Tune Up®, which is also what I used to rehab a client back from his hip replacement surgery. Come take class with me.

Enough detour: I have to go study for Psych 103, which as it turns out IS going to be a really hard class, because quizzes are only 5 questions, so if you miss one you're already down to a B. Jeez. Was it this hard the first time around?

Everything Settles Over Time

And that includes my brain. Second week down and I'm getting into the swing of things with school, and discovering (don't tell anyone) that I actually really like it. I like sitting in class, opening my notebook, writing copious notes, feeling faint wisps of recollection of hydrocarbons, amino acids and the like. I like that my Physiopsychology teacher folded her arms and threw down a challenge the first day. (To paraphrase, she told us it was going to be hard to get an A in her class. Since I am something of a smartass, I mentally replied that she just didn't know me yet.) I like how my Chemistry teacher looks like John Goodman and says things like "How much ecstasy can a 150lb person consume without overdosing?" to teach measurements. And I completely adore my wacky Biology teacher who did a running demo of a Jesus Christ lizard to show how the properties of water permit life. (He loves Biology so much, and it shows.)

[My hat is off to all of these teachers, and I am deeply impressed across the board with how good they are and how hard they work at their jobs. I really hope that for the most part, we've all gotten over the idea that teaching is for people who can't do anything else. It's an offensive idea.]

But most of all, I like using my brain this way again. It's easy to fall off the wagon and start filling your noggin with all kinds of useless junk (hello YoufaceJezeGoFugYourbookTube), and the same way that not using your muscles makes working out seem like hard work, not using my brain to learn like this has made re-entry a bit uncomfortable, but as with all stretching experiences, I'm growing accustomed to the new space. And less willing to fill it with videos of cats.

Here Goes The Next Five Years.

Turns out, I'm ok at Algebra. Ok enough to place out of having to take the class and go right into Inorganic Chemistry (which was the only reason I needed Algebra in the first place, so I am grateful that the two months that I spent making sweet love to the Elementary Algebra textbook paid off). The placement test experience, though? That was a trip.

When I first visited the Assessment Center of my friendly neighborhood community college back in May, there was no-one there. I breezed right through my English placement test (turns out, I'm ok at English). I should also mention that I wanted to take a Math placement test at the time, but that was evidently an idiotic suggestion on my part, as I hadn't studied or taken a Math class in a really, really long time, the admission of which brought on both a ramen spit-take and an unnecessarily dramatic eye roll from the bored administrator.

After teaching myself Elementary Algebra non-stop for two months, I returned to take the Math test in July and was confronted with an entirely different scene. It was something like the DMV crossed with the waiting room in Beetlejuice: packed to the gills with kids who looked like they could be in gangs (and yes: I am old enough to be scared of kids who look like they could be in gangs), many trendy Armenian and Asian teenagers, a few old ladies, and me (and it has occurred to me that to the teenagers, I am indistinguishable from the ones I call 'old ladies'). This time I had to wait an hour before I could take the test, and just did my best to keep all the Math in my head and not let it fall out of my ears before it was my turn.

The test room itself was packed with people at various stages of test-taking, which meant there was a constant stream of people getting up, brushing past, moving around and loud-whispering questions. I tried to put on the headphones provided, but the cable wouldn't stretch far enough, so I ended up with one ear on my shoulder and my hand glued to the other side of my head. Computerized, multiple-choice, 50 questions in 45 minutes, not much time to be unsure of an answer, and definitely harder than the sample questions they had provided for study, but I got through it.

The second part of the community-college-attending flop-sweat-fest is registration. Having previously attended a swanky, expensive university, I had never experienced the panicky fear of not getting into the classes I needed. It works like this: online class registration starts on a Monday, and each student is assigned a day and time they can register over the two weeks that follow. Which means you watch every day as the classes you want fill up, and you are powerless to do anything until your assigned date arrives. Fortunately I was assigned a relatively early registration day, and though I was wait-listed on two of my classes, I discovered on the first day of school that I already made it into both of them.

Did I mention that school started? Oh yes, this past Monday. Am I already overwhelmed? Oh yes, very much yes. I vacillate wildly between "I went to Princeton, I can do this," to "good God what am I doing here where is my #2 pencil," with occasional stop-offs at "I'm so much older than these children I could literally have given birth to almost all of them," and "this is a very stupid idea and I should just go back to what I already know this is a terrible idea whose idea was this."

I am realizing, in bright technicolor reality, that being ok with the idea of hard work is a very different thing than finding yourself immersed in a very large amount of hard work. Guess what? Hard work is actually hard. It is overwhelming. I am spending a lot of energy managing myself right now and not having a full-on seizure-sized freak out. Thankfully, as my friends are pointing out, I have both life experience and yoga experience to draw on. And of course, since the Universe loves a good laugh more than anything, I suddenly have more yoga clients than I know what to do with. (I'm not complaining - I'm truly grateful - but I think it's ironic that it's happening when I have suddenly no time at all and I'm beginning to transition out of this field.)

The next five years or so of my life have begun.

You Got Big Dreams

I am a yoga teacher. I love it. But I want more: more freedom to diagnose, a greater range of clients, I even have vague plans to work with veteran amputees to develop movement and rehab protocols. So at the pretty ripe age of 36, I'm going back to school to get my DPT (Doctor of Physical Therapy) degree.

When I told a client of mine that I was going back to school for 5 years (and to be clear, two of the 5 years are because I did absolutely no college science the first time around) he remarked, "Yes, you're good at deferred gratification."

Turns out, after 15 years in the real world, going back to school begins not with school, but with a test. A Math placement test.

So right here's where I start paying. In problem sets.