Whoops — it’s been almost two years since I last updated this blog or even the website itself. I’m still here! But so much has happened since the last post I made, so here is another long-overdue update.
In no particular order …
New Homeowner
I bought at an apartment in NYC. If you know anything about apartments in NYC, you might know that it is far more complicated than buying a house just about anywhere else. And it’s even more complicated given that I bought one in a co-op. It’s been a six-month journey that is still not over yet. I closed already, but I haven’t moved … but hoping to later this week, assuming the final pieces of the puzzle come together smoothly. It’s been a roller coaster that I am ready to get off of now, as I keep telling people. It will be well worth it once everything is done, but let me tell you … it feels like these past six months were really more like two years!
Injuries
Things in the fitness and gymnastics world have shifted unexpectedly for me as well. I was still teaching online flexibility, inversions, and conditioning classes after that until I broke my foot in November of last year. Up until then, I was making some really strong progress in gymnastics – I was working on new skills and improving old ones. I was even just starting to prepare to compete in some adult competitions. And then I broke my foot doing a very simple round-off on the floor. Not only did I break the 5th metatarsal, I managed to shatter it into multiple pieces and in a difficult-to-heal location known as a Jones fracture. It was a very long and slow recovery process. I was on crutches for almost three months, and had to remain in the walking boot for another three months after that! (Most non-Jones fracture foot fractures heal in about two months. The fact that mine took about six months shows just how difficult of a case mine was.)
I’m still not back at gymnastics yet (even though now it’s been 10 months later), but I actually will likely be starting some very light gymnastics THIS WEEK! And even so, it’s going to be very iffy because …
I have a torn rotator cuff tendon in my shoulder. The tear happened over three years ago actually. It was when I fell out of the aerial hoop and caught myself with my hands on the hoop, but in catching myself, I must have torn the tendon then. It wasn’t bad up until just a few months ago – I was doing gymnastics with only a moderate amount of discomfort in my shoulder. But I must have done something to make it worse, because right after my foot seemed to be healed, my shoulder bugged me enough to go get it looked at. The doctor ordered an MRI, and sure enough, it was exactly what my physical therapist suspected three years ago – partial tear of the supraspinatus tendon.
I’m trying to avoid surgery, so right now, I’m trying acupuncture in addition to continuing PT. It doesn’t feel great, though. Just the other day, I moved my arm wrong while in the bathroom and had such excruciating pain, I couldn’t move for a good minute or so. The next non-surgical option would be PRP injections, except insurance doesn’t cover it, so I’ll have to see if I want to try that and have to pay out of pocket.
So, there has been very little fitness for me in the last 10 months. I don’t feel great, and I’m rather upset that all the strength and flexibility gains I was making is now lost, and it’s going to be that much harder to get it all back. I’m not giving up, though. Gymnastics is still too important to me to give up now. Even if it means I have to only train lower difficulty skills for a while, so be it. I just want to be able to do gymnastics again.
Nutrition
Dietitian work has been more or less the same. Doing a hybrid situation with seeing patients in person and working from home here and there. Both have their pros and cons.
Of course, while I was recovering from my broken foot, I wasn’t allowed to come into work in person until I was out of the boot. So my work shifted to entirely working from home. So, a lot of my work was working on menus for our patients, working with IT on IT things, training our staff, etc.
Vacation/Travel
There was also time to go home to California to visit my family a couple times this year … technically three times, really. I went home for the winter holidays at the end of last year, and because of my broken foot, I was able to stay and work remotely for an extra week and a half into the beginning of January, which was very nice to be with my family for an extended period of time. Then I was able to visit my family in June and again in August for about a week each. August was our annual family trip to Lake Tahoe, and I was so glad that my foot let me do some hiking! Maybe I’ll post one or two of those trails that I did.
(In 2021, we went to Lake Tahoe as well, but we were confined indoors because the Caldor Fire was burning pretty close to the Lake Tahoe area, and the air quality index was actually dangerous to be outside. My family was still glad to go to have a change of scenery from home, but we spent most of our time at the resort, in the car, or — in the case of my mom and my brother — in the casinos.)
And of course, through all of this, COVID-19 has still been a concern. I have thankfully not gotten it, and I am trying my damnedest to avoid getting it. I’m fully vaccinated and wear at least a KN95 mask anywhere I am near people. I was even wearing a mask at my parents’ until I knew for sure I did not have it.
So that’s the last couple years in a nutshell. I’ll be moving to a new neighborhood soon (well, technically old because I lived there before, but kind of new since a lot of it has changed since I last lived there and because I wasn’t keeping this blog back then), so I will have some new food adventures to write about. So, look forward to those!