Gym Impatience, Healthcare Fail, Bee Cop

I’ve gotten very impatient at the gym with my two big fitness goals—deadlifting and being able to do a pull-up. For months, my trainer had me lifting an unloaded bar on thick pads to decrease the lift distance, and recently in a fit of rashness I ditched the pads and put five-pound “baby” plates on the bar. When I told my trainer this at our last session, she immediately yanked two ten-pound plates out and loaded them onto the bar. They had height, and my trainer admitted that it “looked cool” to deadlift with them. She’s right--it all looks very official, like I am a proper deadlifter and have a rightful place on the mat. The ten-pound plates make for a 65-pound deadlift, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but I’ll take it. I’ve also started lifting in sock feet because the flat shoes I bought some time ago are really uncomfortable, and I find that it’s helpful with balance to feel the soles of my feet supporting me during a lift. The pull-up is still a long ways away. I drastically lowered the weight on the assisted pull-up machine and am now able to get one or two pull-ups at 30 pounds of assist, but I’ve also gained a little weight, (not sure if it’s muscle or fat), so it’s a game of outrunning myself at this point. I have another big fitness goal to hit once I get that darn pull-up, which is a big one that I don’t feel ready to announce yet. Sometimes I think I’m crazy to be doing all of this in my fifties, but then I look back to only a few years ago when I couldn’t even do a single squat, and I feel pretty good about my progress—and so grateful to my first trainer, Akida, under who’s tutelage I gained physical confidence for the first time in my life.

In other physical news, I have an appointment with a new optometrist this week, which I am holding out high hopes for, having been deeply disappointed by my last guy. Something went completely haywire with my contact lens prescription, and between that and my glasses breaking, I’m a mess. I want a total visual do-over—new glasses, a correct contact lens prescription, and being able to sit at the computer without depending on my reading glasses to see anything. It’s ridiculous. In general, I have been very disappointed this year in most of my health care. I don’t go to the doctor very often, but I’ve had several medical calamities necessitating care, and I feel pretty let down by my providers. I think that COVID has done something to the medical field. It’s made providers inpatient and inattentive and unwilling to listen carefully. I’ve seen this across the board, with a nutritionist, a phone therapist, doctors, and my aforementioned optometrist. I maintain the belief that we all need to do the best we can to take control of our own health, because medicine cannot be counted on to protect us. Sometimes I wonder why I persist in the medical field and think about going to work for Amazon instead. Then I remember all of the volunteers I interview who are moving from Amazon into the healthcare field, and I decide to just stay put. If I seem gloomy and ambivalent, it’s because I am. I’ve been Going Through Things at my work, and have been unable to properly suss out my options.

To counteract that Debbie-Downer-esque last paragraph, I shall bring you this: The tale of the NYPD Bee Cop, Detective Robert Travis, who is the official bee-remover of the force. This brave and handsome young man recently removed 10,000 honeybees from a light pole on West 47^th and 6^th Ave, safely vacuuming them away for relocation to an upstate farm. You can read of his adventures here: https://nypost.com/2021/09/02/meet-the-new-nypd-beekeeper-who-has-ladies-buzzing/

--Kristen McHenry