Cautionary True Story

Last week, my dad fell.  What does that have to do with fitness?  It’s a cautionary tale.

 

See, my dad is in his eighties.  When he was young, he played pretty much every sport there was.  He also smoked for more than 40 years.  One of those things resulted in worn out knees and the other in lung surgery.  He has a variety of other typical health issues in a person of his age and lifestyle, controlled by various medications.

 

Aging happens to all of us whether we like it or not.  However, we have some choices to make.

 

See, when my dad had a knee replacement, he didn’t like doing his physical therapy exercises.  They hurt.  They were hard.  He shirked them as much as possible.  And now his replacement knee does not work as well as it should and he chose not to get the other knee replaced because he was unhappy with the results on the first one.  In other words, he still has two bad knees.

 

The bad knees mean it is hard for him to move from sitting to standing and it is challenging to walk.  So most of the time, he doesn’t do it.  What that means is that he has very little cardio endurance, which makes it harder to go for a walk, which means he is even less likely to do it.  See where I’m going here?

 

But last week, he and my mom took their little dog for a short walk to the end of their block.  On the way back, my dad lagged behind.  He wanted to stop at the end of their walkway by the car to catch his breath.  My mom took the dog inside.  And then my dad fell.

 

End result:  a visit from the paramedics, bruises to elbows, knees, and pride.  He is going to be all right, but he would be better if he had done some preventive work.

 

The take-aways:

• put up with a little discomfort now in keeping up the cardio

• our privilege level does not translate into speedier or better healing; we still have to work.

• consistent, small actions make big differences

• always listen to your physical therapist, even if you do not like what they say

 

Go play.