Legs and ears

[mrissa]

I am just about as femmey as it comes, but occasionally I trip over something where I have an attitude a lot more common to men than to women in the culture in which I live. One of the ones that bothers me on other people's behalf is about evaluation of bits of body. I do not think of my legs primarily as pretty or attractive for what I suspect are the same reasons my dad doesn't think of his legs primarily as pretty or attractive: because we have another thing that's primarily what we think of legs for. The primary axis of evaluation is strong. I have strong legs. When I want to hike or bike, I have Energizer bunny legs. One of the reasons I like to walk down to the river and back at Minnehaha Falls when I'm feeling steady is that I really like bounding up the steps two at a time from the field at the end. It is a cheering thing for me. I'm not offended when someone thinks my legs are in some way attractive -- it's nice, sure, when handled in a non-smarmy way and etc. But it's not the main thing. (And I like being able to post to an audience that won't take this paragraph as a request for compliments.)

I bring this up because the doctor this morning commented on how strong my legs and feet are and how much I use them for balance, how many more times (she speculated) I would have fallen if my legs were not so strong. And I was proud of that. Of all the stuff related to this stupid, stupid vertigo, it is the one factor I could control directly, and I have controlled the living daylights out of it. Even when it was non-trivial to come up with ways to keep working out and stay reasonably strong, I did it. And the professionals involved seem to think it was worthwhile. They seemed to think that it had served me well. Hah. Take that, vertigo.

So it's the semi-circular canals of my ears that are messed up (causes not really knowable, but they suspect the evil sinus infection from the Year Of Sick interacting with a prior susceptibility, and that makes sense), and I start physical therapy for it next week, and we are all to be prepared that the PT may make things worse before it makes them better. But still. Something to try, something that they think will work, though they can't say how soon. Something that will probably involve organized, controlled application of stubbornness.

Yah. We can do that.

Comments

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Strong is good. I like strong.

And yay, plan of treatment.

*\o/*

[lotusice.livejournal.com]

Strong legs and stubbornness can take a girl a long, long way.

Rooting for you.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Woo, PT! May the "worse" phase be nonexistent to brief, and the "better" phase swift and sustained.

I feel about my back the way you feel about your legs. It is mighty, and mighty is good.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Go you. On your strong legs!

[ckd]

Even if the PT is tough at times, I say you're tougher.

(Stubborn can be a compliment, and in this case I'd say it definitely is. It's just not a compliment on your legs.)

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

But at least they (and you) know! This is good. And now you have treatment. This is also good. I'm optimistic for you. (Especially since I suspect the "organized, controlled application of stubbornness" is something you have down. Yay for its virtues! *grin*)

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

Yay for strong and for PT.

I hope your PT works as fabulously for you (after the initial horrible part) as mine did for me.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I'm with you: I'd rather be strong first, and for the strength to be attractive.

So hooray for strong legs, and hooray for a diagnosis! Especially one that comes with a solution.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Of course you have strong legs. They are for kicking the door down while you pillage.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, only part of it is my efforts. I would advise most people not to test myself against my grandmother's strength even now.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

If Mris gets arrested for going a'viking you get to bail her out of jail.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

No worries. They have already promised to bail out my wife when she snaps and kicks my butt.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't believe we specified that it had to be your butt.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Perhaps not, but it was in reference to kicking my butt. I prefer not to make assumptions. :)

[sethb.livejournal.com]

You can control your stubbornness? Impressive.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I can control what it's applied to. Which is not quite as useful, but still somewhat useful.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

It's better to be strong than attractive because no matter how gorgeous you are, someone is going to call you ugly, and you'll want to be able to stomp on them properly so they don't do it again.

And yay for potential solutions!

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Oh, happy new. I have great faith in your stubbornness :-)

[mkille.livejournal.com]

Yay for plans and progress!

Why so long

[comicbrad.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm wondering why it's taken you so long to get into physical therapy? When I see a patient for dizziness, the first visit includes a prescription for Antivert and suggestion of physical therapy (PT). The next visit I pretty much demand the patient go to PT. I certainly don't mind referring to an ENT but there's no reason to delay in the meantime. Usually 2 or 3 weeks, maximum, from first visit for dizziness to first PT appointment. Hope you continue to feel better.

Re: Why so long

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have tried to rephrase this comment three times so as not to be snotty about it, because I appreciate your good wishes, and I believe that you meant this comment to be useful.

But please keep in mind that you don't know the details of what we've tested and tried for relief of the vertigo up to this point, and you don't know the details of what type of physical therapy I'm going in for this coming week. (It's pretty specialized by now. We've been dealing with this problem for quite some time and trying various things, and no, I haven't put the details of all of that in this lj. Nor do I intend to, unless some of them prove entertaining.) Coming in without all the details to second-guess another set of medical practitioners is maybe not the most useful thing you can do in a situation like this. Please rest assured, though, that nobody has been sitting on their thumbs for these months: not my primary-care physician, not my dear friend who is a doctor and tracks down possible solutions like a bloodhound, not the ENT, not either of the neurologists, mostly not the first vertigo specialist, definitely not the new vertigo specialist, none of the audiologists, and none of the physical therapists. And for someone who has been through that set of practitioners to hear, "Oh, simple PT and Antivert, why didn't you do that ages ago?" is fairly frustrating, even when they know that the person making that comment means well.

[redbird]

Strong is good.

[ksumnersmith.livejournal.com]

Oh! Diagnosis! But even better: a diagnosis that has a potential solution. So glad.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

yay, strong legs!

BOOOOOOOOOOO "worse before it gets better!"

Yay, feeling as if you're on the right track!