Held together with sticky tape

Gaffa tape is like the Force; it has a dark side, a light side, and it binds the universe together.

Sticky tape is one of the most useful inventions. Car parts, electrical cords, crafts, school projects, emergency home renovations... It holds everything together.

Recently, I was the one being held together with tape! My physio taped the offending part of my back (I think it's a rib), and I'm amazed at how effective it was! I felt like one of those athletic people with strapped knees, ankles or shoulders. I'd never quite understood why people would continue to play such physically endangering sporting activities, when the respective body parts are obviously already under much stress and/or injured. But it's an amazing science! How the humble sticky tape holds us together I don't quite know, but I could breathe properly for the first time in a week!

What's the most important thing sticky tape is holding together in your life?

"I'll just get a second opinion..."

PE teachers get on my nerves

For lack of anything better to say, I will regale you with more tales from my physiotherapy - a strange and unusual occurrence in my life at present, since it involves physical activity!

Anyway, at yesterday's session I learnt something very interesting. As some may know, I spent most of high school with PE teachers making life miserable through their perhaps unwitting lack of understanding and compassion for people of lesser ability (some even mocking me, believe it or not). My poor flexibility performance was countered with the inevitably useless advice of performing various hamstring stretches in order to improve. Even though I put in my most diligent effort in this regard, as I did with all areas of my education, there was never any noticeable improvement. Even continuing such stretches during osteotherapy years later proved unsuccessful.

Yesterday I was asked to try a move which required minimal flexibility - and dismally failed, upon which I explained my poor hamstring condition. The answer? Hamstring stretches, of course! But upon performing the 'real' hamstring stretches (not the ones that only stretch your back, as prescribed by my dear old PE teachers), we discovered the limiting factor was not in my hamstrings at all (well, not yet anyway). The stretch-pain was in the wrong part of my leg, for a start. My real problem? My nerves.

So in the end, I could maybe have salvaged my sporting self-esteem a little bit more if my PE teachers could have told me the difference between a muscle and a nerve (surely that isn't medical specialist knowledge?). Then I could have pursued a more appropriate action, improved and achieved. So, the moral of the story, for both PE teachers and the little people alike: Don't assume; seek to understand the real issue.

I miss you, Omi...

My grandma, Omi, passed away this Monday, the day after her 84th birthday. Tough as us Germans are, one can only take so much. The fourth heart turn, along with infections, cancer and other body failure, took her life. It was so sudden, and my whole life feels like it's been thrown upside-down. You know in your head that they won't live forever, but your heart never really lets you accept that until after it's happened. Even now, I struggle to believe it. It's been a terribly hard week, and will be a terribly hard Christmas.

I've learnt three hard lessons this week...

1. You don't get a warning.
A year or two ago while on mission in Warrnambool, I had a dream that the family was all going off to dinner because it was the last meal we would have with Omi. She was going to die, and we knew the time, so we were having a goodbye feast. I woke up creeped out and crying. Often in life we have send-offs for people moving away or going on long trips. But you don't get that in these sorts of circumstances. We did get our goodbye feast with Omi (her birthday celebration), but we didn't know it was that at the time.

From this I've learnt that we all need to be prepared for two very big things:
a) Be prepared to face your Maker - are you really ready to do that?
b) Be prepared to lose your opportunities. You never know when the people you love will go to face God - have you told them all you can?

2. Don't delay obedience.
Along similar lines, we need to realise that - unlike homework tasks, assignments and projects - we don't have forever to carry out God's instructions to us. We need to be ready to jump up and do what God has said, with urgency. I'm haunted by the questions: What if I had prayed more? What if I had talked to her about God?

3. Your spiritual life needs to be constantly activated.
I went along to the physio on Wednesday and we began training my transversus abdominis (TA), which are kinda deep core muscles responsible for generally holding us up and together. Part of my problem is that these muscles are weak, and my body uses the 'action muscles' to do most tasks, hence they become strained or spasm (or something like that). The goal of the exercises is to train up my TA by 'activating' it more and more, until it becomes second nature to have it 'on' while doing other things and to be using it as it was intended.

Sitting with my unchurched family all week, I felt so disconnected from anything spiritual. As they talked about death, it was the first time I can recall ever hating my faith. My faith told me things I didn't want to think about. I wanted to believe what my family believed, because it was easier to bear. I struggled to keep my quiet time - I was afraid of what God might say to me. But, much like our TA, the spiritual side of our lives was designed by God to support the rest of our lives, not to play backbench. It was designed to be constantly activated. Like my TA, it needs to be trained up so that it can reach this point. When we try to rely on our own strength or substitutes for God, it's like relying on our outer muscles - we get strained and break-down. This means sticking to God in the tough times. It means being obedient to Him. It means living godly always, not just on Sundays or during your quiet time. [Interesting note: I would never have considered myself a 'Sunday Christian', but am I at risk of limiting God's place in my life to a mere window of quiet time each day???]


I wonder if I could use this for a 'sermon' some time?

My pilates instructor

I have a pilates instructor - how Hollywood is that?! Well, technically she's a 'clinical pilates' specialist, but let me go back to the beginning...

When I was 8 years old, my older brother broke his arm. About a week later, I also broke my arm, which made for an interesting sight, the two of us in slings. After the plaster came off, along I went for physio, which is where I learned a very useful word for hangman. At 8, I thought I was very clever to be able to spell P-H-Y-S-I-O-T-H-E-R-A-P-Y, which I had learnt from staring at the sign in the waiting room (that's a crazy tendency I had as a young child - a fascination with spelling).

Ok, perhaps a tad far back for a beginning. Anyway, now twelve years on, I'm once again getting physio, this time as the next step in my journey to uncover the meaning of my chest pains. Many of you would know my predicament (cramping, debilitating pains that strike out of the blue) and my efforts to find a solution; visits to my GP, a trip to casualty, an ambulance from New South Wales (honestly, Dad!), ECGs, x-ray of my lungs, a cardio specialist, an echocardiogram (like an ultrasound...), osteopathy, x-ray of my spine, a bone specialist, (not to mention prayer and fasting)... and now physiotherapy.

I'd been thinking about looking into this option for a while now, and a conversation with a physiotherapist and her excellent recommendation of a centre has meant I'm finally doing something about it. Like each new step, I'm excited because there is the hope that the end might finally be in sight. I've had two visits, and what they have said has been very promising. I can already feel the results of some simple posture correction - it's really amazing! I'm really impressed by how they can see so easily where things aren't working. Just by watching me hop around, bend and stretch she's been able to point out where I have some instabilities, all the different parts these effect, and explain how we're going to fix it. It won't be an instant fix, but considering I'm already resigned to spend my life with these pains, any fix is fantastic!

You learn the most interesting things about your body when you visit all these specialists. It's a little embarrassing to find out that you can't move your muscles the way they ask because you're completely unaware of where those muscles even are or how they move! The most interesting fact I learnt was that I'm actual a 'mobile' person, meaning I have extra flexible joints... which has ironically lead to me being as stiff and inflexible as I am.

Anyway, sorry for the lengthy ramble, but I'm excited about all this! (As you might have guessed.)