Anne2345
11-24-2013, 05:53 PM
Less than a month away from being on HRT for a year now, I can honestly say that I really underestimated how much brute, physical strength I would lose this quickly. Looking back on it, I also recognize just how much for granted I took my previous physical strength, and my ability to move large, heavy items and such.
I mean, if something needed to be done - BAM - I did it. No sweat, no problem. It was just the way it was, and has always been.
Now, however, the game has changed. It's changed a lot, in fact. Certain things I could previously do with ease and little effort now present physical challenges that I have not encountered in this manner before. Picking up heavy things is no longer easy. It's hard, in fact. There are even things now that I simply would not even attempt to do by myself now for fear of physical injury that I would not have thought twice about before.
The thing is, though, that I really enjoy tackling home improvement projects. I am a handy person, and I take pride and feel a sense of accomplishment when I complete a job well done.
But going into HRT, I can see that I completely failed to prioritize my to-do list. I did not take into account, as I should have, that I would begin to progressively lose more and more strength. Rationally, I recognized that I would, but for some reason, I did not believe that it would effect me, or my ability to do certain things. I guess, in a way, I just didn't believe that my ability to do anything I was capable of performing at the time would be compromised or diminished to the extent it has, and that what loss did occur would be no big deal.
As I have been so many times before over recent years, I was completely dead wrong about this. So if I had this to do all over again, I would take the time to prioritize my projects by degree of manual labor and strength required, and complete the more physically labor intensive projects first.
And why am I writing about this now (or writing about this at all), you may ask?
I am writing about this because the thick-skulled knucklehead that I can be, knowing that I would have difficulty moving certain things in the house, yet refusing to acknowledge my "new" limitations, I went about and hurt my back pretty good recently.
Some three weeks later, it is still giving me problems, but it is on the mend and healing nicely (finally). Had I properly prioritized those things I knew I was going to do, such as this project, though, I could have avoided the entire fiasco by simply doing this one a year ago. Had I done so, it wouldn't have been a problem, and it would have gotten completed injury-free.
But nope. Just like everything else, I have to learn things the hard way it seems.
So those of you considering HRT that have to-do lists - don't be me. Instead, be smart about it, plan intelligently, and stay out of harm's way.
Now if I could just remember where I left my dag-blam heating pad, walking cane, and pain killers . . . . Ugh. My back hurts, I say! It hurts!! :sad:
I mean, if something needed to be done - BAM - I did it. No sweat, no problem. It was just the way it was, and has always been.
Now, however, the game has changed. It's changed a lot, in fact. Certain things I could previously do with ease and little effort now present physical challenges that I have not encountered in this manner before. Picking up heavy things is no longer easy. It's hard, in fact. There are even things now that I simply would not even attempt to do by myself now for fear of physical injury that I would not have thought twice about before.
The thing is, though, that I really enjoy tackling home improvement projects. I am a handy person, and I take pride and feel a sense of accomplishment when I complete a job well done.
But going into HRT, I can see that I completely failed to prioritize my to-do list. I did not take into account, as I should have, that I would begin to progressively lose more and more strength. Rationally, I recognized that I would, but for some reason, I did not believe that it would effect me, or my ability to do certain things. I guess, in a way, I just didn't believe that my ability to do anything I was capable of performing at the time would be compromised or diminished to the extent it has, and that what loss did occur would be no big deal.
As I have been so many times before over recent years, I was completely dead wrong about this. So if I had this to do all over again, I would take the time to prioritize my projects by degree of manual labor and strength required, and complete the more physically labor intensive projects first.
And why am I writing about this now (or writing about this at all), you may ask?
I am writing about this because the thick-skulled knucklehead that I can be, knowing that I would have difficulty moving certain things in the house, yet refusing to acknowledge my "new" limitations, I went about and hurt my back pretty good recently.
Some three weeks later, it is still giving me problems, but it is on the mend and healing nicely (finally). Had I properly prioritized those things I knew I was going to do, such as this project, though, I could have avoided the entire fiasco by simply doing this one a year ago. Had I done so, it wouldn't have been a problem, and it would have gotten completed injury-free.
But nope. Just like everything else, I have to learn things the hard way it seems.
So those of you considering HRT that have to-do lists - don't be me. Instead, be smart about it, plan intelligently, and stay out of harm's way.
Now if I could just remember where I left my dag-blam heating pad, walking cane, and pain killers . . . . Ugh. My back hurts, I say! It hurts!! :sad: