2019 in Health
Jan. 13th, 2020 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bjarvis2019 ended pretty well for me, at least healthwise.
Weightlifting continues, although I'm a bit frustrated by a lack of progress in my benchpress, among other things. Ongoing tennis elbow issues in my left arm has prevented a lot of progress, especially on my biceps. Still, I'm in better shape than I have been in years and have high hopes for 2020.
Karate also continues well. At the moment, I have a 3rd degree brown belt. This would be a intro to the advanced levels, and I still have a few steps up to black. My flexibility is much improved: when I started, I could barely front kick to waist level, but I can now easily front-kick up to head level. My side kick, not so much: there are limits to what a 50+ year old body can do if it hasn't been doing this since youth.
I was thrilled this morning to see that the belt test dates for the rest of 2020 have been posted: it's so much easier to schedule the rest of my year. Alas, the next round is scheduled in the last week of February during a must-attend week in San Francisco at the company headquarters for our audit. Figures. I'll check with Sensei if it is possible to test before or after the regular window, presuming I'm eligible at that time.
Kent had both knees replaced in 2019: July 27 and Nov 20. His recovery was pretty fast for each as he's not yet 60. The second did take a little longer because he was pushing too fast too early with a weekend trip to Cleveland prior to xmas, and a fall when we got home. Still, he just needs more walking to rebuild strength at this point.
Michael had a small scare in the fall. Following some routine stress testing, there was some arterial blocking discovered. After further scans, the doctors determined his body had manufactured enough collaterals to bypass the blockages on its own, and there is nothing they could do with surgery or stents which would improve on it, so they've decided to simply up his statin meds and continue monitoring. He's still walking miles on the gym treadmill and travelling, so there's no quality of life impact.
So in all, not a bad year. We hope for a good 2020.
Weightlifting continues, although I'm a bit frustrated by a lack of progress in my benchpress, among other things. Ongoing tennis elbow issues in my left arm has prevented a lot of progress, especially on my biceps. Still, I'm in better shape than I have been in years and have high hopes for 2020.
Karate also continues well. At the moment, I have a 3rd degree brown belt. This would be a intro to the advanced levels, and I still have a few steps up to black. My flexibility is much improved: when I started, I could barely front kick to waist level, but I can now easily front-kick up to head level. My side kick, not so much: there are limits to what a 50+ year old body can do if it hasn't been doing this since youth.
I was thrilled this morning to see that the belt test dates for the rest of 2020 have been posted: it's so much easier to schedule the rest of my year. Alas, the next round is scheduled in the last week of February during a must-attend week in San Francisco at the company headquarters for our audit. Figures. I'll check with Sensei if it is possible to test before or after the regular window, presuming I'm eligible at that time.
Kent had both knees replaced in 2019: July 27 and Nov 20. His recovery was pretty fast for each as he's not yet 60. The second did take a little longer because he was pushing too fast too early with a weekend trip to Cleveland prior to xmas, and a fall when we got home. Still, he just needs more walking to rebuild strength at this point.
Michael had a small scare in the fall. Following some routine stress testing, there was some arterial blocking discovered. After further scans, the doctors determined his body had manufactured enough collaterals to bypass the blockages on its own, and there is nothing they could do with surgery or stents which would improve on it, so they've decided to simply up his statin meds and continue monitoring. He's still walking miles on the gym treadmill and travelling, so there's no quality of life impact.
So in all, not a bad year. We hope for a good 2020.
