Mind Games

A 20-kilometer bike ride for a cyclist is like putting chewing gum in your mouth and spitting it out. It’s

This picture is probably a year old. Today it was dreary with no sun. There were no lakes in the background. But I was wrapped up just as warmly.

nothing. A 20-kilometer bike ride for me when I’m fit isn’t as easy as spitting out chewing gum but it’s a nice morning’s ride. Today’s 20-kilometer bike ride was a really big deal.

Today was the first time for me to be on my bike since I got frozen shoulder sometime in November 2015 and subsequently did an operation mid-January 2016. It’s the second time I’ve been on my bike since I fell and dislocated my shoulder in October 2015.

My husband sort of cajoled me into it. We’d cycle into the nearby village and have a nice lunch, he said. He knows that food is my weak point. I knew I had to get back on my bike sometime and I knew my shoulder could handle the 20-kilometer round trip. I also knew my real challenge would be mental.

Once you’ve been through the mind games a couple of times you know what to expect and you know you can handle them.

Today, cycling downhill felt like I was about to summersault down the hill. Every pothole and drain looked exactly like a Nadia-eating woman trap, designed specifically (of course) for Nadia. Building up speed felt like an invitation to a horrible slip. And cars passing by were all the enemy.

But I recognized every single one of those thoughts from previous experiences. When I first started cycling as an adult about three or four years ago, those were the thoughts that went through my head. When I started challenging myself with my cycling, those were the thoughts that went through my head. When I fell off my bike the first and second times and got back up again, those were the thoughts that went through my head. And when I went out on my bike for the first time after my shoulder dislocation, those were the thoughts that went through my head.

I recognized every single thought and knew how to dampen them out.

It’s not all about the glory but it helps

It’s not all about the glory.

But the seconds or minutes of glory that we sometimes get make all the other times bearable or even worthwhile.

Promise me you’ll do yourself a favor: Choose something that you feel is really important to accomplish. See it through to the very end no matter how hard it is. Revel in the glory of your accomplishment. Then remember that feeling when the hard times hit. You won’t regret it. I promise.

You don’t have to get gold in the Olympics or produce a number one hit single to feel the glory, by the way. Little things work too.

Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn to make a two-tiered cake. Do it. And revel in the glory your kids will give you.

Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn a language. Or get a degree in something. Or start a small business of your own.

Maybe you simply want to get fit and never thought for a second that you’d be able to run a whole ten kilometers.

Dealing with self-pity over frozen shoulder

I’ll bet you’ve always wondered how The Nadia would handle self-pity over a post-traumatic frozen shoulder.

That’s why I’m going to tell you how she handles it:

1. She gets told by her physiotherapist that, as a result of a shoulder dislocation two months ago, she now has frozen shoulder. This means that rather than taking six weeks to three months in order to heal, it could take anywhere between one to three years. In the meantime, she will have limited range of motion in her shoulder joint and pain.
2. She goes home, writes herself an excellent pep talk on Facebook, listens to some great music, and feels like she’s on top of the world.
3. She wakes up the next morning feeling like she’d rather not get out of bed. When she does, she can’t get any work done. She sits in front of her laptop for a full two hours getting absolutely nothing done.
4. So she writes a blog post to tell the whole world how sorry she’s feeling for herself.
5. She decides she’s not going to the gym today just because. In fact, she’s not going to do ANYTHING today.
6. She goes to the gym because she knows nothing good has ever come from not going to the gym.
7. She decides since she has gone to the gym, she’s going to get the heaviest weight she knows she can handle for all the non-shoulder-related exercises.
8. She discovers today’s gym class is all about the shoulders and she starts doubting her understanding that nothing good ever comes from not going to the gym.
9. The gym instructor is nice. She gives The Nadia alternative exercises, half of which she still can’t do. The Nadia starts feeling even more frustrated than when she woke up. She starts focusing on creating super biceps and triceps.
10. Everybody else is told to do push-ups. The Nadia decides she’ll try to hold a plank. She can’t because it’s too much pressure on her bad shoulder. So she decides to teach herself how to do a one-handed plank. Maybe by the end of this ordeal she’ll be the only one in that class who can do one.
11. The class ends and The Nadia has hardly broken a sweat. She’s angry. She decides she’s not even going to take a shower.
12. On her way home, The Nadia laments her cycling days. Even though the physiotherapist has told her she can get back on the bike, she’s been reluctant to because she doesn’t want to fall. First, because falling is now even more scary than it used to be. Second, because falling would mean making her bad shoulder even worse, which she could do without.
13. The Nadia gets home, puts her gym bag on the floor, gets her cycling jacket and helmet out, grabs her bike, and starts cycling, thinking FUCK THIS! I’M GOING TO GET ON THIS BIKE AND CYCLE!
14. The Nadia sees every crack in the road as a potential bike trap. But she keeps cycling.
15. The Nadia discovers that, although there is some pressure on the bad shoulder, it’s not as bad as she expected. She does have to relieve the pressure on it every now and then, but a one-hour ride turns out to be doable.
16. She gets home in one piece, wraps herself up in her fleece robe, and writes a blog post to tell the whole world that she might be feeling sorry for herself, but she FUCKING AIN’T GOING TO LET THAT HOLD HER BACK!

And that, my dear friends, is how The Nadia deals with self-pity.

Frozen shoulder, frozen brain, flowing emotions

Two months ago, I dislocated my shoulder after falling from my bike when my wheel got caught in a tram

The day after the fall, making our way to Amsterdam by train instead of bike.

track. I’ve seen very little improvement since then. In fact, yesterday things took a turn for the worse and my physiotherapist told me I have frozen shoulder. I’ve been losing range of movement in my shoulder. At first, I could move my shoulder in any direction. But movement in certain directions would cause the head of my humerus, the upper arm bone, to wobble and physically crackle within the joint. So I was told not to move my arm in any direction that would cause this. I needed to allow my soft tissue to heal properly. Doctors and physiotherapists worry about recurrence of dislocation with shoulders. Some doctors, I’ve been told, completely prevent any sort of physical activity with the arm in order to allow it to completely heal. I’ve been quite active but only doing the things that don’t cause pain or a wobbling joint.

Anyway, the things I used to be able to do after the injury, like swimming the breast stroke or putting my hair in a pony tail, I can no longer do.

My physiotherapist told me I have to wait for it to get worse before it gets better.