Cardio Dancing

No, I'm not going to post my exercise of choice every day. But today I did something I didn't think I could: twenty minutes of aerobic dance. I had forgotten until yesterday that I subscribed to Gaiam TV a few months ago. In checking it out -- or re-checking it out -- I discovered a treasure trove of workouts. This is very helpful in my quest to do thirty minutes (or more) of activity every day. Tomorrow I might do kickboxing. I used to really enjoy that, but I haven't tried in at least two years, and probably closer to five. I remember one time when I was kickboxing in the living room and my son brought a friend home. She (my boys were allowed to have girls over if they kept the bedroom door open) saw what I was doing and I heard her say softly to my son, "Your mom is bad ass!" My thought was, "Damn right, girl, and you better remember that!" I was bad ass; I want to be bad ass again.

My glowy exercise feeling didn't last too long. I wasn't feeling very well by noon. I had a slight fever, but that didn't bother me too much. My head was a little "swimmy" and I wasn't sure why. Finally I took my blood pressure with my mostly-inaccurate home device. It was high. Oh, good grief! Was exercise going to mess me up? I took another shower and rechecked my blood pressure. I don't know why I thought it would be lower (it wasn't), but I'm a firm believer that a shower makes everything better. At this point I had about three hours until my class started. I decided to go by my doctor's office and have them check out my blood pressure with their much-more-accurate equipment. It was pretty high, and I'm on two medications. Not good.

The doctor came in to examine me. I had been clear that the weird dizzy feeling and the pressure in my head were not like I get when I have a sinus infection. I was right. I had an ear infection. Well, technically two, I suppose, one in each ear. Somehow I had managed to fill up my ears with fluid, and that was the cause of all my woes. The fever is obvious in how it's related. The high blood pressure, according to my doctor, was caused by my body thinking I was going to faint every time I moved, so it rose to compensate. I took a decongestant, went to my class, and dropped off a prescription to pick up tomorrow. I'm better already. When I thought about it, I realized that was probably the reason I couldn't work up any energy or motivation for the past few days. I think the exercise yesterday and today may have shaken it all up. My doctor was happy I was exercising and encouraged me to keep it up. He said the vertigo feeling would pass. I've had ear infections before, and they hurt like a son of a bitch. This doesn't hurt at all; it's just making me woozy. In a day or two I'll be good as new -- maybe better.