Friday the 13th stories & superstitions.

[SassyOne]

Not sure if it's a North America thing but Friday the 13th is supposed to be an unlucky day. Anyone have bad luck today or any horror stories? So far I left my cellphone in a shopping cart & someone handed it in & I hit every green light on the way to work. How was your day? Anything crazy happen?

[77tiger05]

You know I have never had anything happen on Friday the 13th, strange as that sounds. I live in North Carolina. Maybe I'm just lucky!!!1

[WayneL]

Hi, SassyOne.

I, on occaision, have a birthday fall on Friday 13th, so I guess I can't afford to be too superstitious about it! LOL

[SassyOne]

I suppose we've had More than our fair share of bad luck, maybe we're immune lol

[Lesley_D]

Nothing I can remember

[paddyandlin]

Nope we got married last year so as far as I am concerned it is a good day

Paddy

[GinaD]

This April 13 was an incredibly good day for me:

My daughter was born on April 13 -- which happened to be a Friday that year. So she (and I) claim April 13 -- particularly if it is Friday -- to be a very lucky day.

And -- so appropriate to this Board -- I had my 3rd nearly pain-free day yesterday. The PT had confirmed on Thursday that I finally had my gait correction down. And my INR on Friday came back at 2.8 ( up from 2.13 the week before.)

So -- I think I've solved it (?!) A dozen doctor visits and 16 months of pain and inactivity later -- its the APS (again!)

The part of all this I find the most baffeling is NOT the ignorance of the medical community BUT my own previous inability to follow my therapist's guidance:

He would touch my waist and carefully rotate my pelvis, away from the anterior tilt which I (untherapeutically) prefer. "Now walk." I walk. But then I become distracted, or I sit down and then stand again, and my "correct" walk goes out the window. I could not walk properly on my own unless he was there to get me started! I was amazed at my biomechanical ignorance!

5 (?) years ago I walked the West Highland Way, navigating safely around all those rocks on the trail beside Loch Lomond without a fall -- but I could not walk with a neutral pelvic position?! Amazing! (I did fall outside the Drovers Inn -- but I think that had more to do with the scotch which, even if I WAS on coumadin, I really HAD to sample, now didn't I?)

Then, my INR goes up. I look in the mirror in the morning, tell myself, "This should be so easy. Why can't I do this? I watch myself tilt my pelvis, I walk, I check myself in another mirror 15 minutes later, and as far as I can tell -- I'm walking correctly!" (Yeah!) I confirm this with the therapist who says I still tend to take over-long strides, but the pelvis is in its proper neutral position.And I can feel that the pelvis is where it is supposed to be. Why couldn't I feel it before?

I just got back from walking the dogs. And as far as I can tell I walked correctly. A neighbor who is an RN passed me and said "Good walking form Gina. Your therapy is coming along nicely." Yeah! And I sit down at my computer and there is -- no pain! All the joints seem perfectly happy. Yeah!

And I look back and can only compare this to -- learning how do all those biomechanical things kids learn: snap your fingers, whistle, ride a bike, roller skate, pump yourself on a swing. After I mastered these things as a kid I would look back and wonder why I had found them to be so hard when I had first set out to master these tasks.

And so I look back to just last week and wonder, "Why did I find it so hard just to walk in a neutral pelvic position? It is so easy. Why couldn't I do it?"

Gina