Yoga

Back in 2005, I had surgery to remove a tumor that had wrapped itself around my left hearing and balance nerves. Removing the tumor required removing those nerves, so when I awoke from surgery I was (and still am) completely deaf in my left ear.

I was also extremely off kilter due to the missing balance nerve, but I was determined to regain my balance and enlisted the help of a private yoga instructor (I couldn’t return to a yoga studio because I would’ve been falling all over the place). These balance-oriented sessions helped immensely.

I’ve been practicing – and loving – yoga ever since.

For the longest time I focused on holding poses, but eventually it dawned on me that the poses themselves are less important than how you get there. This revelation turned yoga into a slow motion dance for me.

For several years I went to the studio by myself, but then I met Melissa and now we go together. Doing yoga side-by-side with your partner is a wonderful thing.

And then the pandemic hit and we could no longer enjoy being around a room full of yogis moving and flowing with us.

Thankfully, one of our favorite instructors set herself up on Vimeo and offered on-demand classes, which we do a couple times a week from our basement. We also do live-streaming classes via Zoom, which was a little strange at first but now we love it. We don’t have to drive anywhere, we still get to see people we know, and best of all we can play our own music. It’s quite a treat doing hot yoga to a Metallica playlist :)

We’ve also been doing virtual classes at studios around the country like this one, and it’s been oddly fun seeing a screen full of people we don’t know practicing with us. We’re being extremely cautious about venturing out right now so apart from grocery stores and occasional outdoor events, these virtual classes are practically the only time we feel like we’re around other people.

When we can eventually attend an in-person class, it’s going to pretty hard to adapt to it. Since we mute our audio, we’re constantly talking in these virtual classes, often trying to crack each other up during balance poses to see who falls over first. I’m pretty sure we couldn’t do that in an actual studio.

It’ll be quite a while before we’re comfortable going to a studio, so for now we’re extremely thankful we can still do yoga in other ways despite this raging pandemic. Having a regular practice has really helped us stay somewhat sane during these insane times.

Septoplasty and the Deviated Stunt Man

Yesterday I underwent septoplasty surgery to repair a deviated septum I’ve had since childhood.

The injury was the result of pretending I was a stunt man when I was a kid. I enjoyed throwing myself onto foldable chairs and tables like I was in some sort of bar fight scene, and one time it didn’t go well. ‘Nuff said.

I’ve had breathing trouble and sinus infections ever since that day but avoided corrective surgery because of the horror stories I’ve heard about it. This year my nasal woes became so severe that I decided to finally have it done.

Turns out it’s not that big a deal, at least not in my case. The surgery took about an hour, and the only real issue for me has been the mental fogginess and irregular sleep caused by anesthesia. I have two splinting “straws” in my nose which are pretty uncomfortable, but they’ll be removed in a few days.

As part of the procedure the doctor cleaned out my sinuses and removed a number of nasal polyps that have affected my breathing. I can already breath better despite the straws, and within a few weeks I expect to feel like I’m wearing Nose v2.0.