It’s November now, so Happy November, everyone, if that’s something that people say on any kind of regular basis.  October is generally my favorite month, and now it’s over, so at some level that’s disappointing.  On the other hand, I don’t think I can remember ever having a worse October (subjectively speaking*) than the one that’s just finished, so I guess I can’t feel too bad about it being over.

I’m quite concerned about a coworker of mine, who is one of the few people I would consider a friend at work.  She had some weird sensations and weakness (subjectively) in her hand Monday, and said she felt weird, though when I tested her grip strength it was normal.  But I guess it got worse by the end of the day and she went to the hospital.  Third-person (and thus unreliable) information is that she had a small stroke of some kind, which seems strange to me given that she is only 41.  It’s not impossible, of course, but I certainly didn’t consider it likely.  I thought it much more probable that she had slept oddly on her arm or something along those lines.

I feel bad not to have been more proactive and not recommending that she go quickly to the doctor or emergency room, but it’s not as if I’m in practice anymore, and I don’t really give medical advice one way or the other when I can help it.  Also, frankly, my own mental state is far from good, and is trending lower over time.  I can’t trust myself to care for myself; it’s hard to be able to do my best for other people (though I usually like them more than I like myself).

Still, I would wish that I could have worked some miracle of prevention or whatnot on Monday.  It would probably have been better to encourage her to go to the ER sooner…even if it probably would not have made a difference (some of this is talk is likely me just trying to make myself feel better, but I think it’s nonetheless true).

I did not walk significantly yesterday‒a total of only about one and a half miles.  Today though, I walked to the train station, and arrived nicely just as the 610 was pulling in, which I am again rather foolishly happy to say I felt no urge to try to catch.

The walking is getting easier, which is nice.  I think the spandex knee and ankle supports are making a difference, and it seems pretty clear that these shoes are going to be simply better than the boots would have been.  I’m still sad about that, but reality is that which it is; we do not have veto power over it.

It occurred to me this morning, as I was getting near the end of my journey, that I may be getting fit enough that I could throw a bit of jogging in‒very slowly and gradually‒without hurting my back.  I’ve always enjoyed jogging/running, and maybe, if I take advantage of the delayed and postponed nature of my epic quest, I can thereby turn it into something even more impressive.

I imagine myself starting by doing perhaps a brief warm-up walk‒say, to the end of the block‒and then running forty paces the first day, then eighty paces the second, then one hundred twenty the third, and so on.  I’m sweaty in the morning and bring a complete change of clothes anyway, when I walk to the train, so it would make nary a difference as far as I can anticipate.

One of the advantages of such a practice would simply be the decreased time for the journey in the morning.  It takes just about an hour and a half to walk the five miles to the train in the morning, but even a light jog could bring that down to less than an hour, though that would be a long-run goal (no pun intended, but it’s slightly funny, so I’ll leave it).

It would also be quite nice to start every day with a real endorphin rush, which jogging/ running always tended to give me.  Even when I was in residency, for part of the time at least, I used to jog about four miles in the morning on days when I wasn’t post-call.  I had to use a treadmill usually, because this was in New York, and much of the year it was too cold for jogging outdoors.  But it was a good habit, and I felt good, and I looked good (for me, at least).

It’s something to think about.  Meanwhile, November is a month with a very important US holiday:  Thanksgiving.  It’s a nice, foody holiday, and even though I don’t have anyone with whom I celebrate it anymore, I still tend to get something like a turkey sandwich with cranberry based topping, which is available not far from me.  I may do that this year.  Maybe I won’t.  I don’t know what I’ll do, but there doesn’t seem to be any real reason to specify my plans, or even to have any such plans.  We’ll just see what happens.

In the meantime, I hope you all have a good month.  Thank you for reading.

*Event-wise, of course I’ve had worse Octobers.  After my divorce, and then while I was in prison, those were objectively worse months, and my chronic pain was worse than it is now.  But weirdly enough, my mood was less low.  Possibly this is is a matter of some kind of emotional erosion.  More of it was going on back then, but I’ve now been eroded to a lower level than I ever was in the past.  I’m probably overthinking things.