Cautious swim and gardening

I went for a very short swim today, 15-20 minutes of slow coasting and walking back and forth in the little pool without lap lanes. Trying to keep it super low key to not re-injure myself. Somehow, I lost the waterproof ipod shuffle! ARRGH! But, meanwhile, I have a new swim cap which is just great – I thought of them as horrible but the silicone kind are very comfortable & this one keeps the water out of my ears which is unexpectedly nice.

Meanwhile, more boring news!

I’m planting some little things in the garden – Luckily I did all the weeding and cleaning out last month so it was super easy. I have some seeds planted & seedlings in pots which will get transplanted in a week or two. The container plants (mostly succulents and herbs but some flowers) are maybe 1/4 cleaned up so there is a lot of work still left to do for the spring!

Garden is roughly as follows,

Part shade but bright noon sun at side of house, long narrow strips – Vinca and violets are doing well. Mint and rosemary also not so bad. I tore out most of the nasturtiums but have some of them going up to the front porch. The african daisies that are too big for that spot are mostly gone but I’ve kept 3 of them. Considering even more drastic pruning to get them to grow very tall and narrow.

Back patio – containers are a mess but the worm bin is newly tidy and has a new batch of worms. I’m thinking about consolidating various pots of different colored aeoniums into one or two huge pots. One of them is about to have an enormous spikey flower. Parsley and oregano is going strong. Avocado trees are a bit neglected – I’m considering repotting them into the wooden barrels.

Front porch – mostly succuents. Flowers: lobelia, bachelors button seedlings, one of those solid black pansys, geraniums seem to be gathering strength. I have a tall fuschia at the bottom of the steps that maybe doesn’t get enough sun to flower so I’m thinking of moving it to the back yard.

Sidewalk tree – It has a janky assortment of salvias, a jade plant, some tiny ice plant, sickly nasturiums. Planning to clean out the leaves and trash from under there, dump in some more dirt and mulch, and maybe put hardier things there (more jade plants and aeonium, I guess). Hard to keep it watered all summer!

I wish I had a consistently sunny spot and a fruit tree, but I do love my weird random assortment of experimental plants!

Sturdy machines glide through the water

Swimming last week 3 times a day at the hot springs place in Calistoga really got me going. I did (slow) laps in the olympic size hot springs pool, with that feeling that if my ankles and knees would stay strong I could keep swimming forever. Also I realized that because I can really swim again instead of just slowly walking around or doing stretches, the water doesn’t have to be body heat warm, maybe.

Monday I did nearly 1000 yards (a kiloyard? what is this in meters? shall i switch my fitbit to meters???) and then later felt like i was gonna die from the ankles upwards. Today I cooled my jets a little and swam 750 yards. Headphones in, waterproofed ipod shuffle clipped to my beefcake unisex bathing suit strap, feeling like a tireless otter! Trembling afterward. Noodly limbed. Felt fantastic.

I got the KT train slooooowwwwwly going up Ocean Avenue, got out at Castro, and had a burger at Orphan Andys. The naked faerie dudes were out in full force today in jane warner plaza (I have missed them) but then I saw cops pull up 🙁 So wrong… it’s our culture! Get out of the Castro if you don’t want to see some old tanning-bed-leathery guy’s junk hanging out! Have a little respect ffs!!! Annnyway I had to work (yes i worked while having a burger I had so much shit to do!!)

Then I went to Cliffs to get a diamond tipped drill bit so I can drill through the cute but deadly for the root-rot flowerpots which lack a drainage hole. And some cracked mugs that I put succulents into. But… what is this…. in the cliffs window! A hat shaped like a happy narwhal?????!!!!! I tried it on. Then a whale hat. Fun but not quite … somehow not satisfying… I looked up and BEHOLD there it was…. heavens opening and light pouring down like the gayest thing you have ever seen …. at the top of the spinning hat rack – A giant flamingo hat. Well made too with a poseable wire neck & beak, and feathery-furred wings that are flappable. Even before I got the nice bear dude who works there to get it down for me I was belly laughing uncontrollably at how this was going to roll. And yes. It was magnificent. Best thing ever. Bear clerk goes “And you know what else *wink* Inside… inside the hat… it has a SECRET POCKET!” Oh what. Someone saw into my very soul. I mean what could be better. Maybe if it were reversible and the other side was a giant satin vulva I guess. Secret pocket, good enough! “Shall I just cut that tag off for you as I think you may be wearing this out of the store?” “Why yes, ” *hysterical doubling over laughing with tears in my eyes* “Yes please! OMFG I’m never taking this hat off again!” The head and neck of the flamingo are well balanced and you can feel the weight of it bobbing gently.

Bus driver, mouth open: “What… ok now what kind of swan is that you have on your head ma’am” “A swan of ULTIMATE DIGNITY!” “It is that. Well don’t let it fly while it’s on my bus” “I just got it, across the street! What’s gonna happen, someone might stare at me, right?” *bus driver finally loses it and cracks a smile*

most people: (refusing to make eye contact because i am probably a big ol douchebag (true))

a few, good people, kindred spirits: *eyes light up and face splits into a huge grin!!!!!*

I love this hat!

flamingo hat animated

Please please let me not fuck up my legs in some mysterious screwed up way and let me keep swimming and get my legs stronger. I haven’t felt this good since 2011.

Swimming with my Camaro

When I went to leave the house this afternoon there was a crew of guys pulling (fiber) cable under the sidewalk. I had been listening to them out the window for a while as I was working, and there was clearly one guy who was the big joker, though I couldn’t hear what he was saying most of the time he was bossing the other guys around and teasing them too. Anyway, I explained I had to open the garage door for my wheelchair, they moved their stuff to one side, then the joker started in once they could see into the garage as I had 3 wheelchairs visible (actually 5 in there or more? but 3 of them obvious and ready to go…) He was like Oh, three of them, your Mustang, your Camaro, your BMW… I told him the one I was in is the Camaro because it goes the fastest. I think we were flirting? In Spanish? In any case I like being indulgently joked with by kind workmen in hard hats. It helps fulfill my lifelong wish of being a character in Richard Scarry’s Busy Busy World (I am obviously Bugdozer). Then I had the song “Bitchin’ Camaro” stuck in my head for the next half hour. Also, excited we are getting FIBER!!!!

It was pretty quick getting to Balboa Park station on the J. There were California poppies growing on the train tracks between Bernal and Glen Park. I mentioned before how the Balboa station strikes me as not being FOR people; it is for trains, and the train-ness is built around cars, as it is right next to the 280 highway in a little maze of on and offramps. At least it isn’t smack in the middle of the highway. But it is so full of fences, walls, spikey metal things, giant ramps and tracks and stairways. It is a confusing building inside and out. One thing to note if you are a wheelchair user – The accessible platform for getting OFF the J is nearly but not quite inside the station — in the trainyard itself and leading right to the interior of the station. But the platform for boarding the inbound J train is on the other side of the building.

Balboa Park itself is just lovely! All the flowers are blooming. Landscaping particularly nice. The skatepark was empty & the door was open. You know what that means!!!!!! Yes I went in and tried all the ramps. It would be REALLY fun to go with my manual wheelchair! The powerchair is less satisfying because it doesn’t go faster downhill (it stays throttled). Surely somewhere there are awesome sport powerchairs or someday…. WHILL will let folks custom program the motor controllers with more interesting options. (Or I will have another one someday and be able to hack around on it with impunity.) Feeling very pleased with myself for marauding around the skatepark…. like in reality I know it just looks a bit silly but IN MY MIND i’m aaron fucking fotheringham out there! No lie!!! Sadly there was no way to photograph this…. But here’s me smirking about it, just afterwards.

balboa park

I am trying to look up who made the sign. Maybe it says somewhere in the park. My prime suspect is Victor Zaballa who does a lot of public art and metalwork around town (he made the paper cutout (papel picado) railings at 16th and Mission). I can spot his work sometimes now, and also William Mitchell’s.

Instead of immediately going to swim, I trundled down past the park to Red Sea Pizza & Mkt, conveniently also a pokestop and Ingress portal. I had marked it down on the map along with Pineapples as a Balboa station thing to do. The yelp reviews didn’t lie — this is great pizza! 4 bucks a slice, and i got a fucking giant, fabulous piece of pizza covered with garlic and olives and 2 kinds of pepperoni. The crust was perfectly crispy. They have some sort of crust miracle going. How is that?!!!! I sat outside at their tiny tables to watch people go by someone catcalled me from a car. I looked up from my pizza & it was a tiny woman a little older than me screeching out her car window “LET’S HEAR IT FOR PURPLE HAIRED LADIES!!!” Her hair was a rich deep purple. “PURPLE SISTERRRRR!” I screamed back. We did thumbs up at each other and giggled and then it was a little awkward because the light didn’t change and we didn’t know what to do next except continue giggling. Let’s hear it for being catcalled by cute silly haired women in mini coopers! Entirely pleasant. Some teenagers came in and then suddenly ran out yelling at each other – they were running for the train. The market owner (super nice!!!) came out and laughed with me about it and said he likes to place bets every morning on the kids running after the J train. A nice place to hang out.

I am eyeing Tasty Coffee as a nice place to work after a swim… Next time. That and the dole whip at pineapples…. calling me.

Onward to the pool. It’s big, it’s new, it’s lovely! The building is just very pretty (inside and out). It’s still a giant slab of concrete but somehow is like the friendly little brother of the loud, stompy, spiky, fortress train station.

There is an accessible shower stall. Bring a lock (unless you are me and can just stuff your clothes under your wheelchair seat). The water is much warmer than any other public pool I’ve been in (thank god!) at 82′ which is the maximum they’re allowed to set it. (Says the super nice lifeguard. ) The air wasn’t bad either, and it was a chilly, rainy day. I got into the water without even a squeak! There are huge picture windows – even while swimming i could see the water tower in McLaren Park and some trees and hills & houses and a ton of birds flying by (the seagulls who love to hang out at the dump, I guess.) All the staff was so nice.

Minor complaint, the door opener buttons don’t work. . . But people sprang up to offer to open them so if you can’t handle heavy doors, don’t worry too much. (And you can bypass the locker room doors easily by just going into the pool area and entering from that direction.)

My waterproof ipod shuffle and headphones worked great and I swam a zillionty laps very slowly in the slow lane shared with a businesslike 80 year old who was there when I started and seemed ready to go another half hour after I quit.

Very different from swimming last summer when I was still not quite able to do laps. I feel stronger! My calves and ankles are definitely stronger. I can trace back over the years to 2012 when I couldn’t even get into water without ankle braces because the little currents of the water moving my ankles around ever so slightly made me want to throw up from pain. Oh man. How I ever endured those times I don’t even know (not the pool, just the whole terrible year of my ankles going kablooey in every tendon. Like being squeezed by evil snakes on the INSIDE.)

Anyway now after my epic 20 minute swim, my legs are all wobbly and wibbly & my knees hella hurt right now but I dont think it’s the going to be injured for weeks sort of hurt – I will take some pain meds and take it easy tomorrow. Feeling very optimistic about swimming a few times a week and gradually increasing the time/laps. Remind me of this optimism tomorrow when I wake up and can’t move out of bed before voltarening myself for an hour and whining a lot.

The hours for lap and rec swim also looked just great for me, big chunks of the afternoon and then early evening. I’m so excited, I’m going to swim all the time…. I remarked to the lifeguard that Garfield Pool is closer and seems to be the next in line (it’s closed for renovation) and he said he thought it was going to be really nice. Yay! Pools!!!!!!!

When I drive past the kids
They all spit and cuss
‘Cause I’ve got a bitchin’ Camaro
And they have to ride the bus

Like a warm pool

My new stomping grounds are at a physical rehab swimming pool in San Francisco. It’s called Herbst Pool and it’s at the Pomeroy Recreation and Rehabilitation Center. I used to go to the Betty Wright pool in Palo Alto (that then became C.A.R. and then Abilities United). This seems quite similar. The Center was started in 1952 as a rec center for people with disabilities. It seems to have a lot of day programs, gardens, playgrounds, a gym and art classrooms, and this awesome pool where the water is kept over 90 degrees. This is the important part to me. Cold is painful on my joints and I get stiff quickly. But it also is directly painful on my “bad” leg. Regular room temperature air on my leg feels like burning ice which is why I’m a huge fan of long underwear or at least secret leg warmers (under my jeans). So, warm water RULES.

Pomeroy herbstpool

Like the Betty Wright pool, Herbst Pool or Pomeroy Pool (whatever you want to call it) has a very wide sloping ramp to enter the water, and a variety of PVC wheelchairs useful for going down the ramp. There are also very shallow and broad steps with handrails. It is easy entry into the water. They have all sorts of adaptive equipment for the water. I don’t need that stuff but I appreciate the easy entry and not having to use one of those slow, free-show lift chairs into the water. The pool is a beautiful and relaxing space as there is a skylight, and one wall is entirely windows looking out at the trees bordering Lake Merced. The walls are covered with cheerful murals of cartoon whales.

The locker room and especially the main pool room are kept pretty warm. There are many heat lamps in the pool area. Really fantastic if you can’t tolerate the cold. Of course I always wish it were warmer and had a heated floor… and a sauna…. but it’s the best I’ve ever come across.

Once I am in things are pretty good at the moment. I can walk around slowly in collarbone-deep water, and do squats and other excercises hanging onto a kickboard. When I am not in a flare up, or, in some mythical past before my ankles went awry, I am a strong and good swimmer with good endurance and a long history of loving the surf. I feel super happy in the water, light and gravity-free (as long as it is warm). I’m going every week for physical therapy in a small group that’s run through Potrero Physical Therapy (note: they are awesome.) And I am trying to fit in at least one other pool visit per week, hoping to get to 3 hours total a week.

It is hard for me to get to Pomeroy. When I was gearing up to do this I didn’t find directions on their site for how to get there by bus, and it was really unclear on Google Maps from their address (on Skyline) where the entrance was on a rather large and confusing block of land between three streets. This matters to me because it can be non-trivial for me to get from point A to point B even in my scooter (because of pain, or nasty weather) and if I do’t know exactly where entrances are and what a building or “campus” is like, I’m not going to take my manual wheelchair for sure as it can easily be too difficult for me to go it alone. So here are the details of how to get there for anyone else who is thinking of rehab at this pool.

And, while taking the hour+ long journey from my house to the pool and during the somewhat boring hour of walking back and forth I often think how I should write up a post about the pool. Here it finally is.

Getting to the pool

There is parking and drop off that is level with the pool entrance, which is on Herbst Road and up a little hill. There are at least 5 blue parking spaces and some extra. Other parking is along Herbst and you will meet that “hill” along with a possibly significant walk. From the drop off point in the closest parking lot (where paratransit will drop you) It is a pretty short walk in to the pool. I haven’t measured it or tried it yet. It is too much walk for me to do with out a chair.

There are 2 buses that go nearby, the 23 and the 18. The 18 stops on Herbst Road just outside the Rec Center campus. To get to the pool you will have to cross a non-busy street and then go up a steep slope (a full story, not something I want to do in a manual chair but might in a pinch). There is a ramp for this but again it is at least one full building story high. At the top there is a little garden with benches, and a small (not accessible) playground and grassy area for toddlers. I like eating lunch there. (I think on the other side of the campus there may be an accessible playground.)

Pomeroy courtyard

To take the 23 (the bus I ride to get there) you have to get off at Sloat and Skyline just north east of the zoo. This street crossing is a complete nightmare. It is a 6 or 8 way stop, with cars coming very fast. There are 3 medians you will need to stop on to cross another section of the road. At least it has medians! This is a crossing I would not recommend to anyone blind. Instead get off the 23 at the zoo entrance stop and cross there where there is a light and only 1 median and traffic isn’t coming from 6 unpredictable directions. This will add another 15 minutes to your journey. The Hellish Intersection scares the crap out of me every time. But I still use it because I need to get back home so I can work. The 23rd itself is a pleasant bus, not crowded, bus drivers nice and not super stressed; they are the old style buses with an unfolding ramp instead of a lift. It comes about every 20-30 minutes depending on the time and day. Note, the bus stop going inbound is not marked well and is on one of the medians in the center of the Hellish Intersection.

Hellish intersection sloat skyline

It is half a mile from the Sloat and Skyline bus stop to the entrance to the pool, which takes me about 10 minutes to traverse. One minor problem I have is that the sidewalk along Herbst is often littered with eucalyptus nuts and branches, so I opt for going in the street. Not a big problem as the street isn’t too busy and it’s wide enough to have room.

cost of the pool; who goes there
The pool membership costs $50 a year and you have to have a doctor fill out the application. Then, the swim sessions or exercise classes are something like $8-10 each. There is not really a “drop in” mentality but instead you are expected to sign up for a 10-pack card at the least.

This high cost, and the difficult access, may explain why I have never seen any other wheelchair users at the pool. It is weird to feel like a damn unicorn at a place specifically meant for disabled people. The physical therapy class are mostly people with injuries or recovering from surgery who have PT for a short time covered by their insurance or Medicare and the arthritis exercise class seem to be retired people trying to keep fit. The other main users of the facility seem to be disabled people who have personal care attendants, or who have developmental disabilities and are there as a sort of day camp experience doing garden work, art classes, and basketball. Lots of wheelchair users around the grounds and buildings but none at the pool at the times that I go there. I can see the community that they serve. And I am an outlier in that community and yet this place is also *exactly* what I need (integrated into my life all the time). I do wish that the pool had some sort of option for low(er) cost access, not for me, but for people in the community who are living on disability benefits who would never be able to afford this and yet who are not “in the system” enough to get bused from a group home on paratransit (as I think many of the people hanging out at the Center are).

The other swimmers I have seen are all infant and toddlers with parents bringing them for swim lessons (with no relation to anyone being disabled). It is just a nice warm pool where they have baby swim lessons, like at Petit Baleen. It is lovely and cheerful to see all the kids coming out of the pool. They always seem happy and calm and sort of stimulated. And they make me happy as I think of the nice memories of when Milo and Ada were small.

Probably the kids’ swim lessons are basically a way for middle class non disabled people to financially support the rest of the facility. (Which also takes donations.) And, I think it may also get funding from places like Target that look for a place from which to hire disabled people for low pay and some sort of tax break; whatever happens there, I hope people are paid fairly.

Extra note on Janet Pomeroy who the Center is named after. Thank you wheelchair sports camp lady!

The facilities of the pool
The building itself has automatic doors. There is a station where you can check in and pay for your session. Also two vending machines with drinks and snacks.

The women’s locker room has a big heavy door quite difficult to open. They need a push button for the doors. Inside, there is a (wet) floored room lined with benches. There are a few hooks to hang coats or bags but no lockers at all and no curtained areas for changing. It is just one big room to change in. Probably that is to fit a maximum number of people (and wheelchairs?) into the room. The outcome of this is that many people lock themselves into the three bathroom stalls so I make sure to use the bathroom outside the locker room by the gym. Aside from this minor annoyance I do feel critical of the situation as the upshot is old ladies who have had hip replacements changing into bathing suits in a slippery tiled floor bathroom stall seems like a recipe for badness. (Add in an incoming and outgoing class of non-disabled toddlers to imagine this completely.) I think they are dealing with this by building a new (unisex) changing area for wheelchair users or people with attendants, in the main area of the pool. (The Abilities United pool also has this.) One last bitch about the locker room, it has no tampon machine. Come on folks. It’s a pool bathroom. What more important place are you going to be where you will need emergency tampons?! But I digress.

There are nice showers in the locker room, one with a curtain but all the rest open. The water is hot. Yay. The locker room has a heavy difficult door to get into the pool area.

From there it is cake; there is another shower for rinsing off near the pool and there are some open cubbyholes to put your stuff in if you don’t want to leave it in the (non-lockered) locker room. I notice that getting into the pool many people have both flip flops and walking canes. Some thought to this common situation would be good and it coudl be solved with another set of cubbies and some sort of cane holder that would take twenty-eleven canes. There is always a pile of flip flops and canes right at the point where the handrail begins! Plus, my scooter unless I am confident about the walk from the shower area to the pool and back.

Herbstpool window

emotions and memories of physical therapy
I can’t imagine how many of the ladies in PT with me manage the trip there or even the walk from the parking lot. It is always hard to remember how that works until I get back into that territory of ablilty. Driving + hobbling. I was there for years.

I remember so many times of “rehabbing” in pools over the last 20 years. At Valley Medical Center in the 90s it was depressing and squalid and yet the warm water was so freeing. I could move freely and learned some good exercises. It was hard to talk with the other people there who were all older women while I was in my 20s with a mohawk and two septum rings. These days at least I am middle aged looking and not unacceptable as a possible conversation partner to ladies who have hip replacements.

It was always an ordeal to get to a hospital and navigate it and also inherently depressing. I have swum at YMCAs, JCCs, many city pools, and so on which I far prefer to going to hospital therapy pools. The public pools are way too cold for me to tolerate. I worked up from 15 minutes to 45 minutes in a “normal” temperature pool where athletic people swim laps, but it’s never a good experience. The SF JCC has the second warmest pool in town, plus a hot tub and a sauna, by the way, but it is extremely pricey as well as being ultra clean, pretty, and posh. The CPMC hospital has a warm pool, and you can get PT from it, so that is an option, but last I checked it was not only out of service but you couldn’t “drop in” extra at all; you have to get on a waiting list for a weekly arthritis class and if you miss two classes they boot you to the end of the waiting list. That will not work well for me. So I am very glad that places like the Pomeroy Pool and Abilities United exist.

I thought over my times at the Betty Wright Center which had really good cameraderie and where I got a lot stronger. I remember starting out at Betty Wright crying uncontrollably and feeling that I could not take it but grimly slogging through. That always happens both physically and emotionally. In fact at Pomeroy I know we all cry in there sometimes. Even if not from pain, it is because it is easy to go about our lives somewhat disconnected from our bodies. Being in the water and having nothing else to do but gently move around, it can be an emotional experience. I am thinking directly about what I can and can’t do, and comparing it with other times in the water, often ones where I was hitting rock bottom physically. I notice consistently my problem is not, “not trying hard enough” it is pushing myself way too hard and re-injuring myself or making everything worse. This is the new era of caution for me. Some of this holding back is possible because of working with a behavioral therapist who is very knowledgeable about pain, disability, and chronic illness. Thanks Dr. C.

(There is also the aspect that doing this 3.5 hour journey means I have to put on a lot of psychic armor to deal with strangers, bus drivers, buses with broken lifts, the Hellish Intersection, people cursing at me for being in the way, people staring, people (nicely or otherwise) inquiring about my scooter or wheelchair, people angry with me for not accepting their “help” properly, and all the other things that make leaving the house an Epic Journey. I armor up and am prepared for it all but it is not without emotional effort and cost. It is never simple. For me to get anywhere, I have gone through this process already and have likely had many challenges to basic equanimity.)

Last fall I could not go into the water without soft ankle braces. It hurt too much to have the tiny currents of the water, wiggling my ankles around unpredictably. Right now I can do a lot of squats and toe-raises and walk back and forth for the whole hour. It’s great. I am not swimming yet as my knees and ankles (and i think back) aren’t strengthened enough. I cannot do things I used to be able to do in pool rehab, like write the alphabet with my foot in cursive. Nope nope nope nope nope nope! But, I have improved my gait (again) to be more even and to weight shift instead of limping or shuffling.

My goal right now is to get my ankles strong enough that I can drive to the pool, park there, and use my manual chair. That would be less physically grueling for me than the 2 hours of bus ride and scootering. It usually takes 3 and a half hours out of my day to get there by bus. By driving, I could be gone from work 2 hours instead. That means I could swim more often. My real goal though is simply to maintain this level of water-walking and aerobic exercise for health, flexibility, and strength without injuring myself. This is already the longest stretch of time I have consistently made it to PT or exercise without messing myself up, and also doing daily PT at home. Huzzah!

A last note, huge props to Pomeroy staff for letting me use a conference room in their office one day last fall as I wanted to be at a crucial team meeting but didn’t want to skip my PT appointment. They let me walk in out of the blue and use their office and their wifi and close the door for privacy. Super nice of them. I was able to give one of their staff all the details about TravelScoots and other lightweight scooters in return. I still feel I owe them some free computer advice or help! But, I thanked them for supporting a person “in the community” (me) in their job and also for helping make Firefox better (ha!) by getting me to my meeting on time!