IN WHICH BEAR REPORTS ON SURVIVING WEEK TWO AT THE PAIN CLINIC

It's the end of the second week of our program. And, as in the ambulance business, things are picking up.

It was a four-day week, with employees of the Health Region having Friday off (the beginning of a four-day weekend). So we were very active while we were together.

Probably the key item of the week was getting my own personal physical therapy program. Exercises I can do at home to strengthen particular parts of my body. Exercises I need to do at home. Exercises I need to do in order to recover much of the strength I had lost during my disability time. By recovering strength, I can re-energize the hurting part of my body, and keep from re-injuring old wounds, or aggravating old pains. Oh, and by the way, the fact that you're hurting does not mean you're actually causing major injuries. A bit of hurt normally means you're stretching the muscles back into shape — the muscles which actually protect the injured areas of the body. Fascinating.

The other thing I learned in particular was the notion of pacing. Most of the people who have been through the program since 2004 have been pretty gung-ho people. Over-achiever types. Which means we often re-injure ourselves in the process, and become un-gunged (so to speak). The trick we've learned is to
1. figure out about how much we can do, and
2. start our rebuilding programs at about half of what we can do.
By starting slowly, we decrease the chance of injuring ourselves during the long-term recovery process. Simple, when you think about it. Though a challenge for the gung-ho, who want to get the job done, and done now! So I'm learning a new way of Bearing up.

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In other news, on Thursday, it snowed. On Saturday, there was water running, flowing, cascading in the streets.  Such has been our winter this year. No wonder I'm so totally confused about hibernating. 

As well, Bear has begun tracking down his family history. My mother's family is traced back to Devon, England. The oral history goes back to Wales. That is all well documented. My father's family — I'm surprised. I had no idea. A mixture of German and British origin, I can take it back into the late 1700s in Upper Canada (now, Ontario). I never knew my Grandfather had so may relatives — and I can go back to his Great-grandfather. So far, no identifiable Loyalists (people who came north during and after the American Revolution of 1776 or thereabouts). They were called Loyalists because they were loyal to the British Crown.

Our family lived primarily in the Niagara Peninsula, where a number of key battles were fought in during War of 1812-14 — the last time Canadians and Americans were shooting at each other in large scale operations. Since then, we've really tried to avoid open hostilities. Ironically, the American government of Lincoln et al., was afraid that Canadians (still seen as British) might try to invade the US when Federal troops were busy fighting Robert E. Lee and his boys. Certainly, the British were allied with the Confederacy. So multiple division of Federal troops were massed near the Canadian-American border. But on the Canadian side, political people were busy negotiating their independence from Britain, and had no time to be meddling in America's heartaches. The differing approaches, revolution and negotiation, are still at the core of our respective nations' psyches. In 1865, the Americans (militarily) settled their differences. In 1867, Canada became a quasi-independent Dominion within the British Empire. Queen Victoria was very supportive of the Canadian initiatives; one could say, in the end, that she was amused. And much more.