Whew!

This is the day I've been looking forward to. Not. First came the annual physical exam, which I passed with flying colors - hooray for me. My counts were the best they've been since 2000 and everything checked out well.

Next came the first session of aqua therapy. Now this was kind of a challenge for me, as I have never been a pool person, and I wasn't looking forward to limping around a fitness center in a bathing suit. But I am so brave (ha) that I did it anyway. That shows you how badly I want to improve my mobility.

The pool is long and narrow and very warm, thank goodness. It doesn't have a deep end. The deepest it gets is armpit high for me. I think that it's only used for therapy - at least today everyone was being "therapeutic". I may have been the oldest, but I was not the fattest, believe it or not. (Inside joke).

The therapy is one on one, and that is a very good thing. My therapist (Kari) is very friendly and pleasant. She explained why we were doing every exercise, and how it would help me. She was very encouraging and helpful. We did a lot of walking - then she told me exactly what I had to change to walk correctly. It's easy to move in the water, but I still was having balance problems - sometimes it felt like I was going to float away. In addition to the walking, I did shoulder exercises, balancing exercises, weight shifting exercises, and such like that. The session lasted for 40-45 minutes, and Kari thinks I'll need more appointments than I have scheduled. She's going to call me if there are cancellations. She thinks that my hips are weak also, as well as my left leg, most likely from having been immobilized for a month.

The locker room is lovely, with great benches and nice carpeting. I was able to change out of my soggy suit with no embarrassment because there were only a couple of others in there and they were ignoring me anyway. The main reason I changed is that a wet bathing suit is not very comfortable, and it was dripping all over the carpet. My original plan was to slip into sweats and change at home, but I think that would have been most uncomfortable.

We went out to lunch at the Big Eazy, which was close, convenient, and yummy. Dick had etoufee and I had a quesadilla. It was so good. It was listed on the menu as an appetizer, but I brought home half of it.

Talked to Dylan twice today - before school and after school - so we are the luckiest ones!

Yesterday was mid-term Election Day, and most of the Good Guys won. It was a spectacular election. Now we get to see how power corrupts Democrats. Power did quite a job on the Republicans. We still have two more years of W. Oh well.
In Michigan, we kept Jenny and Debbie, and that's a Very Good Thing. In the House, the Democrats became the majority and in the Senate the Virginia seat is still up for grabs. If the Democrat wins, they'll have a majority in the Senate, too. The Democrat, James H. (Jim) Webb's name wouldn't fit on the voting machine - it just said James H. (Jim). I'm wondering if in California the voting machine said Arnold Swartz.

W. fired Rumsfeld today. What an impeccable sense of timing. Last week he said that Rumsfeld was doing a fantastic job. If Rumsfeld had been fired last week, maybe the election would have had a different outcome. Interesting.