Plan B

My neighbor and friend Bill planned on working out at the Wellness Center this morning. He was not aware that they had closed the gym with no plans at this time of reopening....well, until I texted him early this morning.

He just texted back:
He said "I need to go to plan B. Wait, I don't have a plan B."
I texted him back and said, "Home workouts, raking, bicycle, light jogging, fresh air, creative ways to do upper body weights..."

Next text: Can we do a really hard hike this week?
My answer: Sure. I have a 3 mile killer hike. We can start at my driveway and it will take us through two valleys.

I'll be looking up workouts to keep up my current upper body strength.

Next text from Bill: Will I get hurt on your hard hike?
My answer: Of course not! Hard in the way that there are two valleys and lots of steep hills but the trails are good and I've taken kids on them.

I thought that was funny sort of. If he wanted a hard fast hike, I'd give it to him for the leg burn.

There is plenty of space for us to hike and stay separate. However that may come to a swift end soon if positives are found in the county.

But anyway.

Plan B for exercise? Well I am still working on Plan A for staying home.
I have one more errand tomorrow and that is to pick up the taxes.
I dropped into Walmart [eeks !] to grab some coffee.
I needed some seeds also.
The garden and hardware sections were void of people. The food isles were full of people. NO toilet paper, no napkins, no paper towels, and two boxes of Kleenex were left.

I told Rich we were going to go back to cloth for napkins and wiping up messes.

I'm all done in for right now. The Patient Advocate for the VA says she is getting the run around on the claim I've been trying to work on for 18 months. She told me to call the White House Hot Line. Um. Okay?

Bam.
The oncologist we were going to see tomorrow called. He asked to be on speaker phone so he could talk with the both of us.
[I moved that appointment assuming it was just a 15 minute consult and congrats on being clean for almost 5 years]


Um. No. He wanted a Nuclear Medicine Bone Scan. Rich's CT scan from last month showed 'something' a bit out of the ordinary. Then he mentioned the C word and my heart stopped. He went on to downplay it but to tell us he was scheduling a scan as soon as he could.
He said not to be concerned over this, it was probably nothing, but if it was cancer it might just be prostrate or bone or...well, when we saw the Urologist we could be better informed for .... options.

[Did he say that? I don't know, somehow my brain sort of had a disconnect when he said cancer.]
I thought NO.
No...no no.

He then assured us that this was normal operating procedure and he'd put the consult in right away for the bone scan.
He hung up after wishing us a nice day.
Hey, this guy is nice...but hmm.

Rich was unconcerned. He shrugged and then patted my hand and told me not to worry. He smiled and said "But of course you will! YOU won't sleep for weeks now!"

He turned back to his Western and pushed play.

Plan A & B had just changed.


Hey. Why not address Pandemics and Cancer all in the same day, right?

We will see what happens.

I need a Plan C.

Yikes and Coronavirus

Maybe the CrossFit shake up happened at a good time? Most of our group of maniacs are finding small ways to work out in the outdoors doing WOD's and adding fun things like car pushing, feed sack carries, and other fun things.

Small groups of as little as two are doing work outs together when they ...can as we wait for the next step ...and there is something in motion for that.

Our Coach has sent out workouts to do at home with no equipment! Very cool stuff. It takes real dedication to do that.

But in the face of the Coronavirus epidemic, pandemic, or sickness.
Working out at home, working from home, staying home, are all choices we have to think about.
I am pretty darned lucky to be able at this time to stay home and we are lucky that we are 'isolated' in a way.
We live in a very rural area.
That is not going to stop me from hiking. It won't stop me from enjoying the outside as much as I can now that the weather is nicer. But it did make me look at how my mom and Grandmother always had food stocked in dry form, canned form, or frozen form.
I used to joke that our family could survive the 'worst' case scenario.

Mom had learned from WWII and rationing. I think Grandma understood it well too after living through the 1918 pandemic, the Great Depression, and WWII.

Am I over reacting? Possibly!
But we got notification that the Nursing Homes are in 'lockdown' locally. School field trips are being cancelled. So is it over reaction? I live with an individual with compromised health. The regular flu could kill him. So why not take precautions?

The local VA clinics and the hospitals now have patients line up in the parking lot as they do screening before you enter for an appointment. They are asking patients to do video visits for common colds.
Any time I walk through the VA clinics I feel a bit cautious for my hubby. So many people with masks and without masks, a person just needs to look around to see the large population of very vulnerable elderly veterans.

So what to do?
Well.
Simple, but not so simple.

I will try to carry on with my more or less normal life. Continue with Master's Class. I will ask them if they have prepared for this scenario.

And wonder. Is this Coronavirus being overblown? Is it not?
Prepare in case?

What will happen to our economy? What will happen to people like my son and his wife who can't work from home?

We are entering a new and uncharted territory.

Things could get very interesting.