One Small Step for Womankind

I’ve been chiding myself for being too physically inactive lately.

Oh I had good reason after I was injured in a car accident late in 2007, but I’m almost walking without a limp these days and really should be fitter. But I have to admit it’s been quite a while since I’ve been intimately acquainted with a gym, a pool, or even the local jogging trail. It’s even longer since I took part in team sports of any sort (that one’s definitely back in the days BC…before children that is).

So I was thinking I should take up something, anything, in order to enhance my endurance, and reduce the risk of some certain diseases (I’ve recently had reason to reflect on same, thanks to nasty things happening- thankfully to other people).

But after this past week, I’m starting to think that maybe I do get enough exercise after all, just by being a mother. Cool.

Now, it’s not like my son doesn’t have enough medical appointments to keep us busy already, but since he happened to break yet another bone after yet another incident with a chair (oh, don’t ask), it was back to the hospital again.

Our local hospital is a 'teaching hospital', so it’s pretty darn big. To entertain myself (and take my mind off even more medical bills) I started counting our footsteps, just to see how much ground we covered in the almost 3.5 hours we were there.

OK, so from car to the clinic (to see the doctor) = 257 steps.

The clinic to X Ray department (to check for fractures) = 583 steps.

X Ray back to Clinic (to get results) = 583 steps.

Clinic to Physio (to see a therapist who wasn’t even there, d’oh) = 186 steps.

Physio to OT (to get measured for a splint he couldn’t wear) = 112 steps.

OT to the Pharmacy (to put in script for chemo drugs) = 259 steps.

Pharmacy to cafeteria (purely killing time by filling up the boy) = 368 steps (would’ve been more if we took the stairs).

Cafeteria to Physio (to apply plaster) = 432 steps.

Physio to the Pharmacy (to pick up medications) = 287 steps.

Pharmacy back to car (to collapse) = 225 steps.

Total = 3292 steps! Even more, if you count the pacing back and forth I did whilst waiting for doctors, radiographers, therapists, and pharmacists, and just plain old stressing out.

Yep, seems I got a decent workout after all, simply by having a son have yet another altercation with a chair (no really, don’t ask). Not that I’d recommend it as a motivation to get moving.

Oh and with all that exercise, I didn’t feel at all guilty for the pizza we picked up on the way home for dinner that night.

Next time I think I’ll wear a pedometer to the supermarket … with a bit of luck it’ll cancel out the calories of the confectionary aisle.

Jx
©2009