Thank you so much for taking an interest in Big Bone and Broken (BBAB). It means a ton to me to know that there are other people out there who are struggling either with their weight or with their injuries or both like me.

I have struggled with my weight the majority of my life and as of recent years, I have struggled with my body being broken. My weight has always been an open wound. These wounds came mainly from the judgment from people inside as well as outside my circle. They think that because I am overweight I have no control over my eating. I think people feel those of us of plump size are so thick skin, they can tell us whatever they think and it will not hurt. Or maybe they feel they need to remind us we are fat. I would think, “Honey, I look in the mirror every day. I know what I look like!” Or worst yet they will say “I’m just worried about your health. You need to lose weight now so I am buying you this membership to Calorie Watchers.” There is also this thought pattern when it comes to exercise. “She is fat so she must never exercise.” Even doctors rarely believed I was walking 5 miles a day 5 days a week plus a hike on the weekends.

On Father’s Day of 2013, I was running to the grocery store to pick up a few last minute things for that special dinner for my husband. As I was walking through the parking lot, my foot hit a small tiny pothole and down I went. I had an arm full of stuff so I only had one hand available, my right hand. Lesson #1, just drop the groceries and go down with both hands. I ended up severely hurting my wrist. I called and made an appointment but the doctor could not see me for 2 weeks. So I bandaged my wrist up with an ACE bandage and waited. After seeing the doctor, I was referred to a specialist. This appointment was another 1-1/2 weeks out. So if you did the math right I am over 3 weeks after my fall. Yes, I know I should have gone to the ER, but I did not feel like it was an emergency. Live and learn. Long story short, this doctor gave me a brace and had me wear it for 3 weeks. No PT, no MRI, just a brace. Needless to say, my wrist was never the same. I was not able to bear weight on my hand in any way. It had a nagging pain in it all the time. And I am right handed as well! Sigh!

I was a children’s choir director for 13 years. When you direct you use your hands and arms. Because I am a very expressive person when I conduct I use my whole body. It may not be quite the proper way, but when you deal with young children, for me, it worked great to keep them engaged. I woke up one morning and while in the shower, I could not raise my hands over my head to wash my hair. I thought I must have slept wrong. But a day passed, then 3, then a week which turned into a month and I finally realized that I needed to see someone. My shoulders were getting more and more locked up and painful. When I finally saw the doctor he told me I had two bone spurs on my right shoulder and one on my left shoulder. He recommended I start Physical Therapy right away. So I did. It helped but my shoulders were never the same! When I would conduct, I would keep my elbows tucked in like you are supposed to, but they were still aching with every swipe of the hand!

I was also born with a birth defect in my left hip which was unbeknownst to my parents as well as to me until I was in my forties. As I said, I was an avid day hiker and I would also walk in my neighborhood 5 miles every day. One day when I got home from my daily walks I could barely make it to the front door. I had no idea what was going on. Because of the way doctors, family, and friends had treated me over the years, I blamed it on my weight. This went on like this for months. My hikes and walks got harder and harder until I had to do them less and less. Eventually, I had to give up the one thing that was keeping my weight under control and the one thing I loved more than anything, walking in God’s wonderful creation.

When I finally went to the doctor, they told me that I had hip dysplasia. This was a huge shock and I had no idea that there was a malformation in my hip. My mom was shocked as well. As a matter of fact, I thought only dogs got hip dysplasia. Hip dysplasia is the medical term for a hip socket that doesn’t fully cover the ball portion of the upper thighbone. This allows the hip joint to become partially or completely dislocated. Most people with hip dysplasia are born with the condition like myself. My condition, at birth, was extremely mild so it was never caught. However, due to my active lifestyle, weight, and age, it wore down more and more until it was always popping and painful!

The first doctor did not want to operate because I was too overweight. He was very obnoxious and rude to me. He made me feel like a second-class citizen and unworthy. I felt as if he was saying I would have to be in pain and eventually in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. The doctor made me feel as if there was no hope and that there was not a doctor in this world who would ever operate on someone who is as overweight as I was. However, he handed me a pamphlet and told me I should consider weight loss surgery. “WAIT! WHAT? You cannot operate on me because I am too big and it would be dangerous, but you can operate on me to get rid of my stomach and that is not dangerous?? What the heck?”

Because of the way the doctor treated me, it took me almost 6 months before I decided that I would check with another doctor. In turn, the second doctor did not want to do the operation because I was too young. Go figure! He told me I was only 48 and a typical hip joint only lasts about 10 years. Calculating my age and lifespan of the joint, I would need at least 2 more joint replacement operations in my lifetime. He felt that was too many operations and it would be too dangerous for my body! So here I was in between a rock and a hard place.

About a year after I saw the second doctor I saw a third. I felt it was useless, but my mother and my husband, as well as a few friends and family members all, encouraged me not to give up and to see another doctor. So I did! When I saw him I did not tell him about my experience with the other doctors. I wanted an unbiased opinion. After looking at the X-Ray’s, Dr. Batchelor made it very clear I needed surgery. I started crying. He thought I was crying about the fact I needed surgery. When I told him I was crying for excitement and I proceeded to tell him my experience over the past year or so with the other doctors, he just shook his head and told me “There are those who just cannot see past the surface, but I can!” He told me that no matter how young, how tall, how short, how small, or how big I was it did not mean I had to live in pain. So I set an appointment date and received my total left hip replacement on May 18, 2015.

Everything went beautifully and I was on the road to healing and getting back to a normal life! I spent 3 days in the hospital and took a few steps just a couple of hours after the operation. OUCH! That is an extremely painful experience! But I knew, in the long run, it was going to be well worth it. I was going to hike again. I was going to be able to walk 5 miles a day once more. I then went to rehab for about 2 weeks to learn how to walk properly and learn to use the stairs; my bedroom was on the 2^nd floor of our home.

However a month after my hip operation my mother passed away. My heart was horribly broken. I was not just in physical pain from the operation but the emotional and spiritual pain from my sweet, loving, and dear moms passing. This, unfortunately, put me behind in my physical therapy. I needed the extra time to get all her affairs in order not to mention I was depressed and had no drive to do PT. I was feeling as if this was somehow my fault. I should have waited to get my hip operation. My mother was also in the hospital at the same time I was. I wanted to set a new date for my procedure, but everyone, including my mom, told me everything would be taken care of and she would be fine. She would be waiting for me when I got out. We would recover together! We would go on walks together. We would watch TV and rest together. We would just be…together!

But my story doesn’t stop there. A month after my mother passed away I was coming down a flight of stairs in socks and my foot hit a loose step and I slipped landing on my ankle full force. I was trying to save my brand new hip from being dislocated and I, in turn, shattered my right ankle, pinched a nerve behind my right knee, and slipped several discs in my back. I was in excruciating and agonizing pain. The pain in moving was absolutely horrendous due to not only the broken ankle but also the pinched nerve behind my knee. This pinched nerve was causing a shooting pain running up and down the front and side of my right calf and foot. It felt as if someone was taking a hot poker and shoving it into my leg! Along with the ankle and nerve damage, I also had shooting hot pain running down the back of both buttock cheeks and legs from the discs pushing on my spinal cord. I could barely move without shooting pain somewhere in my body!

Because I had to wait almost 2 weeks before I finally was able to have my ankle placed in a cast, I had to live in my living room. I actually ended up living there for several months. My husband and his best friend brought my bed downstairs into our family living area. There was no privacy. I had a commode next to my bed and I had to take sponge baths in the middle of our home. I could not move even an inch without searing pain either in my leg or back. I could not sleep because the murderous pain was always waking me up just as I would relax enough to fall asleep. After the holidays I was able to get my cast off and start physical therapy once again. This was awful! I could not bend my toes at all. It felt like I was but when I would look down they were not even moving. I could not turn my ankle from left to right. The muscles were so weak I was unable to drive! My husband was taking me to my 2-3 doctor appointments plus my 2 PT appointments each week. I was becoming a pro at navigating our schedules. Physical therapy routines included all my major body parts that had been injured, my left hip, my right ankle, as well as my back. Not to forget I was still dealing with the right wrist and both shoulders! It was more than one human being could handle. I just thought I could not handle one more thing!

Oh but my story doesn’t stop there either. Just a few months after all this I found out I had cancer. Yes, it was low-grade cancer, basal cell carcinoma, but in my family, my father and grandfather both passed away from cancer. My sister, uncle, aunt, and mother have all had cancer as well. I was scared. Just a side note, as I write this I have found out I have another cancer spot. All together that makes 3. It was just another thing to add to my growing list of hardships. Now I had to go and have a minor surgery to remove this cancer and hope there was no more! By the grace of God, we got it all and it healed great.

You would think this was enough adversity in my life but no there is actually more. Once again I had started the physical therapy and even started walking again on my own around my block which was only a half a mile. This was all I could do. These short walks would cause me serious pain by the time I would get home but I knew I had to get back on the band-wagon if I ever wanted to hike again. Well, coming around the corner and making a turn, I tore my meniscus in my left knee. Now I was down again and not being able to exercise or walk. There was much haggling with the insurance company. Their adjusters said I was not in enough pain to have an operation. I understood where they were coming from. They had already sunk over $100,000 into me in medical bills. But my doctor really fought for me and I finally received my approval to go through with the operation to remove the torn meniscus. I chose to do this because there was such pain that was now searing down the front of my right leg, down back of both legs, through both shoulders, a nagging ache in my right wrist and now down the front of my left leg, I just couldn’t handle it! It was too much of a burden! Walking was absolutely impossible at this point and I needed to still recover and walk from my TLHR. I was in a wheelchair most of the time and when I was not I was in a mobility scooter.

After having the operation for my meniscus I thought things were getting better. I had started a nerve-blocking drug that was taking the shooting nerve pain from about a score of 10 to a score of 7 out of 10 all day long. I also had started epidural steroid injections in my back. I was on a pain medication which was helping with some of the 24/7 pain. Things were starting to look a tiny bit better and I was even able to do some squats and walk a dozen or more houses on a daily basis. But no, my agony was to continue.

On the way to physical therapy one morning I got rear-ended on the freeway. The gentleman who hit me was not paying attention and hit me doing about 55 miles an hour while I was at almost a complete stop. This not only totaled my car but severely hurt my back, gave me severe whiplash and, wait for it, shoved my newly operated knee into my dashboard. I was fit to be tied. Here I had gone through all of this stuff over this short amount of time and yet it was still continuing. What the heck was wrong with me? What was I being punished for? What lesson was I supposed to learn from this? What is the quality of my life going to be as I age? Was I going to end up in a wheelchair or worst yet in a bed the rest of my life?  Now I was going to physical therapy two and three times a week for my back, my hip, my knee, my ankle, my neck, and now my shoulder, again. The strap on the seatbelt had tightened so quickly which caused my body to wrench forward when I got hit and caused to have whiplash and severe pain in my left shoulder and neck.

All of this happened from May of 2015 to March 2017. Less than 2 years. It really was more than one person could handle. I was an emotional wreck as well as a physical wreck. I was unable to be the mother for my kids (11 and 14) that I wanted and should be. I was unable to be a good wife. I was unable to be the domestic engineer (housewife) that I was so good at. I couldn’t do what I loved, teach. I had to quit my job. I could not sing on stage because I could not stand for long periods. Life as I knew it was over!  In February of 2018, my physical therapy finally ended. I had been in physical therapy for almost 3 years straight. I feel I went to one of the best physical therapy clinics in Orange County and had one of the best physical therapists but it still had not brought me to the place where I could walk long distances, stand in line at a grocery store, cook a meal for my family without sitting, have a full night sleep, nor move comfortably.

Every 3 months I was still receiving steroid shots in my back and they worked but not to the point where I could ever stand to cook that full meal in which I so loved to cook for my family. So I was referred to a surgeon who told me my situation was extremely severe. He told me eventually if I jolted my back hard enough it could mean a wheelchair for me in my future. He suggested spinal fusion. A few months later I saw a second doctor for a second opinion and he told me the same thing. After much research and asking lots of questions on boards with people who had the procedure done, I decided against it. It would take another year or more for me to heal and I had already asked so much and taken extraordinarily amount of time away from my family, it was enough!

In January of 2018, my doctor suggested we take the steroidal shot to the next level and have an RFA, radiofrequency ablation, on both sides of my back. This is where they actually burn the nerves so as to not send the pain signal down the back of the legs and into my lower back. This was a miracle. WOW! I could stand for more than a few seconds. I could cook a meal, or at least a portion of it without having to sit. I could go to the grocery store and at least make it through a short trip without having to take an extra pill to help with pain. It surely was not perfect, but it was helping.

I also went back to my knee surgeon to ask what more they could do for my knee. I could not straighten my knee. I could not walk long distances because my knee would seize up. I could not climb stairs due to the pain. So he suggested I get hyaluronic acid injections in my left knee. Between the nerve blocking medication, pain medication, the hyaluronic acid injection in my knee (March 2018) and the RFA, I was starting to feel a little bit more normal, but it was still not 100%.  I still could not hike, walk around my block, be the mom my kids were missing or feel truly happy on the inside. I was still in pain 24/7; it was just a little less. My blood pressure was still extremely high and I was now taking medication for that. The Kristin I once knew was gone and I did not know how to get her back. On the outside, I looked like me and when people saw me I don’t think they really noticed how torn up I really was. I was a good actress. But I was gone. I did not like this new Kristin!

When the physical therapy ended I knew I had to do something more. I had to figure out how to get me back! I had to find Kristin. I was determined to search her out and bring her back home! I remembered several years ago I had practice yoga and it really made me feel good. It was difficult but I figured I was doing it at home I could modify the moves, maybe. I had practiced yoga on and off ever since the early 90s but again it was not consistent. I would play around with yoga for a few months and then I’d place it aside and forget about it over and over again. So in February of 2018, I decided to grab the yoga straps (pun intended) by the horns and really put my whole heart into it this time.

I pulled out an old VHS tape that I had purchased years ago. Unfortunately, this tape was very difficult so I had to purchase several DVD’s until I found one that I could at least modify to my needs. When I first started yoga I could not bend over very far. Shoot, I could barely touch my knees. I couldn’t even get down on the ground and get back up. Because of the back problem knee issues, and hip replacement, it was making my left leg very weak, not to forget, I also have this joint that is not mine. Moving it to some of the poses was difficult. My leg does not want to move in some of the ways the DVDs wanted me to move it. There were a lot of times that I would practice some of the seated poses in my bed because I couldn’t get on the ground and back up.

Then I found a chair yoga show on PBS. I loved that show and it really helped me to loosen up the tight muscles and tendons I had from not doing much for so long! This PBS show was the yoga that really started it all. For all intents and purposes, it saved my life physically and emotionally. I started with only twice a week for the first month then moved up to four times a week in the second month and by the end of the third month, I was practicing 5 to 6 days a week because it was making me feel so good physically. But more than that it was making me feel good about myself! Depression was starting to fade away. The old Kristin was now visiting me on and off.

This particular yogi showed me how to meditate, relax and calm my mind which in turn calmed my body. The PBS show also proved to me that yoga did not have to include a spiritual side. I did not want to get into the metaphysical side of yoga. Over the course of about 10 months, I needed to further my yoga practice and push myself a bit more so I started doing my own yoga routine at home. I bought several yoga books showing how to do poses, watched many YouTube videos watching how to place your hands, shoulders, and feet. I would actually sit at my desk and just watch the videos so as to learn how to do the moves. I even bought a yoga poster with dozens of different poses and marked my favorite poses in red just so that I could remember which poses worked best for me. It got to the point where I felt more energized, flexible, and I was beginning to feel like the old Kristin. Happy go lucky and finding the positive in everything.

I want to add a side note here. I have been a vegetarian since 2013 for many reasons, but if I had to choose the main reason it would be because of all the steroids and drugs they put into our meat, egg and milk animals. However, over the course of those three years, my vegetarianism had become extremely relaxed. I actually added fish back into my diet and was eating more and more egg and milk products. I was eating this way now because I couldn’t really cook for myself and we were eating out so much. This was more convenient, quick, and easier on my family. I did not want to ask my husband to learn how to cook vegetarian for me and I certainly was in no shape to do the cooking every day like I wanted to. Trust me when I say eating out almost every day is really not as yummy as it sounds. And the more you do it the harder it is to get back into cooking and eating healthy!

I’m definitely not out of pain nor am I in no way shape or form healed. I will, for the rest of my life, have to deal with my back, the pinched nerve, and neck, which by the way, is, as I am writing this book, now causing me terrible headaches on a daily basis. I feel on most days that I can conquer anything. I can raise my arms over my head without any pain. I can get into a plank pose with no pain in my wrist. I can now bend and touch my toes and the floor. I have gone back to being a 10% vegetarian and now working on being 90% vegan. Between the cleaner eating and Yoga, I feel like a new person. Kristin is home, to stay! Depression is a thing of the past. Oh, sure, I have my bad days. Sometimes it is the food I have eaten or the weather. It may be that I overdid myself or I did not sleep well or whatever it is that makes my body hurt more than normal. But on most days with a little help from my daily yoga routine, I feel pretty good. Yoga and meditation have taught me to relax. Not every pose has to be perfect. It doesn’t matter if I can touch my toes when I bend over. It’s about the effort that I put into it. And during those 3 years of physical therapy, I put my effort into it, I went to my physical therapy and I brought it home and did it three or four more days per week. But it just did not give me the same feeling of accomplishment as yoga has.

I know that there’s so many of us that are big boned and broken out there. And some of us have lost hope. Some of us have lost ourselves. I know I did for a little while. I could not drive because I could not bend my toes or move my right foot for almost a year. I was in a wheelchair for so long and my poor family had to push my large self around. I could not grocery shop much less stand in line after shopping. I was sleeping in my living room in my bed with a commode next to my bed. I had no privacy. I lost everything. I could not home-school my kids properly. Because I was unable to stand for more than a few seconds,  I had to quit teaching choir and I could not sing on stage for a very long time. I was unable to enjoy my kids and doing fun things with them. I had to give up my love of hiking. And worst, I could not be the wife God intended me to be.  There is so much more I could take up a whole book on it.  But I’m here to tell you that there is definite hope. Even if you’re sitting in a wheelchair right now, like I was, you can still practice yoga. You start out small and do as much as you can at the moment pushing yourself but not hurting yourself.

I have been told that yoga is “EVIL”. Yes, I actually had someone tell me I was evil and inviting evil spirits into my life if I practiced yoga. I was told I was a horrible Christian for even thinking about practicing yoga. Sigh!!! I don’t want this to happen to you! I am hopeful you will learn what the practice of yoga is all about. You may or may not feel as if you want to get involved into the spiritual side of yoga. It is up to you. The practice of yoga and meditations spiritual side does not necessarily have to go hand-in-hand if you do not want it to. Between yoga and meditation my blood pressure, my pain, my family, my relationship with my husband and kids, and my life are under control! I hope and pray that all those who are thinking of starting yoga can get some benefit from it and at least have some form of healing to their big boned and broken body.