I am not a resolution setter. I don’t even really like setting goals. The most I do is daily ‘to do’ lists, which is manageable for me. However, part of what I set out to do as I entered my 50s was get myself a little bit ‘healthier’ (said as I sit here at 11:30pm drinking coffee and eating cookies). To be fair, it was two cookies and I switched to 10% (1/2 and 1/2) cream.

Healthier, to me, means feeling better, stronger, and making smarter choices when it comes to what I eat. I don’t like denying myself the things I love and if I want pizza or dinner out with drinks, it is happening. While I intend on carrying that forward, there is and has been a piece missing.

In 2021, I had my fourth (and what I consider) my final spinal fusion. It was a posterior C5-7 cervical fusion with instrumentation. It was done as my anterior surgery to the same site in 2013 had failed. Prior to this, I had been riding my indoor bike four of five days a week, doing light weights to strengthen my arms & shoulders. I was the healthiest I’d likely ever been.

Within 48 hours of the surgery, I lost the use of my left arm and experienced the most debilitating and excruciating pain I have ever experienced. It was a rare complication the determined to be brachial plexitis. This set me back in my healing so between this and the effects of the surgery itself, I have never really recovered, though I did (with physical therapy) regain use of my arm. Any pressure on my upper body causes pain that can take days to recover from.

But on and off, throughout my life, there has been yoga. For a person who has a mostly fused back (S1 to T12 and C5 to C7), I am incredibly bendy. This fall, I started developing my own private practice. I am working on doing it daily and while there have been hiccups along the way, I am up to 7 or 8 asanas (postures) that I can talk my way through and instruct others through (without my cue cards). And that is what I want to keep growing and building. For my health primarily, but so I can share with others. I have made good progress in my learning of the postures and understanding of the physiology but there is so much more to learn, and I want to continue to grow and foster that as we bring in the new year.