Feel the Pain

This post is about pain, a feeling with which I have become more familiar over the past couple of week. On Sunday, 10/23/11, I hit my fingers with the blade of my mitre saw while attempting to cut a small piece of log. For those of you who don't know what a mitre saw is, I took the picture below of mine right after we got back from the ER. The piece of redwood jammed behind the blade is the piece I was trying to cut. When it slipped, so did my hand...



As you can imagine, such a blade has the potential to wreak havoc on fingers. I felt the sting of 10,000 paper cuts, then almost nothing. I yelled for my wife, then started walking into the house and up the stairs. I don't normally yell, so she was quick to know something was wrong. She met me with some towels and then started getting herself and the kids ready for a trip to the ER. She told me to get into the car right away, in case I passed out. I didn't think that was likely, but I did walk out onto our front deck, which isn't a way to the car...so she might have had a point.

The purpose of this post isn't to give you a play-by-play recap of our trip to the ER, so I'll be brief... X-rays showed no bone damage, and I could still move the joints, so it was just a flesh wound. The PA shot some local anesthetic into my knuckles, let it kick in, then cleaned me out and sewed me up. I left with prescriptions for pain meds and antibiotics, and mummy fingers:

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Most people I tell about this can relate to cutting their finger with a knife, perhaps in the kitchen. They say they can't imagine how much more painful it is to be cut with a power saw. What I say next usually surprises: It didn't really hurt that much. Honestly, if the pain of 10,000 paper cuts had been continuous, I'd have been writhing on the ground screaming. Our bodies have an amazing ability to shut out pain following trauma. I suspect the event was more traumatic for Brandi and the kids. This "shock" is so we can function well enough to get care. (Full disclosure: The Lidocaine injections into my knuckles hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.) Shortly after we got home (via Chipotle and CVS), I'd eaten and taken the first of my pain meds, which were described as "double-strength Vicodin;" I was feeling pretty good. (Chipotle always does that for me.)

Sermon time: Pain is our body's way of saying, "Stop that!" or "Don't do that again!" I didn't need to continuously feel the pain to know that it'd be a good idea to avoid touching moving saw blades in the future... Pain meds (IMO) are not intended, and should not be used, for the complete removal of pain. Thanks to the meds, I wasn't in a lot of pain during my first week, but that doesn't mean I felt good. Narcotic pain killers are serious stuff. I was depressed. I was tired. I didn't eat right. Basically, I felt like crap.

I had back surgery in 2001 and was given a narcotic pain med prescription afterwards. I didn't even finish it out of fear that I'd get used to it. I found myself being able to relate to people who get addicted to pain pills since it would have been so easy just to keep taking them... My recent injury simply re-affirmed that relation. I could have had my prescription refilled, but I didn't want to. I wanted to feel the pain. It is (has been) manageable -- occasionally distracting, but not so much so that I truly need narcotic help to reduce it. Because pain is a form of behavior modification, I think it's important to feel it. There are certain things we just don't do (or as often) because it hurts.



The problem with not feeling the pain is that you stop being able to feel anything. We need to feel. Feeling is good. Even painful feelings, as long as they're manageable, are better than none. I've been describing physical pain, but I believe this applies to emotional pain as well. Pain is a learning experience. I believe in natural consequences as a learning tool and it doesn't get more natural than pain!

I have learned that I need to protect myself better when using my saw, and will come up with tools, rules, and strategies to make it so. Perhaps you were (or are) in a relationship with someone who causes you pain, and you need to find a way to protect yourself better, too. Deadening the pain just makes it easier to justify repeating the behaviors that led to it. I say FEEL THE PAIN! Then, learn from it and come up with ways to avoid it, or at least minimize its impact. As Westley said, "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." Don't buy it! Feel the pain and live your life!

Lesson Learned

All parents have been in a position to teach their kids a lesson. What defines us as parents, really, what defines our relationship with our kids, is what lesson we choose to teach them when this opportunity arises... A few weeks ago, one of my carpool mates was telling us about a car accident her son had been in on Highway 17, which we drive to work every day. Highway 17, also called the Santa Cruz Highway, is a mountain road that connects San Jose with Santa Cruz. It is the main route folks like me use to get to work, and the main route valley dwellers take to the beach on the weekends.



Highway 17 is a relatively dangerous drive. It's not Ice Road Truckers dangerous by any stretch, but it does take some getting used to...and when the sign says slow down you'd best be slowing down, especially in the rain. Anyway, the son, who I think is around 20, was driving too fast, in the rain, and spun his car around into the median. Fortunately, or perhaps miraculously, he wasn't hurt and no other cars were involved. The damage to his car wasn't too bad, probably because it is an older car, but it wasn't minor either. I think she said they got an estimate for a couple of thousand bucks. A lot of money, to be sure, but not THAT much...

The discussion in our carpool that ensued, but in which I did not participate, was how much of the cost should the son be required to pay to ensure that he "learned his lesson."

This brought me back to my younger years, which, I'm not too ashamed to admit, were NOT free of vehicular folly. One incident, as I recall, occurred at the intersection of Routes 42 and 69 in the Connecticut River Valley, a heavily wooded area not totally unlike Highway 17. There's a traffic light there now, but there wasn't back then...



Like the son of my carpool mate, I learned a lesson that day: Car accidents are REALLY freakin' scary! They don't happen in slow motion, like in the movies. They're quick, and violent, and you don't have any idea what's going on until it's over. After the car stops moving, your heart is still racing, your hands are shaking, and all you really want to do is close your eyes and cry. It's horrible! If you're lucky, like I was, then that's the worst of it...

I'm sure all parents' first thought is hoping their kid is unhurt, then hoping everyone else involved is okay, too. What a parent does next is what writes the next lesson learned. My parents understood that I was scared, and embarrassed, and no amount of yelling or financial burden was going to make that first lesson any stronger.

The lesson my parents taught me was this: They had my back, no matter what! Most parents will tell you that they'd support their kids through think and thin. Choosing to impose a well-crafted, but still arbitrary, punishment, and calling it a "lesson" wouldn't have taught me anything about safe driving. Now, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be consequences, but that's not the same thing. The fact is that my parents chose to use something horrible as an opportunity to "walk the talk" and that's a lesson I'll never forget...

An Open Letter to Canucks Fans (and maybe some Mavs fans, too)

Congratulations! Your team is on the verge of its first Stanley Cup in the franchise's over 40 years! You're really excited, but also pretty nervous. I know how you feel. You see, I'm a Boston Red Sox fan. I've been there. I know how you feel. I was lying on my living room floor, watching the 1986 World Series, and wondering how high I'd be able to jump when they made the final out. Would I hit the ceiling? Would it hurt? Would I care? Of course, thanks to Bill Buckner's error in game 6 and the Mets' comeback in game 7, I never got the find out...

Of course, they finally broke through in 2004. Coming back from 0-3 against the Yankees in the ALCS only made the victory that much sweeter!! I listened to the end of game 4 of that World Series (the Sox won the first three games) over St. Louis on the radio in the parking lot of the Tempe Public Library. I yelled and screamed when the game was over, and drove home listening to the post-game show.

I spent much of the next week or so reading articles and watching highlights. I particularly enjoyed watching highlights of game 3 of the ALCS. The Red Sox sucked that game and Yankees won big. It sure was nice being able to look back at that as an irrelevant game in the story of the season. Who was the losing pitcher for Boston? Did anyone make any errors? Who cares?!?!! They won the series and that's all that matters...





When the 2005 season started, I realized that what I had been telling my older brother all these years was true. That was last year, it's history; stop living in the past! You see, my brother, father, and uncles are Yankees fans. (I have four uncles and can only speak for the two who lived closest to us.) I can't say for sure why I became a Red Sox fan, though I heard it had something to do with my brother and I not trying to collect the same baseball cards. Seems like a stupid reason to root for a team. Just as stupid is living near the team's home stadium, or being from that area...

A friend of mine once said that rooting for sport teams these days is nothing more than rooting for laundry. The players are rarely "local boy made good" types because the best players go where the money is. A team wins or loses based primarily on the owners' willingness to invest in a winner...and star players' belief that the franchise wants to win. I didn't really think about sports in this way until after the Sox won again in 2007. It just wasn't that big of a deal. In fact, because they were so heavily favored, it was more of a relief that they didn't blow it than a joy that they won it all. (This may explain why Yankees fans are generally such jerks. No real joy when they win, just crap from the rest of the world when they lose.)

It was at this point that I started wondering how my life would have been different had I been raised a Yankees fan. Now, this may be traitorous coming from a citizen of Red Sox Nation, but it was a legitimate question for me since I was surrounded by Yankees fans at home. The truth is that my life (as a sports fan anyway) would have been much better if I'd been rooting for the Yankees. All those games in the Bronx or Fenway I went to with my family could have been real bonding experiences! I never had that. My father and I never talked about baseball, because the team he wanted to talk about was a team I hated!

My brother and father went to the 2001 World Series games in Arizona. I didn't want to go. My excuse (and it's a good one) was that my wife was over eight months pregnant, but the real reason was that I didn't want the conflict that would come from being with Yankees fans and rooting for the Diamondbacks. If the Yankees won, I'd hate them for being happy. If the Yankees lost, I'd have to stifle my joy. (My brother bought my unborn son a baseball bat at game 6. I am sure that he expected to be able to say that he bought that the night he saw the Yankees win the World Series in person. Alas, the Yankees were epically crushed in game 6!)

You see! I still take some degree of pleasure in thinking about a game that happened almost 10 years ago...I also read with glee news of Joba Chamberlain's season-ending surgery. It's sad... It's too late to switch now, but I know I'd be much better off had I been a Yankees fan from the start. I'd probably have been at those World Series games and would have had a great bonding experience with my brother and father. Also, my daughter was born the night the 2003 ALCS ended, which would have been a great family story. Who know? Maybe we would have named her Mariana...

The point I'm trying to make is that it's not whether "your team" wins or loses that matters. What matters is who you get to share the experience with and how it strengthens your relationships. I happen to know that some Cubs fans are pretty happy, well-adjusted people...but you could never guess that based on the Cubs' post-season record. I'm sure the same is true of Detroit Lions fans...assuming there actually are some. I hope the Canucks win, I really do. (Boston fans will be okay. Between the Red Sox, the Patriots, the Celtics, and the Bruins, they've had plenty of practice at both winning and losing.)Bringing Lord Stanley's Cup to Vancouver would be historic! Seeing the victory parade will give you another shining moment to share with loved ones...and then it'll be all over and you'll look around and see what really matters...

In the meantime...get it done!

Old As You Feel

When I tell people I'm a martial artist, one of the responses I often get is "I'd love to do that, but I'm too old to start..." Nonsense. You're never too old to begin, though you may have to choose a different style if you're starting at age 60 versus age 16. A few years ago, I published a post on how to choose a martial arts school. You can find it in my blog's archive. This post is similar, but more about how my training has changed over the years...and how I've had to adjust as I've gotten older.

I started my martial arts training in 1991, when I was 18-years old. As an adult (technically speaking), I didn't have the flexibility that the kids had, but I trained hard. I was, after all, still a teenager and karate was my outlet from school. (I was a freshman at RIT when I started training in Isshinryu Karate.) There were days when I was pretty sore following a tough workout...and it felt great!

Fast-forward to 2000... I am training in TKD and still pushing myself pretty hard. The result was a herniated disk injury that changed my life. I blogged about that here. The bottom line is that I had to make a lot of adjustments to my training since I couldn't push myself as hard physically because it would mean a lot of down time afterwards...



Fast-forward again to 2011... I'm not training as much as I'd like, but it's mostly due to competing priorities following a move (new home, new job, new life). I haven't given up on Okinawan Kenpo Karate Kobudo (OKKK), but started taking Tai Chi classes at work. None of my other style switches (Isshinryu to TKD to OKKK) were really *that* different. Tai Chi is...different. I love it! (I haven't trained long enough to want to blog about those differences, so stay tuned!)



I'm not sure I would have loved it at 18, though. At 38, I have a lot more respect for my body. I can't think of any other way to describe it. When I was 18, I was (like all teenagers) invincible. The bumps and bruises I got from training were like badges of honor. Now, I'm much more honored to have gotten through class, learned something, and be able to function the following day.

I'm not suggesting that anyone who is training in a hard style (like TKD or OKKK) quit and take up Tai Chi. The key is to know your body and train in a way that is consistent with your long-term goals. I have a friend who is in his 40's, but still trains like he's 22. (If you're reading this, you know who you are!) He's almost always beat up. If something's not hurting, then he trains until something is. That, in my opinion, is no way to train. Our training should have a positive effect on our health and well-being!

This is true whether you're 18, 28, 38, 48, or more! Know your limits! But, be true to yourself at the same time. Don't use "I know my limits" as an excuse to take it easy all the time. I've been guilty of that, so I'm not just pointing fingers. It was really easy for me to say that my back was hurting when I just didn't feel like pushing myself. Sometimes it was true, but sometimes it was just an excuse. Knowing your limits will not only allow you to avoid injuring yourself, but will also allow you to push yourself appropriately.

You're only as old as you feel! The goal of martial arts training, in my opinion, is to get your "feel" age to advance more slowly than real time...

No More Excuses

For most of the past few years and certainly throughout early 2010, I had what I felt were great excuses why I didn't...fill-in-the-blank. I was busy with school. I didn't like my job. I wanted to move. Now that I've graduated, changed jobs to one I really enjoy, and have moved to California...I have no more excuses. At the risk of this post being another New Year's Resolutions post, I'd like to publicly explain two things that I want to do differently in 2011. Of course, I want to exercise more and eat better. Most people do, so I'm not going to bother giving those resolutions any explanation... Here's my top two:

I, Matt Jones, hereby resolve to spend more time playing video games. This morning and last night, I was at the Loucks' place and watched Pucky play on the Xbox 360. He played Black Ops, a trial version of a creepy little game called Limbo, and an obstacle course game that's a lot harder than it looks. Sometimes we all (including the kids) were watching him, sometimes we weren't. It didn't seem to matter to Pucky. He really seemed to be enjoying himself and I couldn't think of a good reason why I shouldn't enjoy playing video games, too. My family sure doesm and we have the systems to prove it: Two Nintendo Wiis, two Xbox 360s, a PS3, and a PS2...not to mention the PCs, laptops, and handheld devices... Why don't I use them? I don't know, but as of today I'm going start. I loved playing video games as a kid and there's no reason I shouldn't play them as an adult. No more excuses...

I, Matt Jones, hereby resolve to put relationships first. Here's what I mean: I have a tendency to put a lot of emphasis on "getting things done." (This may also be why I don't spend enough time playing video games.) There will ALWAYS be stuff to do. Not just chores, but also projects around the house...some necessary, some created by my own ambitions. Putting relationships first means never making anyone, especially my family, feel they're less important than the stuff to do. I can't completely ignore the stuff to do, but I don't have to put it first. As Sandra Dodd has said, you don't HAVE to do the dishes. They'll wait. You can also use paper plates, or (the greener option) have every eat right out of the pan... My best days aren't when I get the most done, so why do I look to have more of those days? My best days are when I strenghthen my relationships, so those are the days I'm going to have more often. No more excuses...

I'm sure I'll post more about this, but will try not to do it in the form of lame "resolution updates" like I did in 2009. Just look for evidence that I'm making progress. In the meantime, look for me on Xbox Live. My gamertag is RedwoodRocker...