Maintenance Mode

Just like an automobile, don’t wait for the “check engine” light to come on. It is better to do a little regular maintenance on a consistent basis rather than wait until something breaks.

How can this apply to us?

We need to stay on top of things. This is probably one of the toughest areas of my life. I am pretty good at taking care of the big things. It’s the daily, weekly, monthly maintenance items I usually fall short with.
Eating right, exercising regularly, getting regular checkups are all a part of our regular maintenance plan.

With the heath items, I have had no choice but to stay on top of it. Many of my friends names end in “ologist”… Oncologist, radiologist, immunologist, cardiologist.. You get the picture. When I visit one of these friends, on exiting the appointment I make my next one. Usually 3 – 6 months later. Mark it on my calendar and I am all set.

With regards to exercise and eating right, these are daily struggles I keep in check by creating goals and working on the little things. Doing a little bit every day keeps me on track. There are still days where I miss the mark, sometimes planned, sometimes not planned. I just cannot get caught up in it. Figure out why. Make adjustments where I can and move on.

A good example of this is what happened this week. I have planned on exercising 5 days a week, Monday – Friday every morning.

Tuesday morning was time to hit the pool. I was doing well swimming along and noticed the water tasted funny. (I seem to drink a bit of the pool constantly?  Something else to work on.) when I stopped at the end of one of my laps, I rubbed my nose and found blood. Yup, my winter bloody noses are back. Uhg…

Out of the pool, into the locker room. Standing by the sink for 30 minutes and it’s still bleeding. Time to change and make my way home. Real tough to change out of a wet bathing suit and into street clothes one handed. I give props to anyone with a physical disability. Kind of makes you think about how lucky one is.

I get changed, and drive home then start to make breakfast. Yup nose still bleeds for a bit. It took about 45 minutes to get the bleeding to stop (I am on blood thinners) and it seems as though it can start up again at any time.

So what does this have to do with maintenance and my schedule?

Since the bloody nose happened, I decided to not workout on Wednesday and give it an extra day to heal. This messes up my schedule a bit and I will need to adjust. No problem. Take Wednesday off means I need to do “something” on Saturday or Sunday. Keeping on track while being flexible.

There is another moral to the story. I know that when the heat comes on the house dries up. Why didn’t I get the humidifiers going sooner? Now I have 2 humidifiers running and keeping moisture in the house. This has helped over the past few days. See how simple this could have been? Get the humidifiers going before I start drying out my sinuses. Simple maintenance that could prevent a larger issue. Who would have thought??

Oh yeah..  While getting my truck serviced I was smart. I brought my bike down with me and instead of waiting in the shop I went for a bike ride to make up for my missed workout! Mission accomplished. Maintenance done on the car and truck today and my workouts are in the books!

Click the picture to see the details of the ride on Strava.com

As always, Truly Blessed!
-Dennis