Day 26 : "A medical dilemma"

Today I faced a real dilemma, which has totally tested my commitment to my 8 week challenge.

This afternoon, I visited the dentist to have a broken wisdom tooth removed.  I can't say it was the most pleasant experience of my life.

As I stood back in reception waiting to pay for my treatment, feeling a bit wobbly and biting down on a gauze to try and stop the bleeding, I began to read the "Post Extraction Advice" sheet that my dentist had handed me.  There was advice on not eating or drinking for 3 hours, rinsing with salt water after every meal for 5 days, biting on a gauze swab if the wound bleeds, taking painkillers, avoiding smoking, avoiding alcohol ("no problem" I thought smugly), not probing the hole with my tongue (eeugh).  No great shakes.  But when I got to the last two points, my mind started racing:


9)  DO NOT do anything strenuous i.e. exercising for 24 hours.


10)  DO NOT lift anything heavy for 24 hours.

No exercising!!  But my 8 week challenge states that I MUST exercise EVERY day, and during week two I revised this to I WILL visit the gym EVERY day!

My first rational thought was that I'd have to give it a miss for today, and probably tomorrow as well (as, due to my wife going off to visit a friend and my eldest, 14-year old son - AKA live-in babysitter - also going to a friend's, I can only visit the gym before 11am tomorrow - which will still be well within the 24 hours).  After all, the medical advice stated "DO NOT".  I'd just had a major tooth extraction, was feeling pretty woozy, and my mouth was bleeding.  Doing anything strenuous within the next day, which would send blood rushing to my head, could cause the hole to start bleeding copiously again.  It was a good enough reason not to go.

Then I started to imagine, instead of being able to say to people after I eventually finish my challenge, "I went to the gym every day for 56 days," I'd have to say "I went to the gym every day for 56 days, oh, apart from the two days I took off when I had a tooth out."  It wouldn't be the same.  I'd have broken my challenge, even if it was on the basis of medical advice.

So I resolved there and then to go anyway.  I could do a lesser workout: rather than doing my usual Friday night back and stomach workout plus 30 minutes cardio, I could just do the back workout and give the abs and cardio a miss for one night, so as not to be as strenuous.  At the same time, I imagined myself in front of the mirror in the gym, lifting weights with blood pumping out of my mouth (DO NOT lift anything heavy for 24 hours.)  But Friday night is my back night!

However, things went downhill when I got home.  I felt pretty crap from the injections and the extraction. But to make it worse, I hadn't had lunch before I went to the dentist, and was then instructed by my Post Extraction Advice sheet " DO NOT have anything to eat or drink for 3 hours".

So my body was living off a single banana that I'd eaten at about 7:45am.  By 5pm, I was feeling dizzy every time I stood up - I'd literally run out of fuel.  I was so unsteady on my feet, that I just couldn't imagine being in the gym.

At 5:30pm, I ate two slices of toast with marmite and a banana (I felt like I needed some carbs to fuel my body, and didn't fancy getting tuna stuck in my new hole anyway...).  Then I put on my gym gear, and went.

I did my full back workout, and threw in a few sit-ups for good luck.

No fainting.  No blood.  (Maybe I've got that to come during my visit tomorrow morning!)  Although, with the life coming back into my gums and the blood pumping round my head, my mouth did bloody hurt.

But what do they say?  "No pain, no gain!"


My diet today:

- Breakfast:  A banana;
- Lunch:  Nothing;
- Pre-gym snack:  Two slices of toast with marmite, and a banana;
- Dinner:  I'm actually going to eat some more toast and marmite, and some fruit- it will be a lot easier to keep it on one side of my mouth than salad and fish.  I really don't like the thought of bits of lettuce and tuna getting stuck in my extraction hole.  Yuk.