Crohn’s, Pilates & Life : Have you been to the hospital since I saw you last?

Let’s start with the hospital question. I’m not sure how many times it has happened over the last 15 months that Kelly just never told me she had spent the previous night or day at the ER, the hospital or all day at doctor’s appointments before our session. The first few times when it happened I was in complete disbelief when I found out later. I haven’t been in the hospital for myself since my eight year old was born…. so to think that someone would spend a night in the ER and then come to their Pilates session and not even mention it to their Pilates instructor… was kind of unbelievable to me. It drives me a little crazy when someone forgets to write on their health intake form about the arm they broke 8 years ago….so forgetting to tell me you were in the hospital yesterday or even 2 or 3 days ago seems inconceivable.  Could someone possibly think that my planning of what we were going to do in a Pilates session wouldn’t be at all affected by a hospital trip?!

I’m what someone might call an intuitive teacher. So usually I make decisions about what my client’s session will be like as I’m working with them.  I pay attention to how they are moving when they walk in the door, how their body moves as we warm up and always adjust as I go.  So looking back on the days when Kelly “forgot to tell me”  I’m always hopeful that my intuition served me well and I didn’t do anything that left Kelly feeling worse!

Needless to say, I always start my sessions with Kelly with a quick check in question, “Have you been in the hospital or saw the doctor since I last saw you?”  It’s a little bit of a joke between us now and of course she knows me well enough that she is pretty good about keeping me updated on those things (like hospital visits) that could affect her movement!

The more I get to really know Kelly…. I finally am starting to get it.  I am starting to understand better why she might not even have thought to tell me or maybe just didn’t want to tell me about her hospital time. It’s a great lesson for me as a teacher in empathy and the value of truly getting to know someone so you can start to see things from their perspective.

Hospital time and doctor time is pretty much part of Kelly’s life. She’s in pain every day.  As much as she tries to just live a “normal” life, she can’t.  The effects of the Crohn’s are always there.  She doesn’t really know what it feels like to not be in pain or to not have to worry about her health.  Her amazing positive attitude and her drive to succeed in everything she does goes along way in hiding her struggles with Crohn’s, but it is always there.

What Kelly probably wants more than anything is to just be able to move, workout and live life without having to deal with all the crap that goes along with dealing with Crohn’s.  And I can’t blame her for trying to just keep going, thinking that maybe if she ignores it all it will just get better or go away.  As her teacher I try to remind Kelly that part of “our work” in life is to learn to deal with what we are given and make the best of it.  When it comes to her movement practice that means that she has to pay attention to her body, acknowledge how it’s feeling on any given day and she needs to think of movement as a tool to make her life better and not just a workout.  That’s all a lot easier said than done, and I know that.  So I’ll just continue to remind her and we’ll practice in our sessions incorporating these ideas into everything we do!

Be sure to check in to our next blog where I talk about the second question I always ask Kelly at the start of each session: “How much running and biking have you done since I saw you last?”