While many people have made New Year’s resolutions to get in shape this winter, exercise is a yearlong endeavor for me. In truth, I’m a little fanatical about it. I don’t feel well if I can’t move my body for an hour — or two or three — every day. This routine doesn’t guarantee lifelong health, nor is it the answer for everybody, but fitness has kept me relatively sane and focused in a constantly changing world where so much is outside of my control. It has worked for me — so far.
Winter is tough. When most people are sitting down to dinner, I’m often heading to the pool. To trade the cozy comfort of my home for a cold car and dark night requires every ounce of discipline I have.
Worse: As I age, the water feels chillier than it used to. In early December, about three-quarters of a mile into my laps, I thought: Maybe I should get a wet suit?
That’s how I wound up having a panic attack at Burlington’s Waterfront Diving Center. The sole shopper on a weekday, I had hoped to find a synthetic rubber top with a front zipper, but there was only one style in stock, and it went on like a turtleneck.
The male sales clerk gave me a “small” — flattering but probably misguided — and I went into the dressing room, stripped down and poured myself into it. The top was so tight I could barely breathe. How could I possibly swim in this? Fighting claustrophobia, I immediately reversed course. But in the process of trying to get the garment off — over my head — I got stuck. I was trapped inside a straitjacket of black neoprene with my arms, pinned to my ears, outstretched overhead.
I felt an odd sensation in my right elbow. A small price to pay for freedom, I thought.
I thought about calling the guy for help, but it would have been spectacularly embarrassing for both of us. Instead, the adrenaline kicked in. I hulked out, stretching the wet suit just enough to get out of it. At some point during the contortions, I felt an odd sensation in my right elbow. A small price to pay for freedom, I thought at the time. I hadn’t hit anything hard in the course of my struggle. Whatever I tweaked would surely right itself quickly.
Maybe, that is, if I weren’t four months shy of 65 — and getting texts and mailings almost daily about how to sign up for Medicare. For five weeks, I have not been able to hold anything heavier than a cellphone with my extended right arm. Making a fist with that hand is excruciating. Every time I lift a pot or hoist a suitcase or roll over in bed is a painful reminder: Despite the twice-weekly weight training and swimming every other night, my body is more prone to injury than it used to be. I’m calling this one “sudden-onset tennis elbow.” As this week’s theme issue proves, year after year: “Wellness” is bigger, and more complicated, than fitness.
I finally made an appointment at the Community Health Centers of Burlington. My wet-suit story did not faze the physician’s assistant I saw there; she’s a surfer. Nor did she think the elbow was broken, but because I had fractured it once before, on the tennis court, she ordered an X-ray.
The results came back within a couple of hours. Good news: It’s not broken or dislocated. Though there are “mild degenerative changes in the elbow,” the soft tissues are “grossly unremarkable.” Funny how in medical terminology, negative words become reasons to celebrate. The PA had already recommended regular icing, inflammation-reducing salve, a compression sleeve and physical therapy for my elbow. She said the problem should resolve eventually.
I’ll take that diagnosis — to the cold pool.
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This article appears in The Wellness Issue 2025.
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