† “Chewy tell me how you feel about walking?”
“Dogs are most complete running. It’s a high impossible to explain.
“Must be like coffee.”
“Never touch the stuff myself. Don’t need to. The blood pumping and stretching my muscles getting air in my lungs. It’s a happiness I have only seen in your small ones.”
“Yes, I grew out of that and now sit most of the time. My back hurts because of it. And there is something else. Sometimes. Well sometimes, I don’t want to walk you.” My face flushed with the confession.
“In the grey winter or in the cold rain, I prefer to stay in. We dogs are tuned into the seasons more than you bi-peds. We follow the sunlight. The cold time is for rest.”
“I thought you loved being out? True noble animal connected to nature and all.”
“No way. That’s only marketing. Give me a warm winter fire or a summer cooling air conditioner. I fake it sometimes, but always ask you to walk. Not for my sake. You need it.” Chewy lifted himself to my knee looked me straight in the eye and said, “Sitting is the new smoking.”
“Shit. Did a dog really just tell me that?”
“Yes, a service dog just did.” He followed by saying, “Get off your lazy ass more often. Fatty!”
I reluctantly and grumpily began reading.
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Several months passed, and my medical appointment came around.
“I boned up on service dogs.” The doctor said with a laugh trying to lighten the mood. Dogs will decrease depression and loneliness. Walk three times a day for physical rehabilitation. It’s also good to increase your testosterone and decrease your cortisol and all other stress hormones. Don’t forget: motion is life.”
“Wow, you remembered. Happy to see an M.D. getting it right.”
Appreciating his comment, I went into the professor mode and explained the osteopathic principle in a real patient. After all he was still in-residence training.
I explained My shuffling gait was loosening my joints, which were tight, restrictive and in pain. Blood from my brain increased when my neck resumed its normal springy S shape. Previously, they had been pinched and blocked by my head being too forward with my chin hanging too close to my neck. And now my jugular arteries were unimpaired, and I could feel the strong pulse of blood bringing food and oxygen to my half functioning brain cells. My brain fog began to lift.
My broken ribs impeded my breathing. The bones had healed, but the scar tissue remained. These tight bands prevented me from taking a full breath. However, the regular gentle rocking of walking increased my breathing. My lungs became more efficient and delivered more oxygen to my blood which in turn delivered it to the brain.
The exercises lengthened and strengthened my limbs. After the accident, I limped from my left side as my sacral plexus, the nerves to my hip, had stretched so much that they couldn’t fire correctly. Unfortunately, my gluteus medius muscle (hip hiker) could not pull my hip up. Consequently, it dropped my hip socket directly onto the femur bone. These two coming together cause excruciating pain. They rubbed bone on bone. Every step burned like fire.
On the fourth week of walking with the dog, this changed. My pelvic muscles strengthened and returned to work. The bones pulled together, now pulled apart. Better lubrication eased the friction in the joint. My pain decreased. It was an alleluia moment for me.
The lymphatic system is the trash disposal unit of the body. Tubes carry waste products away from every cell. It's a low-pressure system so that my muscle contractions put pressure on the tubules which forward waste liquid back to the heart to then be recycled. One-way valves ensured the flow.
My right knee had been reconstructed in an emergency operation in a desperate attempt to save my leg below the knee. The surgery worked. I still had the leg but it was like dragging around a stump of beef jerky. Simply dead weight. And it was painfully swollen all the time. The lymph system couldn't drag the fluid out. But the long walks three times a day was an effective therapy. The doctor was right – “motion is life”’ The walking literally pushed the fluids out of my leg back to my heart.
That is how a dog taught me the walking cure.
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