Bone health
Thoughts on support, protection and movement
A couple of summers ago, my left shoulder was in such pain I finally relented and called the doctor. My primary care doctor was on maternity leave at the time (a tip-off, yes, that she was more attuned to a demographic other than mine) and no one else could see me for another month. Because it was my left arm, the physician’s assistant told me to take myself to the ER. I groaned a bit inside. I knew it wasn't my physical heart. Or at least I thought so. My physical heart was in good shape, at least according to all my health records, but the increase in pain in my shoulder coincided with heeding a prompt to write about my twin. For weeks I’d been taking another stab at writing what it was like to have a twin brother, which dug up a lot of feelings — or put me more in touch with them anyway. We were in the middle of one of our periodic estrangements, an old pattern, and now my shoulder was aching enough that I was regularly complaining about it.
Complaining wears thin, especially for one’s cohabitant, who wisely encouraged me to seek medical help. But ER? I didn’t want to go to the ER! Now there was a communications trail. What if it was my heart and I waited for my doctor to have an opening at her office? Would I be penalized by my insurance if I didn’t heed the PA’s directive? I texted my husband, then drove myself to the ER.
It was a slow afternoon at the ER. Security seemed bored, asked me for my car key, and nodded to an empty seat in the waiting room. There, a few, equally-bored people sat reading their phones. The woman who would run me through a barrage of tests barely spoke a word, efficiently placing little square bits of magnetized tape all over my torso so she could do an EKG, which was, as expected, exceedingly normal. She glared a little. Why was I here? She didn’t ask but I felt the words hanging in the air. Instead she directed me to another room to wait for an X-ray.
The X-ray would reveal I had osteoarthritis in my shoulder, which is a degenerative joint disease, in this case, no doubt exacerbated by my near daily rounds of chaturanga dandasana, the low-plank pose that one moves through in the typical Ashtanga-style yoga practice I’d been practicing for decades. My Mysore practice has devolved into a more Ashtanga-influenced yoga practice in recent years, but chaturanga dandasana, at that point, was still a near-daily occurrence.
No more. The osteoarthritis diagnosis led to months of physical therapy. I started working with resistance bands and leg press machines, spending more time in plank than chaturanga, reluctantly doing lunges and crab walks. Amid all this, another doctor suggested I get a bone scan.
“You’re so young,” the radiologist tsked when I went in to get a DEXA, bone density, scan. Then she was silent when she looked at the imaging. Along with my osteoarthritis, parts of my spine and hips were showing signs of osteoporosis. What? Wasn’t this an older person’s issue?
I was relatively young to be checking my bone density, but, it turns out, middle-aging issues are real. Bone health issues go hand-and-hand with hormonal changes, and while I’d breezed through many menopausal symptoms, my bones had quietly been getting weaker. I was hardly alone. An informal survey of friends and acquaintances revealed just how pervasive osteopenia and osteoporosis are among my mid-50s and up demographic. I soon realized I wasn’t getting enough calcium and began supplementation. The weekly PT helped me turn my shoulder pain around and armed me with a new set of weight-bearing exercises. I started HRT.
How is all this going? Yesterday, I went in for another DEXA. The radiologist said nothing about my age (“did I look old now?’ the vain part of me wondered) and just looked at my chart, then lined me up under the scanner. She wasn’t chatty and we were both silent as the scanner whirred and clicked its way over me.
I stared at the ceiling considering my skeleton. Bones are support and protection and structure. The skeletal system starts forming six weeks into a pregnancy and all the major bones have formed by week 10. The ribs protect the heart, and the ribs and shoulders are inextricable. The heart is a muscle the size of the fist. It’s stressful and tiring to maintain a fist. At the same time, resistance is key to keeping the bones healthy.
Balance. Not too soft, not too hard. I thought of my shoulder and heart pain that led me to go to the doctor. I didn’t return to writing about being a twin much after that, but in the nearly two years since this all began, my brother and I have been back in touch, a connection as inextricable as ribs and shoulders and heart, if equally mysterious.
After a long pause, I turned my head toward the radiologist.
“Bones,” I said, and she finally laughed a little.
“Bones!” she said, then told me we were waiting for the files to send correctly. Her accent told me she was from another country. I wondered how her concerns might be larger than the room we were in.
On the drive home, I listened to NPR News Now, a five-minute summary of events that now starts with a plea for financial support given the administration’s efforts to defund public media. Then the newscaster reported on the latest war in Iran. And the breaking news about the latest Supreme Court ruling allowing the president to resume deportations.
My heart hurt again but in a different way. The amount of basic support and protection being demolished by this administration is outrageous and enraging.
I stopped the car near Lake Chabot to hike up Fairmont Ridge.
Support, protection, movement. I won’t get the results of my bone scan for another few days. And I don’t know how all the protests and petitions I’ve signed and postcards I've written and events I’ve planned are adding up, but keeping structures healthy, personally and politically, means keeping moving.
Movement — feet on trail, head in sky — was a balm. The ridge was full of raptors: American Kestrel and Red-tailed Hawk, Cooper’s Hawk and White-tailed Kite. A trio of Ravens looked down at me from an Oak Tree. The east bay hills and Mt Diablo rolled out into the distance.
I thought of the No Kings1 event less than 10 days ago; the ICE2 protests; and the 19 Voices in Solidarity show3 on Sunday which the rest of my week is about. More marchs, more actions — it’s what we’ve got to hold, and hopefully strengthen. Let’s move!
No Kings: ways to get involved https://www.nokings.org/
Know your rights if you encounter ICE https://immigrantjustice.org/for-immigrants/know-your-rights/ice-encounter/
19 Voices in Solidarity Benefit Concert for ACLU, June 29, 2025 at HopMonk Sebastopol www.seetickets.us/event/19-voices-in-solidarity-fundraising-event-for-aclu/642309