Here is what I am faced with: neuropathy in both legs--severe; periodic numbness in either or both feet; permanent weakness in both feet and ankles, with the classic "dropped foot" from decades of lumbar spinal injury and degeneration. None of it is reparable. More medication for the pain is not something I am going to entertain the thought of. Period.
What I did last night and this morning is reawaken the young woman who went through ALL of this with my right leg. I remember every exercise, every single thing I did to mitigate and minimize the repercussions.
I approached my physical therapy like an athlete and I was lucky enough to have a therapist who saw this in me and developed a workout regiment and therapy routine geared specifically to me. I maintained that regimen for two years, so it is imprinted on my brain. I lost weight quickly by creating a diet based on the foods I loved that were good for me and just three foods that were treats. Period. I developed my own meal plans, schedule, EVERYTHING.
In the last month, a relative passed away who had been a source of almost nothing but broken promises and behavior intended to make me feel incapable and weak. Three times in my life he has promised financial support then broken those promises, offering absolutely nothing. I had given up entirely on his fourth promise and expected nothing upon his death. I received a letter from an attorney on the day of his funeral, telling me he had died... and left me a substantial sum of money. It is enough to assure that I am okay for seven years instead of two. This is HUGE to me. Two friends and I plan on joining forces in three years, so the worry is off my shoulders.
For the next year, my job is to chart every detail of the behavior in my left leg: what, if anything triggers the symptoms, what makes those symptoms worse and what, if anything, alleviates the pain and some of the numbness/paralysis/weakness. My job is to lose weight QUICKLY instead of gradually. While in the long-term I never see this as the strategy for me, given the circumstances, I want to remove as much stress on the legs as I can, as quickly as I can--without endangering me, of course. I will do it as I did when I was younger. And, my job is to train--on my bike, in the gym, and in the pool. My late "uncle" has given me the means to join a place that has a pool with a deep end of seven feet, so at LAST I can do my deep water PT routine. That routine strengthens while I do an aerobic workout. This way I can mix things up and develop the regimen that I MUST if I expect to have any success.
I am older, so it takes MORE, not LESS effort to attain the results I have to. However, at one time in my life I adored "training." I jumped rope or worked out on every lunch hour. Went to the gym AFTER work. I loved the burn and getting stronger and stronger. I still love the burn, as I have found out through ninety-minute rides on my recumbent bike--rides that put my pulse at its peak rate, where I managed to average over 20 mph, by the last four times.
This is not something where I am simply guessing what I will be allowed to do. I know what I have to do and what will hurt me and what won't.
But I know that it will take most of my upright time to accomplish what I must. So I may be far more sporadic than I was through June. It has been a terribly painful and scary couple of weeks. The two weeks before that held disturbing moments that I tried to ignore because I just did not want to face a downturn in my back. It felt like a cruel blow to believe that it was NOT my back because there was so little degeneration, only to find that it IS the aftermath of all the surgery and the initial traumas to the spine.
And I DID wallow for a couple of days without regret. I truly DO believe that a good old-fashioned hissy fit and railing to the gods HELP. ONLY, however, do they help if I then stop. I give myself a definite time period in which I let myself feel completely sorry for myself, after which I DO look at where I am lucky.
Here's the list of being lucky:
- The things I love MOST to do, do not require a strong back, or particularly well-functioning legs
- I happen to love working out
- I've done this all before, so I know how to begin and what to expect (yes, that is unlucky, too, but I have to turn how I look at that around)
- I have easily four times as large a support system now
- I am not having to care for two kids and I'm not married to a man who put me down while I tried to build UP my strength
- I have a fantastically supportive, caring doctor IN MY HOMETOWN, not up in Boston
- This is not a degenerative condition--it is what it is already
- There ARE things I can do by building up peripheral muscles to ameliorate the repercussions physically of this
- I know how to slip into the proper frame of mind to do this BECAUSE of the experience (again, I NEED to look at this as a plus, not a minus from now on)
- I do not have to focus on anything else, like making money, but this issue for the next year, which is a luxury I never had before and which FEW people have, when faced with something like this
- No surgery is needed for me to do what I have to do
That's not a bad list. I hope to schedule in time for ALL my artistic loves over the coming few months, but probably for a while, what I NEED to do is put all my focus on getting as strong as I possibly can. I won't give a blow by blow update. It would bore everyone to tears. But I will check back to read YOUR blogs, because reading what you all have to say about your own lives, or reading and seeing your artistic creations gives me inspiration.
Wish me luck and strength.
