I hope I’m not caught up in the tidal wave of new joins for the New Year (actually I’ve been a member for a few weeks!) - Wanted to say hello and jump in BOTH feet first, and see where we go…
I’m new to MTM (found the site through the podcasts) and I’m here because I’m coming back from a year-long treatment adventure with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma (a cancer of the blood and lymphatic system.) But don’t saw “awwww” just yet! A year ago I was stuck in a hospital counting ceiling tiles and wondering when I was going to be well enough to get up and take a shower (it’s the little things you miss when you’re bedridden!) and now a year later, I’m getting “spoken to” by my docs for OVER-doing it in the gym, and trying to hard to keep up with where I was in the summer of 2006 before this song-and-dance started.
I consider getting motivational talks (ahem) from your docs for doing TOO much exercise to be a good thing! It means we’re making progress: I just need to learn patience, and discernment between what my brain is convinced that my body can do, and physical reality.
When I started Chemo, one of the drugs caused a condition called Peripheral Neuropathy, which gradually led to about an 85% loss of the strength in my left hand, and about 30-40% in my right. When that happend, I had to sell my BEAUTIFUL cello, because my fingers weren’t strong enough to push the strings on the left, or hold the bow for more than 30 seconds on the right. The “poor me” thing set in, for about an hour.
I’ve always been musical since a child, so it finally dawned upon me that NOT playing the cello any more was no big deal - go back to what I could do before: the piano! I bought a piano (more than I needed of course!) and set about getting my fingers back. Like the new physical limits of my body, my playing isn’t 100% to where it was when I was “prodigious” as a child, but I learned this important lesson: find a way and make it happen! Now, I’m taking time to learn more music (my “chemo brain” won’t let me memorize, but I can sightread: again, Make it Happen!) I’m working on a musical program that I can take “on the road” to two local cancer centers and play on the pianos in the lobbies there, as a chaplain and musical volunteer. A year ago, how would I have imagined doing such a thing?? I opened myself up to a new adventure while at the same time finding a physical therapy that gave me back the use of my hands. I wonder if there’s a spiritual equivalent of “multi tasking”?
Same with the gym: another of the drugs really beat up on my bones and joints, so that weight workouts were a painful experience that puts me to bed for a few days. And the docs said: take it down to baby steps, then slow it down one more time. BUT for cardio - you can do that till the cows come home!
I immediately re-wrote my workout routine (and that “rewriting” took a couple of months of dealing with my insulted “guy” ego about what I used to be able to do!) and finally am learning something in the gym I’ve never done before: working to failure on CARDIO! The first time was an amazing rush and make me want to run back to the gym the next day, instead of curling up in bed with a heating pad.
I say all of the above (after the “hello” part) to say this: I work at my life a LOT. I have been to that dark night where the still small voice has said “if you think you’ve had enough and you want to go, just turn loose now. Let go and you can.” and I’m proud of myself for the response I sent back which was “Get me out of this Bed!!”
If I can get up at 5am and do this stuff 6 days a week (granted I do it with my shock effect T-shirts that say “This hot and CANCER too!") then anybody can. When you feel discouraged and you can’t make it, or it’s NOT working and you’re not seeing results, then you have to find a way. You Make It Happen!
Something that I tell my clients I’ve now turned back on myself: I dont’ want excuses, I want reasons. And I don’t care about your reasons - I want to see results.
Good work to everyone here. I hope to be speaking to a lot of folks here, and helping out with some self-bootstrap-pulling-up when I can! 
