Exercises

After my formal therapy was over I was at a loss for what exercises I could do. For the past eighteen months I had a set routine that I executed every other day, now I was unsure what to do. I really felt a type of rejection and a emptiness in my soul and in my life. I had a nice graduation from therapy and a even nicer certificate to commemorate my having survived hours of every know torture to humans, some they had to work at thinking up. I decided that since I was going off to visit my friend in the northeast I’d let myself rest and catchup on myself. After all that therapy I needed the time to think and get organize for my trip. I had a full list of exercises I could and was supposed to do but I couldn’t get interested in them for some reason, they just didn’t feel right.

By the time I left I was ready for a change of scenery and a change to my lifestyle too; I was ready for some togetherness. We started by taking long drives in the country to acquaint myself with the territory, north and south, east and west; where I was in relation to where I was now living. Long lovely drives into the countryside seeing places I never been before but would see again. I was so happy to be away from the heat of Texas and away from therapy and my doctors and the routine of my life. Letting my friend show me her part of the world, the little wonders she’d know for a lifetime and could now share them with me, the little nooks and crannies of her hometown and beyond. But my aliments followed me and tortured me just the same.

Just walking up the stairs exacerbated the pain in my hip, my buttock to be precise. I went for therapeutic massage and that did relieve my pain but it was climbing the two flight of stairs each day that really helped. I started helping my friend around her garden at first, nothing major just emptying each pail as she filled them with weeds and cuttings. Then we got to mulching dragging each bag out of the car and back to they were needed. Little by little I was getting more in toned so then I began taking longer walks. By the time fall came I was ready to try raking, just yards at a time then sit and rest, then rake a bit and rest again, I only finished the side yard but I felt like I accomplished something. I so very slowly was getting stronger and more toned, I was walking better and longer. Little by little each household chore that I did built up my strength. Balance continued to be an issue over uneven territory but a walking stick helped. Now I was learning a new routine to my day, a routine that I could follow when I returned home and for the rest of my life really. I could feel myself getting better and it was long after the eighteen months that my doctor had warn me against.
Walking at home presented a problem at first, too many loose dogs in the neighborhood. Too much stress for me to cope with on top of an already stressed system, so I stopped. At least in the neighborhood, I started walking in the park where there weren’t any dogs. The I started taking bags along on my walks and started picking up trash. Don’t laugh it was excellent exercise bending and walking, I’d do three bags each time I walk and it cleaned up the park too. I started cleaning up my apartment too, dusting the floors and washing them. It like to kill me at first but it kept me in shape and worked my muscle too. I even learned to work my arm in cleaning the mirrors in the bathroom and cleaning the tub. Worked every muscle in my body little by little..., and I never had to pay a gym either or a cleaning lady for that matter.

I’m sharing some tips I learned the hard way, never but never give up. Keep inventing ways to work out that you can learn at your own pace that mean something valuable in your life. Instead of learning to type with two fingers try to type as always, so it’s not easy, so what. Learn to push yourself to do things to try to get back to where you were before your stroke or head injury. I feel that my stroke was a landslide in my brain, all the pathways I knew over a lifetime were blocked. It wasn’t my hand or leg that was injured it was my brain. I had to relearn all those pathways I knew so well. Even if you can’t make the connection I feel the road to recovery begins with the will to survive. Each step to normalcy, each little step that you can accomplish leads to bigger steps and those steps will lead you somewhere you need to be.