This started out as a light and fun post in my head... but as I started writing... it got kinda long, and serious... and then it got very long and very personal and very serious... but I have to get this out, and y'all are my friends and the people I love, and who love me.. so... if you're interested... here it is...
...I warned you...
Now that I'm back on a full dose of thyroid meds... after three months of taking the minimum dose to keep me from going myxedemic, before I was able to get a new prescription... and given the recovery I've made over the last 18 months... I've been feeling like it was time to start working out again.
I still need to get back on my testosterone, modafanil and adderall, to be able to really be OK mentally and physically... and particularly the testosterone to really build any muscle back up very much for that matter (I need to raise the money to get a local doctor, and blood work, and then pay for the scrips)... but I'm recovered enough that I feel like I can get started back again at least.
I don't have a functioning vehicle (I have a motorcycle, but it needs a new clutch and I don't have the cash for it) and I can't walk more than 50 yards, so I can't get to a gym regularly. We don't have any free weights here, and I don't have the money to get any...
...But...
...We DO have a Bowflex Ultimate 2, with all the attachments, that has just been sitting, broken down for a few years and gathering dust...
Now, I would much rather have free weights... and eventually I will again... But a bowflex is actually great for circuit training, and honestly, that's what I need to be doing right now. Light weights, high reps, get into the aerobic cardio heart rate zone, and not strain my back too badly while I rebuild my supporting musculature.
So, my project for the day, is to clean up and get this machine working again, and then do my first real workout that wasn't physical therapy, since 2012 when I had my first round of cancer surgery and radiation.
Christ... It really is almost 8 years since I've been able to work out at all... I have a hard time with that honestly...
I was still recovering from the first round of cancer and radiation... and moving across the country FIVE times in three years... from 2012 until 2015. Then we found the next round of cancer in late 2015, and then the next round after that and my spinal injury in late 2016... and I was literally bedridden from late 2015 to late 2018... and now its 18 months of recovery from my last round of cancer surgery...
...and finally, I can start working out again....
I don't really have the words to describe what that means to me.
I started in Jui-Jitsu when I was five, wrestling when I was 12, football and kenjutsu, and serious weight lifting when I was 13. Then power lifting when I was 14, and finally the SCA, and fencing (I fenced saber in college) and what they now call HEMA (whacking each other with medieval through rennaisance swords) when I was 16.
From age 13 to age 30 I worked out almost every day... I was a serious competitive powerlifter, a football player, an airman and officer, a fencer and swordsman, a wrestler and juijiteiro... and I was strong, always... Even after I busted my knees up bad, other than running, I could always make my body do what I needed it to do, always lift that weight, always move that thing that nobody else could move, always carry that pack that was too heavy for everyone else...
Then I started getting sick... And gaining weight... In less than 3 years, I gained over 200 pounds... But still, from 30 to 35 I worked out whenever I wasn't too sick... Which was less and less as I got worse and worse... and now after 8 years of being too damn sick, too broken down, to crippled up, to even work out at all...
... I can finally start again...
I'm sorry that I'm rambling and repeating myself...It's just... Kind of a very big deal for me.
Up until my spinal injury... Being the strongest guy... or at least one of them... in almost any room, was a big part of my identity, and my sense of self. Not in a meathead ass kind of way... just... Knowing that whatever it was, I could handle it...
Even when I was sick I was still the guy who hauled a 350 pound couch onto my back and took it down two flights of stairs and out to the truck.. I was still the guy who picked a 480lb lathe off the truck lift gate, and hauled it into my shop, when the truck driver couldn't get close enough to the concrete slab, and would have had to unload it into the gravel. I was still the guy who was stupid enough to take a situps challenge, and do 200 situps in less than ten minutes just to prove I still could, when somebody assumed I was just some fatass, and I just NEEDED to prove them wrong...
Immature? Petty? Stupid? Yeah,maybe a little... But you have to understand just how much being seriously chronically ill strips away the things that make you feel like yourself. And how hard you feel like you have to hold on to them. How not being able to walk without a walker for two years breaks down your self image. How not being able to get to the damn bathroom and having to use a commode for 18 months strips away so much of what you thought you were... How not even being able to get put of bed, and being comoletely dependent on others for... everything... How that breaks you down.
...Through it all, I have always kept in my head and my heart... that core of me... the man who absolutely cannot be defeated... the man who has fought, and been broken down and damn near destroyed... but never defeated. The man who was too exhausted to keep fighting, but still SURVIVED when I couldnt fight anymore... The man who lived, when it was all I could do to live... when dying was so damn easy, and living was impossibly hard...
When my body was useless and dying, and I couldn't even complete the basic tasks of keeping myself alive without help...
... At my core, I always held that... I don't know what to call it... hope, knowledge, conviction... that WILL... that CERTAINTY... That eventually, I would get back to being ME again. I would be able to think clearly again. That I would be able to write again. That I would be able to work again... and that eventually I would be STRONG again...
Over the last 18 months... since leaving a literally toxic environment that was killing me, and keeping me from recovering... I have lost over 100 pounds (I still have another 100 plus pounds to lose, but I've done pretty damn good so far). I have recovered more of the muscle tissue destroyed by my spinal injury and the resulting rhabdomyolysis and atrophy from almost three years of being bedridden, than my doctors and I thought possible. I have recovered enough muscle tone, and enough of my supporting musculature, that I can walk 50 yards without a walker or a cane on a good day (on a bad day I can't really walk at all, but there are more good days than bad now) which my doctors were dead certain would never happen again...
They told me that I would probably never walk more than a few feet without assistance again. They told me I would never be able to work out or lift heavy again. They told me I would never be STRONG again... Not like I was anyway...
A few days ago, I did 50 crunches... just to see if I could
It HURT... but I could do it. I could barely move the next day... But I still did it.
I have recovered more than those who didn't really believe in me... even those who I thought loved me and supported me... ever thought I would.
I have recovered more than even I thought I ever would, or could...
... And today... I'm going to use my strength again, and start working to build it back up again... I'm going to be STRONG again... I'm going to be ME again.
And there is no way I can find the words to say what that means to me.
... But I'm glad I tried.. because my friends, and the people who love me and care about me and support me... Maybe they need to hear this, as much as I need to say it.
Thank you.
Thank you all for keeping me alive, and keeping me going, and keeping me fighting through all of this... For giving me something to fight for when everything was ripped away from me... when those closest and most important to me abandoned me... when would have been expected to give up, to stop fighting... you all kept me going.
Thank you...
Time to get to work.
