Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

I did aerobics today for the first time since fall of 2008. This is a real benchmark for me. I’m getting my life back, one step at a time.

Once upon a time I did an hour of strength training/aerobics three times a week. I tried to keep doing it, but I couldn’t hang onto it. My movements were too stiff and slow to keep up, and the worst part was the neuropathy in my feet. They would get pins and needles in them after being on them for just a few minutes, and it got worse the more active I was. I still get it, but not all the time, and it’s not as bad. If I get off my feet for a few minutes it goes away.

I’ve been dreaming about doing aerobics lately. It’s not like I was some sort of fitness freak, I never really LIKED aerobics, but I liked how I felt after wards. It kept my weight down and gave me more energy and it really helped keep anxiety and depression at bay. I haven’t really been missing it, I’ve replaced it with yoga and I really like doing that. In fact I had pretty much resigned myself to the idea that that was something that I used to do. When I started dreaming about doing aerobics I figured it was the cosmos telling me something.

I’ve been trying to get my lungs working to full capacity again. A year after the pneumonia/pleurisy began I still can’t take a full breath. I have a ritual of blowing up a balloon twice every day. I figure that I have to ask from my body what I want my body to do. I’m not going to just be able to breathe if I don’t make it happen. So I figure it’s the universe telling me that if I want to breathe, it’s time to start exercising my lungs more, to push it.

So the aerobics I did today was a drop in the bucket compared to what I used to do. I have on VHS these tapes from an aerobics show that aired in the 80’s for half an hour. So it was a warm up, eight or ten minutes of aerobics, eight or ten minutes of floor work, and that’s it. I used to do 25 minutes of actual aerobics with warm up and floor work taking up the other 35 minutes. Well, I guess it’s not quite the first time since fall of 2008, I did try once maybe nine or ten months ago. I was so winded I couldn’t do the whole eight minutes, and I had some sort of relapse right after that. I got through it today. I was winded, but not dying like I was that other time. Maybe I can start to add that back into my life, and get even closer to whatever normal is.

During the whole ordeal of thinking I had arthritis and having all the meds have adverse effects I always knew that I would get through it. I can’t explain it, but it would happen during my meditations. It feels like I have a cheering section telling me that I can do it, I’m going to be all right. I always knew that I would be okay. I was determined that I was going to get my life back, and today I can say that I do have it back. I can do in a day almost everything that I could do before I got sick. I pictured what I wanted my life to be like. I have on my music stand a list of priorities, so I see it every day. The things I want out of life are to breathe, walk, ride my bike, and play the violin. Those were the things I was most in danger of losing, and I made sure I didn’t.

A friend of mine in my pottery class said the other day,”We had a shell, and now we have a person back.” My best friend said the other day that that whole year I looked frail. It blows me away to hear that, I was so inside myself busy trying to survive it didn’t occur to me that anyone really saw. I guess they did.

Another thing I have on my music stand so I see it every day is “Live each day as if you already have the things you want”. I want to not have Lupus, and I try to remember to live each day as if I don’t have it. People with Lupus don’t park their car a few blocks away and walk, so that’s what I do. If I’m wondering if I have the stamina to do things, I just pretend I don’t have this and go about my business. It’s working so far!

I just sneezed! With no huffing and puffing first, looking like a cat trying to hork up a hairball!