It has been difficult to decide what to write about this week. It has been an emotional up and down sort of a week. One of the highs was having lunch with Adrian, the Priest in Charge of our church, at the Elm Tree pub in Embsay just down the road from us in the next village. He has a useful habit of asking the right questions and listens. We have a good time except it was spoilt this time because the pub had no baked potatoes, can you believe that!
I fell down on Tuesday night putting the papers out for recycling, landing on the road and in the gutter at the bottom of our drive, which is on an incline. As I was struggling to get up a car passing by stopped and the lady got out and asked whether I was okay. I needed some help so she went to the house to get Liz and together they lifted me up. I cut my forehead which hurt a lot at first and I now have a large scab to prove it. Liz has banned me from taking the papers out so another victory for MSA. I think I am lucky because I have not hurt myself badly yet. I could so easily have done on the end of the bed or the chest of drawers by the bed. It is emotionally hard work to be restricted in this way because it is a sharp reminder of the disease and how it is going to eventually stop me walking. When I allow these feelings to crowd in on me I feel low. It doesn’t help being more emotional than I used to be as small things can trigger pessimistic feelings.
One way I have found to counteract some of this negativity is going to the gym. I try to go three times a week for two hour sessions. I get very upset if I do not achieve three visits a week. It is about the only space I can occupy and have some control over my MSA. One of the interesting outcomes of this regime is that I have lost a lot of weight and built up muscles in my legs and arms. In addition I do exercises to build up my core muscles twice a day to satisfy my specialist physio. This is about the only way I can manage my MSA. So I was scanning the Internet to look for information on exercise and MSA and found an American exercise routine on video so I have copied and included it this blog. Whilst doing this I came across an interesting clip, ‘A Bit about MSA’ which I have also included. They are as follows:
I would recommend getting hooked into exercise if you haven’t done so already, it does make a difference. I involved my specialist physio in making up my programme which was sensible. So I do about 20 minutes of approved routines twice a day and the gym for 2 hours 3 times a week. It’ s a laugh really because I have avoided the gym since leaving school and been rather scornful about gym bunnies, look at me now the power of MSA! I am sure that I am scoring lots of Brownie points with my two daughters and son-in-law.
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