Judicious decisions - My first ever "play hookie" day
The Hokas came yesterday and can I tell you, THEY'RE WONDERFUL!!! Okay, so I can't tell you exactly how they 'feel', per say. But, the air circulation of the shoe is indeed amazing. My feet did not sweat a bit, which for an MS body in flare up mode, is integral as heat will exacerbate banding and muscle spasms. And, believe you me, I have learned "they" are not joking about this...The soles are thick and spread out, but totally light weight, which provide stability and balance to legs that have very little at the moment and can "hyper-extend" at the drop of a pin. I don't have the "pins and needles" sensation that some MS folks tend to talk about. The damage to the spinal chord from that damn lesion is a bit extensive so the sensation literally feels like your hand when you've slept on it and it's gone beyond the pins and needles stage. I'm actually grateful for this, because I think it might drive me crazy to have the pins and needles effect to deal with all the time. In fact, I think I might be a LOT less accepting of these circumstances if that were the case. There are benefits to the "little to no sensation" syndrome.
On the other hand, there are some challenges and conundrums. And, as stated before, overdoing it is one of them, because I can't "feel" those sensations that say, "don't, stop, pull back a little...don't use that muscle, use this one and give that one a break." Many of you that strength train know exactly what I'm talking about. When you lift big or small, one gets accustomed to the all the different muscles in the body being worked. After a while, if one muscle feels a bit overworked, there are certain exercises where you can use others to achieve the same goal so you don't injure yourself. I was especially able to do this on the recumbent bike and with my ab workouts. Unfortunately, my brain no longer gets these cues and so "overdoing it" is about the only BIG clue I get now.
Last night, I had moderate muscle spasms throughout my upper and lower abdomen and a pinched nerve across the upper part of my back extending all the way to my obliques. My assessment is my abdomen is pitching a fit from the 150 crunches and 60 sit ups. In addition, I must have run to the ladies room 5 different times because these poor bowels were irritated by something, and though I thank the universe on all that is holy when I'm not constipated because no sensation and constipation are NOT a pleasant mix. It was enough to tell me something in my intestinal track was not happy. I also incurred a VERY mild fever and chills. I took a whole baclofen before I went to bed last night, but still woke up with an achy muscle spasm in the right calf. I took another one and it's happy now. Rule of thumb as it stands is if there is illness from the neck down, ya don't exercise. If it's from the neck up, ya can buck up.
It's challenging for my psyche to make the decision to take a day off. This will be the first time since February I'm opting to take a day off of exercise simply because this girl might have overdone the workout routine and feels a little unwell below the neck. I'm pleased this brain has grown that conditioned. It's what I wanted. But, I realize I have to mitigate some of that conditioning with a little MS common sense.
This immuno-suppressive I'll be taking is no joke. It's only a couple of years old and so experimental it can only be accessed directly through the pharmaceutical. This cannot be filled at a pharmacy, it will actually be mail ordered to me. The insurance company by all rights can reject covering it, but the pharmaceutical is at that phase in this drug's development where they will cover the cost because the long term profits outweigh the cost of using this body as a lab rat for statistical purposes. And, that is the bottom line. Given one of the side effects, apart from death by PML (which is extremely rare) is a lower white blood cell count. It's absolutely essential this body is in the BEST shape possible. In fact, that is the absolute irony of all of this, because aside from all obvious signs of MS, the blood work taken at the hospital came back fantastic on every level. It's why they're even considering me to begin with. Every target range for what they tested from my thyroid, to my white blood cell count, to my ESR and CRP levels were optimal. Aside from MS, I'm disease free. My sugars were a smidgen high only because of the steroids, but the doctor at the hospital said himself, he was amazed at how well this body handled that potent a dose. My liver was beauteous, which is a miracle if ya think about how much wine I used to drink. LOL.
So, exercise is essential, but not over doing it is just as important and ensuring we keep this body in as optimum a state as possible before it takes some major blows to it's immune system is critical.
So, without further adieu- I am officially taking a day off of my 3 day workout cycle and am going to rest, meditate and enjoy some company poolside.
psst..psst - I will however swim some laps. Hehehe. Ironically, swimming is actually easy for me not overdo because it's not that hard to set a slow pace. Slow lap swimming helps to break up the lactic acid in the blood to help alleviate soreness and muscle cramps. If you were ever curious, this is why olympic swimmers will often hop in and do very slow laps in the smaller pool next to the olympic sized one they often compete in. If they have more than one meet in a day, it's imperative to break up that lactic acid so they're not rigid and in dire pain from extensive use of their muscles.
In the meantime, I will petition the universe that all is well tomorrow and we can resume.
Have a wonderful Saturday, everyone!
