Sunday Update: Wellness Journey

It’s been a busy week and it started with a trip to the emergency room for my mom.  She’s got Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Congestive Heart Failure.  We’ve been told there will be visits like this — a week or two in the hospital balancing out her heart, lungs and kidneys and the home for a month or two.  Each visit makes it harder for her to be well.  There is no getting better, or getting over it, or recovering.  There’s management, slowing down and coping.

If you smoke around me, I’ll chastise you.  I’m an ex-smoker myself.  I know why you smoke, there’s nothing you can tell me about it.  What I know and what you may not know is that the endgame is awful.  Each breath is harder to take and doesn’t get all the way into your lungs.  One day it will kill you.  I’m watching my mom and I don’t want that for any of you.  So quit.  Get the patch, chew gum, tough it out – whatever.  (lecture over)

I didn’t work out this week.  There simply was not time.  I drove a lot, I worked a lot and I slept a little.  And you know what?  Sometimes it’s going to be like that.  I did park the car a little further away.  I walked around at lunch time during the conference I was at.  I went up and down my stairs a few extra times.  I stretched.

I purchased a recovery stick.  You use it to roll over your muscles and it does feel very good on my hamstrings.  They’re tight and I’m working on loosening them up.  $15 at Dicks Sporting Goods (no where in town to get them, I checked).  Randy the trainer suggested it, my legs have been really tight.  I’m also drinking at least 8 glasses of water every day.  It’s taken a while to get there, but I’m there.  That helps too.   You’ll notice in the picture my knee is super knobby – actually they both are.  Arthritis, dodgeball, bruised, and bursitis.  But none of those can stop me on my journey to wellness.

Whoever said “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey” must have been talking about the process of regaining health.  I find myself going down side trails and back roads looking for things that are unique and different and worth exploration.  Massage, essential oils, funky foods … are all a part of the journey.  As long as I am traveling this road, I might as well have some fun!  

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”   
  
– Dale Carnegie