Egull1- Журнал, 15 июн 24

Nice! 

She is pretty. The whole rack is impressive 

Nice set up! 

new gym toys are the best 💪  

Nice set up!! 

Nice setup!  

Thanks my friends! She's an eclectic mix, but I kinda wanted her to be. If you can believe it, 7 years ago I started out on 2-3 lb dumbbells, pushups against a wall and I cycled on level five resistance for 20 minutes. Amazing, what happens when ya just stick with it :-) There is a smaller weight kettlebell and a 15 lb weight missing here. But, little Billy Flynn likes to get into the floor drain and my mothers art studio so we have weights on both to keep him out! Little bugger!  

Looks good. 👍 I hope that I'll get there one day for now I'm just happy to do whatever I can. Energy levels are truly a problem but I plug along. They did double my medicine for fatigue so that's helping a bit. Still building muscle 💪 according to scale but now I'm paranoid I'm still losing strength somehow still not sure how that works 🤷. but it's great to hear that you were able to work up from the smaller amount to such a great amount of ability keep that in mind when I'm trying and struggling 😀. 

wow 

very nice she looks heavy too. 

Leah, when I was first diagnosed with MS in 2017 - the neural fatigue was off the charts. I was still on a walker back then. I hadn't even transitioned to a cane and I was nearly passing out on the bus ride home from work. Once home, I would gulp down a HUGE cup of coffee and get in the workout. It took a long time before my neural endurance improved even after I took off all the weight and hand increased weights. And, I was NOT on any medication to improve energy just my own willfulness, LOL. But see, there's that thing called neural plasticity. Our bodies feel that neural fatigue because those electrical impulses have a skewed connection to get through due to the lesions so they have to find workarounds to tell your legs to move or your arms to lift. It draws a LOT more energy to make those workarounds which is why we incur neural fatigue. However, your body's workaround CAN become the new norm if that pathway is continuously stimulated as it is during exercise or strength and weights where there is a lot of rinse, wash, repeat when it comes to reps and sets. And, that's how I did it. But, it doesn't happen overnight. Honestly, I didn't stop having extreme neural fatigue until around 2021 so it took about 3 years before my stamina increased enough that I felt comfortable transitioning off the cane in 2022. But, even transitioning off the cane was exceedingly painful. My right flexor muscles had grown accustomed to having that cane to lean on. The amount of torquing, muscle contractions, and IT band issues were a whole other challenge to work with. But, I stretched and rolled, worked on walking form, and just kept at it. Before I knew it these legs took on an Olympic triathlon and instead of walking it - I ended up running the whole 6.2 miles! 

I think it’s real life vs IG. 😉 

I guess I just get frustrated I felt that if I fell in all the doctors recommendations then laugh I just kind of go back to normal after a while but well it didn't... What's worse is I can push through it's just the results after I push through that first day aren't worth it then I go through three or four days of not being able to do anything. After I did that the first time I learned what the doctor meant about using too many spoons, lol 😂. I just hate feeling so wimpy all the time I'm just not a sit-down kind of person I like to be active I like to do things and I hate not getting my chores done. But my muscle spasms have really gotten bad lately and they stopped me from doing a lot of the things I like to get done each day so I'm having to take it a little easier than what I prefer to find workarounds that I didn't have to get and do before. The kids have really been doing what they can to help me out I just hate having to do that route. Now that Ryan has transition to a different job I'm going to have to refocus my efforts to get a different job once everything settles money wise. My boss is just not very understanding about my needs and I can't keep doing the physical workload at work as much as I would like to it's just not possible and I can't stop myself from doing as much as I'm doing at work I've tried I can't leave the work undone. I know it's dumb but I can't stop myself from leaving the work undone if I see the job meaning to be done I do it. But I do think 

I'm getting more efficient with my workouts and I'm better at the workouts that I'm doing both in my consistency and form. I would like to add more strength training exercises themself but right now I'm just kind of doing more hand weights and resistance bands. I'd like to be able to go to the gym sometime and work out on larger machines but at this time that doesn't seem very realistic. I've also been trying to work on stress reduction I think my gardening is helping with that as well. I think that will help with some other areas hopefully helping MS symptoms overall. I'm going to have to be a little bit more vocal with my doctor I really need him to change my medicine and he's being very resistant because once we change I won't be able to go back like I told him I'm fine with that but my cognitive symptoms are becoming concerning. The other day I couldn't remember my physical mailing address which is kind of scary. 

Ah yes, the struggle of pushing through, not being able to do something the way one "used too", and of course the insane frustration of memory issues. I confess, it was truly one of the things that left me in a few adult temper tantrums. p.s. I keep a note in my phone now for my physical address and a few other things this brain can't readily reach for anymore. It's funny, shortly after Mom's mild heart attack a couple of weeks ago - there was this poignant but critical moment that arose in my spiritual curriculum. I could actually observe my brain playing with 2 different lenses. One, was this mind contemplating whether it wanted to play its typical program of fear and crisis reaction. Ever ready to adopt the "why is this happening to me?" part. It's a juicy role to play to be sure. But, for the first time in my life let alone my spiritual journey and buddhist practice - there was an EXPANSIVE part of my awareness that simply said, "Well, it's just a new moment. Like anything else, it's just a new phenomena where we see what happens, take things as they come, and transcend from there." I mean really? Who created some delusional model that life was going too somehow be "hunky dory" with no problems or challenges to deal with. I'm actually dead serious when I ask this question. As an X-gener (one of the few left to tell tale) - I can't remember a sit-com growing up that didn't have some challenge everyone was tying to overcome. Of course, we all know our challenges don't end in one hour with a laughing audience in the background. But, truthfully "who" perpetuated the notion that somehow life is supposed to be anything other than exactly what it is...? And, what I'm genuinely coming to understand is that my suffering only increases unnecessarily when I compare anything that I'm struggling with some delusional model in my head of how I "think" it's supposed to be. When I drop that model, funny thing is this mind can readily see it's just a moment. It truly just is what it is, and I'm able to see with so much more clarity what needs to be done to either get through it, or simply let it be. In short, I suffer sooooo much less. And, then I truly understand that old saying, "but for the grace of god go I" and even more so just how much amazing grace is actually provided just to plug through these heavy moments and how lucky I am. I was listening to an old lecture by one of my spiritual teachers, Ram Dass - he was talking about a moment where being on the road giving lectures was starting to get to him. He entered one of those "plasticky" holiday Inn's and was setting up his "puja" table for meditation and thought "just a couple more weeks and I'll be home". And, then it occurred to him just how much suffering that thought caused him. He walk straight out of his hotel room, and down the hall. When he got to the end of the hall he turned around, walk back to his room, opened up the door and yelled "HI, I'M HOME!!!!" Because, as he stated "If you can't learn to feel at home in the universe, it's not likely any place will bring contentment. Home is where the heart is and we are the home!" I love that story :-) 

I’m getting my 10s 15s and 20s next week. Starting slow to see where we go