Embrace Your Journey: There will be stress

Grandsons back home in Paris

I now have hard, concrete evidence on how stress exacerbates my MS symptoms. I use to be flippant about its effects but I have done an about face since having an onslaught of stress this past month. Here is the itemized list of contributors to my heightened stress levels:

 

1) Sending my grandsons, daughter Liz and Philippe back home to Paris for what will be a difficult fall for them. To say I’m a bit worried is an understatement. 

2) My feet hurt! I learned that my foot has widened and the design of the shoe I was using was wrong for all of my walking issues. Physical Therapist, Thomas told me who to see and what to look for in replacements. The timing for doing this project was stressful.

Aunt Kay

3) My last aunt died suddenly. She was a favorite. We went to the funeral in Cincinnati seeing all the cousins and family. 

4) We took our first long driving trip in the EV Tesla. We didn’t know how to plan the trip for charging stops and it was almost a disaster! 

5) My twice yearly neurologist appointment in Raleigh was on tap for the next week. Still stressful even though I know what to expect. 

What are the concrete things I noticed as things started to unravel?

Physically, my walking felt bad and was bad. My pace was slower by two to three minutes per mile. I didn’t feel stable. Donnie noticed and held onto my hand more during our walk. Most days, my feet hurt from beginning to end of the walk. Donnie said it seemed like my balance was way off.

Cognitively, I was in a fog. I went through my weekly schedule on automatic pilot with my mind prioritizing my feet. Getting new shoes with more toe space ruled. Hence, I was totally caught off guard shopping for new shoes when I took the call from Sarah’s office.

After funeral lunch - Brad and Michelle hosting

Hi, it’s Holly. Is everything okay? You still have time to get here if you want to come.

Oh no! I totally forgot about my appointment with Sarah! I’m shopping for new walking shoes and can’t leave. Can I call you back and reschedule? I guess we’ll get charged for two appointments.

Sorry, but yes, call me back and we’ll get you set up.

Thanks. I really need Sarah’s treatment but I’m getting this done so, I’ll call you back.

 

The psychological issues are more challenging to identify. Aunt Kay’s death being so sudden hit me hard. She was a favorite, and was the last aunt of the Horak clan.

Out of normal routine

After we knew when we needed to leave for Cincinnati, time did funny things in my mind. It seemed to be in warp speed, yet processing information slowed down. I had trouble focusing. I resorted to compartmentalizing. Before leaving for Cincinnati on Sunday, I had to prepare for my Toastmaster duties fro the meeting on Friday following our return on Tuesday. Some meetings fall into place neatly. This one didn’t.

Bad temper and ill humor were ruling my life. I felt angry, combative and argumentative. I found myself taking out my stress on my closest friends and family. This is what I do in my dark zone. I lash out and blame others. I was not being a nice person. 

Back home, back to routine

Luckily, the consequences this time were minimal. I only took one fall ending with a bruise. I only missed one appointment that has been made up and seem to be in fair standing with friends. Donnie responds good to food and I enjoy cooking, so that serves us both well. 

Stress happens. Next time, I hope I will notice the triggers and indicators quicker. Everybody has different stressors and different indicators. I recognize the physical ones easily but the cognitive and psychological are more challenging.

Embrace the Journey: Strength Makes a Difference

We have a great place to walk

I have a lesson with Trainer Jeanne every Tuesday morning. This is typical of how we begin:

Hey Jeanne! I’m already warmed up. We got our five miles in before coming. I like to get my walking in before it gets hot. Afternoon walks are laborious! What are we doing today?

We’re going to start with the curtsy squat.

Good. I must need it because it makes me fatigued in the hips.

Mountain climber is next. Where is that padded box? 

Thomas thinks this is a great exercise for me. When I showed this to him yesterday, he suggested that I go much slower and get full extension with my legs. He also said to up-lift, un glue? What’s that term you use? Anyway, it’s much harder than moving fast!

Trainer Jeanne 

I’ve had two other trainers before Jeanne, Lacey and Evan. They were both very good. Each one had a different style, but they both worked with me at my very beginner level. Strength and walking both improved. That was my goal.

Covid 19 paused indefinitely going to the gym. Not to be undone, I set up a modified gym at home with mats, bands and small weights. I exercised everyday using the lessons I had saved from Lacy and Evan. While I probably maintained strength, I didn't improve anything. Then I fell, fractured my hip and stopped gym work.  

By the time I was healed things, had started opening again. We stayed with Gold's Gym. They assigned Jeanne to be my trainer.  We were a good match. She’s closer to my age and has tremendous experience and knowledge from other forms of exercise like Thai-Chi, boxing, and yoga. I particularly like the way she will notice a problem I have with doing an exercise. Right there on the spot, she’ll either modify what I'm doing or devise a new exercise to address it.

One of many exercises for core and abs

My current goals are to walk farther and faster with more confidence. She gives me a full hour of exercises for all body parts including the core. The weight machines and free weights are all in the big, main room. 

I can see and feel improvement as I go up in weight. Jeanne's good at picking a good weight for me then showing me how to do anything new. She usually repeats an exercise several weeks running, sometimes changing the number of repetitions or amount of weight. Some combinations work on strength building and others work on endurance.

There’s another big, open room used for group training, that we go into occasionally. 

High Alert! She's got something hard for me in there. 

Balance is needed for the hurdles

Wonder what? Good, she’s ignoring the stairs. That's scary racing (ha-ha!) up and down those steep stairs. But, there are rails, and I hold on to them. 

Oh no, she’s going for the hurdles. It’s been a while since we’ve done that. Umm, scary but good. I’ll really concentrate and think positive. Done! I’m beginning to feel more confident and Jeanne said I’m smoother. I believe it’s transferring to walking. 

I’ve written in a blog post about how aging weakens muscles. MS surreptitiously robs muscles of strength so I have double jeopardy working. I’ve also noticed that injuries heal, but the healing takes time and I wonder if we really get back to where we started before the setback. That being said, I understand I must keep walking and strength training. Starting over is daunting as well as mentally and physically challenging.

The multi-movement (Robot) machine is a favorite 

My best bet is to continue what’s working for me: yoga for meditation and stretching; gym and strength training for walking without fatigue or pain; therapies to support everything.  I’m beginning to feel my stride. That’s  my “happy place”.

Blog posts that speak about strength building with trainers:  

https://judymanagesms.blogspot.com/2018/12/embrace-your-destiny-hard-work-pays-off.html  

https://judymanagesms.blogspot.com/2022/05/embrace-journey-youve-got-to-want-it.html

Embrace Your Destiny: Try Hot Yoga

Outside yoga on the beach

Hot yoga as a therapy for me was never a consideration for me. I only knew about it because daughter Liz started did some in college and I paid for it. I could see very positive benefits in her. 

Heat weakens me! All my limbs feel like jelly. Liz keep after me to try it and I was curious. She eased all my concerns so I decided to try it. Why not try? I trusted Liz. 

Me with walker at Hot Yoga Asheville

What is hot yoga? It sounds awful.

Bikram Hot Yoga isn’t just any hot yoga. The room is preheated to 104 degrees with 40% humidity. Infrared lights provide the heat and they have healing properties. Surprisingly, I was able to tolerate this heat and do the poses. I work up a good sweat which is good for the body. 

The sequence and order of the poses seems to be perfect for me. Each pose builds on the previous. Plus, the Bikram philosophy works for me. It says, “Just do your best. Give it 100% effort and that is good enough.”  There are twenty six postures and two breathing exercises It’s ninety minutes of moving, breathing, meditation.

Adi Westerman, owner and teacher 

I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand why this yoga rather than any of the others?

Repetition! Nothing changes day to day except the teacher. The same 26  postures done in the same order, for the same amount of time with the same dialogue. Also, the pace is slow enough for me to transition poses without falling or getting tangled up. 

For the balance poses, I hold onto something. (Hot Yoga Asheville even bought me a walker!) I noticed improvements in how I felt, and how I looked quickly. My skin looked brighter and I had a lingering calm feeling.

Hot Yoga Asheville

I started going three to four times a week. Gradually I increased to going daily. I had been tracking headaches, indigestion, constipation among other things. I’ve eliminated medications and the hateful carpel tunnel wrist sleeve I wore every night. Best of all, the chronic pain disappeared.

Sounds like you were addicted! How did it help with walking?

I was addicted to the point that we set up our own studio at home when Covid 19 shut everything down. Our hot room doesn’t get quite as hot all the time, but it’s still effective. YouTube videos with the dialogue do a good job. 

Yoga helped walking most by freeing the foot, ankle and knee joints. I started feeling my foot roll into a step. The right ankle joint had been almost frozen for a long time. After years of yoga and other therapies I’m beginning to feel a nice stride developing.

My home studio

The yoga community helped me find healing people and therapies. Gradually, I met other yogis who were practicing acupuncture, massage, and juicing. One by one, I experimented and added. 

Everything was better, but walking really improved when I got serious about my gym workout. Joining Gold’s Gym that embraces Silver Sneakers was the key. Using the savings from not paying for a gym membership I pay a trainer. I’ve been getting lessons weekly for several years.

I suppose you are going to enlighten us about your gym work and strength training next.

That’s right. I have lots to talk about there too. But first, check out this blog  post that captures my experience with hot yoga:

https://judymanagesms.blogspot.com/2019/11/embrace-journey-find-your-elixer.html

Of course the whole blog is available at judymanagesms.blogspot.com