But It Wasn't My Idea -- Week 12 of 20

Here is my reality.  I am not Super-Woman.  Surprising, right?  Yeah surprising to me too.  Sometimes I think I'm still that 19 or 20 year old athlete, but my body says NO.  My reality is I have two auto-immune diseases.  They call these invisible diseases because when people look at you, you look completely healthy.  But you don't always feel completely healthy.

Week 12 - Control the Mind

Week 11 I was a bit of a cry baby and everything hurt and this sucks, etc., etc., etc.  Week 12 I was told to cut back on certain exercises and swim more or do the AMT more.  I KNOW that was the right decision.  Hell I was thinking of suggesting it myself.  But to have it told to me instead of it being my idea, didn't go over well.  Does that ever happen to you?  Come on, be honest.  What is that?  Pride?

AMT with friends - makes time fly by.  (Well sort of.)

My RA (Rheumatoid Arthritis) seems to be flaring up.  However, it's not something I am real familiar with.  I had the original pain seven years ago and then the diagnosis and then a steroid treatment for a year and then really no pain since.  But when you have to take Motrin in the morning and the evening just so your fingers won't swell and if  you try to make it without Motrin your knuckles look purple, you might be in a flare up.

Honestly this is where I am very thankful to have a trainer that has stuck with me and knows my moods and my aches and pains and who can point out to me when I need to cut back.  Like I said, I wasn't happy, but I am at the end of that week now and feeling WAY better.  I'm going longer without Motrin.  So next step is to figure it out on my own (when to cut back) before going cray cray.

I have an appointment in two weeks, so don't worry about me.  I'll figure it out with my rheumatologist.  I downloaded an app that allows me to input a lot of information daily about symptons and quality of life.  I'll be able to bring my doctor this info and we'll be able to come up with a course of action (hopefully without steroids.)  In the meantime, I swim more and weight train slightly less.

Sometimes I am hesitant to write to you about my aches and pains and/or my autoimmune diseases, but I feel it's necessary.  The absolute worse thing I coud do would be to stop exercising.  Movement is great for the RA.  Swimming has been awesome for it, especially in a colder pool (as opposed to a warm therapy pool.)

Swimming does not hurt any of my joints - at all.  This week I have swum PRs (personal records) all week.  PRs for me since I started swimming again a little over a year ago.  Not PRs from when I was 20.  One workout I swam 3 - 1000 yard swims with 30 seconds rest in between each one.  That's 120 lengths.  Today I swam 2 - 1000 yard swims and beat my time from the Masters Swim Meet in March by one minute in the 1000.  That was pretty exciting for me.

Let's not let our pride get in the way when someone suggests something to us that we know is the right decision, yet it wasn't our decision.  Let's be bigger than that.   There I'm done preaching.

Just know that if I can do this, you can too!

If you need a laugh, enjoy my epic gym fail on the (unstable) stability ball.