42

I've been exercising nearly every day now, either in my gym at home or at GF Strong in the physio gym or the pool. The progress is slow, but I am seeing improvements. I can almost leg press my body weight. I'm hoping I can hit that threshold by the end of the month. One of the challenges I wasn't yet able to do in my last blog entry was stand up off my couch. It sinks down when one sits in it, and I had to do a pivot transfer onto the wheelchair and stand up from there. It takes some effort, but I can now stand up from the couch.

I can actually feel the muscles in my arms. That feels very good, considering I could wrap my hand around my skinny upper arm back when I was in the hospital four months ago. Friends have been commenting on how scary skinny I was back then. My endurance is better too. I've been doing hyperbaric oxygen treatments each week at Yaletown Holistics, and the two-block trip back home is a slight incline. A month ago, I had to stop halfway to rest before continuing, and now I can push myself for the entire trip without having to stop.

My resting heart rate is down to the mid-eighties. That is still high for someone my age, but it is a huge improvement from the 110+ when I was lying in bed in the hospital. Hopefully that will continue to improve as I get healthier. The risk is that at some point I may plateau and not improve from there. I'm hearing differing opinions. My rehab doctor thinks I'll peak at 70-80% of normal, but he has also never seen a case like mine before. The last EMG test showed a slight improvement in my nerves.

My goal is to get better than I was before. Right now, I'm in the pool twice a week, in the physio gym twice a week, and in my gym at home four times a week. That's about eight hours of exercise each week. I'm up to 25 minutes on the exercise bike at home, and I can pedal faster than when I first started using it at home three weeks ago.

My physiotherapist is impressed that I'm doing a lot of exercising at home. I just view it as something I need to do, but a lot of people just accept being in a wheelchair, even when they have the potential to get better. The downside is that I'm neglecting a lot of friends, since my weeknights are spent at home in the gym, instead of out and about.

Work is awesome about letting me take the time I need to get better. The VP of our group understands my situation. She suffered an injury skiing when she was younger, and had to spend a year doing rehab to walk again. I'm working from home one to two days a week, and my aggregate hours add up to about 3.5 to four actual days of work.

I'm driving now too. I'm in better shape now than when I stopped driving back in May. It feels good having the freedom to get into my car and go out whenever I want to, instead of relying on public transit or asking for friends to go out of their way.

I'll never know what caused all this to happen, but I wonder if stress played a role. An MD would probably discount this theory and say that there is a scientific reason, but a naturopath takes a different approach to these things and would consider it. There were a number of factors contributing to a lot of stress for me late last year, within a few months of the first symptom. Regardless, I'm staying much more laid back now.