Rebounding, Kind Of

[cs_section parallax=”false” separator_top_type=”none” separator_top_height=”50px” separator_top_angle_point=”50″ separator_bottom_type=”none” separator_bottom_height=”50px” separator_bottom_angle_point=”50″ style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text]Getting to it, which is what I wish for us all, sometimes means getting back to it, which is where I am at. But getting back to it means there was a period of time we didn’t get to it, which is where I was at. There are many different reasons we stopped getting to it – death of a loved one, change in jobs, financial problems, even lack of motivation. For me it was partly due to being busier with the second job but the main reason was my MS.

Declining

Starting last summer there was a noticeable change in my leg strength and endurance. It was a slow and gradual decline that at first I wasn’t too concerned with. Not all days are bad and not all days are good, it’s a mixture. So when my legs started declining I chalked it up to just having a few bad days.

After a couple of months I started realizing this was more than just a few bad days, I was indeed on a decline. As I mentioned it was slow and gradual. I didn’t run 5 miles one day then wake up the next not able to walk. I did, however, notice mowing my lawn was more exhausting. I also noticed I was moving slower on the stairs at work.

For the next few months I paid attention to how exhausted I was getting when I did certain things, and how quickly. I had to switch from taking two stairs at a time to just one. I had to rest more frequently when mowing. On top of strength issues old foes came back such as the MS hug (feeling like your pants are too tight when they’re not). And the decline continued, not necessarily noticeable day-to-day but rather week-to-week or every other week.

It declined to points I hadn’t been since the months after my diagnosis seven years ago. In gaging how I’m doing I compare myself to my pre-MS days. I was at 80-85% of what I was pre-MS, with the latest decline I am now 70-80%. That was enough to sap motivation from me to post and so I stopped.

The latest decline has affected my running. I wasn’t a fast runner or even a good one. And even though I don’t care for the actual physical act of running it’s a good motivator for me. So when the decline hit and it interrupted my running that was hard to take. My motivation to do more than that I had to do such as work, cooking, and household chores, dropped.

In my mind I knew it, I saw my motivation dropping, I noticed I was doing less but that didn’t matter. It’s true in order to change things you first have to see what has to change. However, seeing isn’t all there is – seeing isn’t always believing and seeing isn’t always doing. Seeing is just one part of the whole. You can see you need to make a change but that does not actually make the change. You have to act on what you see. And that is where I am at right now.

Having the desire to do something, to make good changes is what I am currently working on. Drumming up the motivation, even occasionally manufacturing it, is part of my process. Simply writing this post is tiresome but after it’s written and posted, regardless of the current quality, is a win for me. Rebounding from my latest MS dip is a struggle in itself, but one I am working diligently to achieve. Big leaps or baby steps it’s all about rebounding right now.

Attempt it. Chance it. Try it. Get to It![/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section]