I did two things this week that I have not been able to try for over a year. I slowly jogged the length of our house and our next door neighbor's house. My legs felt like burning stumps. I notice that I can't lift my feet as far off the ground as I could before steroids and thus, I have to be ultra-vigilant for uneven cement on the sidewalks. It felt good.
I considered it a tiny victory.
I also took the big step of getting out my bike. What if I was to fall again? When I first got on the bike, I looked like a 4-year-old who had just had her training wheels taken off her bike. I was wibbling and wobbling in the street for about 1 minute before my instincts took over. Balance is so different after steroids. We biked up to the cemetery where we enjoy the solitude and pretty trees.
My worst fear came true as my bike slipped on just a little rut (which in a normal situation I could've righted the bike and kept on going) and I fell sideways, my bike on top of me. Luckily I fell between the large granite headstones of person A and person B, rather than on one of them, essentially assuring that I would have cracked my head open. I landed on a 3 foot wide mound of soft grass between them and I was grass stained and unhurt. Praise God for that.
If I was not living in this body, I would laugh at myself and how crazy my life changes are when my musculoskeletal system is not functioning as it should. I walk the laundry basket full of clothes up the stairs from the basement and I can barely reach the top step without stopping and letting the burn ease up. I bend down to look at a bottom shelf item at a store and I can't squat up without holding my thighs.
All of this is not to complain. I am so blessed in so many ways. I am in absolute awe of my niece Kate who ran the Boston Marathon in great time. I would be in awe of her anyway, but when you can't run any longer, you realize what a gift that ability really is.
Don't take your agility for granted, folks!!
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