Olly you and I are alot alike when it came to the fitness stuff. I not only coached soccer for 16years but I played soccer for about 5 of those years before I could no longer kick a ball or run. I also was an advid outdoors person and would hike and bike and swim and weighed only 120lb at the time. That plus the kids and all their stuff I did with them.
Your right that when fighting this disease we have to balance everything out. I started getting injury after injury by over doing and for the most part when I injured a muscle it would never be the same afterward. It would take longer and longer to heal each time I did it. At that time the docs said they could find nothing wrong with me. Then they said I had fibromyalgia about 10 years into the process. Then they changed it again and said it was rhuemitiod because of contratures but they had no blood work proof, that is when I started gaining weight because I was so sick on the meds they gave me that I should have never taken. I layed around too much but didn't change my diet. I had gained 100 pounds in 2 years and was bed ridden.
Finally I said enough is enough and got off all the meds. It was when I decided docs really do not know as much as they put on to know. I dieted and pt on myself while in bed. I built myself back to a level I could walk short distances. As the weight dropped I was able to move more. Had I not gotten to the point of anger I do not think I would be alive today. I never recovered a full strenght. My legs were worse, but I continued to have an active life doing things I could do. Like teach art classes at a small christain school and I coached their soccer team for 6 years, although I could no longer play with the kids or walk back and forth on the sidelines (I fell so many times doing that). I got out of my self pity act and went straight into learning to dance in the rain! I had lost 65lbs in 4 months but then I ripped up a leg tendon in my knee. That layed me up and I lost momentum and gained 20. So now I have been stuck about the same weight for a few years but its now going down about 1/2 pound a month. Not sure if its fat I am loosing or muscle.
To this day I wish I could exercise. This is one thing my hubby had a hard time accepting. He bought a treadmill for me and ask me to use it daily, because he still believed I could build the muscle. I did it only for a few days, 2 miles an hour for 10 minutes. Couldn't walk the rest of the day. He finally conceded and realizes that its just not going to work. But he got a treadmill out of it as he likes to run! He does a lot of soccer refereeing.
So the fact that about 20 years of this disease and I am only getting a power chair now might have been because I didn't have a diagnosis till now? Who knows! I pushed myself and injured myself and lived with the pain for so long....no one can say I gave into this beast!
Now I use my fingers while I still can to hopefully encourage others who are sick or have debilitating disease to be all that they can be even with a broken body. Make it a challenging adventure, rather than crawling under a rock and licking your wounds. I believe that these bodies we are in are only temparary in the timeline of eternity.
Ok...done rambling!
