Get Moving
One of the hardest things for me to deal with when I got so sick was the feeling of giving up a piece of who I was. Giving up bacon and burgers and cheese was hard enough, but feeling too weak and sick to hike or kayak or run or workout was a punch to the gut. It wasn’t just the activity that I was missing. It was that I felt those activities defined me as a person - I was the mom who loved to paddleboard with her kids. I was the mom who wasn’t afraid to take on the newest Shaun T Beachbody workout. And when those things were taken away from me because of the toll a tick bite was taking on my body, I was left unsure of who I really was.
It got worse before it got better. I didn’t want my kids to miss out on the things we loved to do as a family, so I would encourage my husband to take them camping without me. I started to put on weight from inactivity. It quickly became a downward spiral over which I had no control. Or, I thought I had no control. Until I took the advice Candice received from her cardiologist when she was at her very worst - move every day, even if it’s just a step.
Moving didn’t look like it did before I got sick. Some days, it just meant getting out of bed. But I was slowly becoming a pro at reinvention, so I began to reinvent moving. I took a step. Getting out of bed became watering the plants outside. Watering the plants outside became walking the dogs. Even months in, moving still didn’t look like it had before, but I could see it evolving. Walking the dogs became tackling the main hill in my mountainous neighborhood (it’s a beast!). Tackling the hill became modifying a less intense Beachbody workout. And now, I’m so proud to say, I’m five weeks into a Shaun T series I’ve never done before. Every time Shaun T tells me to dig deeper, I do. I’m not perfect and I’m not always successful, but I can see my own progress with every single workout, and that motivates me to push harder.
I’m not back to where I was ten years ago running races and lifting weights. But I’m so much farther along than I was, even a few short months ago. And I see myself continuing to reach further in small increments, fighting to be exactly who I need to be in this moment. It’s about progress, not perfection. And it all started with that first step.