Health, Hope and Happiness

Today, May 6 - an update on one month of Restoration of my seriously failing health and fitness. After the winter this year 2024 - 2025, when I had stopped walking the dog due to ice and snow and a bad back and painful knees, I had fallen into serious decline (for me). For example, last summer, 2024 I could walk 4000 to 5000 steps a day which included a mile walk with my dog Uma each morning. By March 2025, I could hardly make it to the back of the ShopRite and couldn't walk a block, my back pinched so badly and my knees screamed in hot pain. I could hardly get up off a chair and had bought rails for my sofa! I had sent away for a catalog of adaptive devices for disabled people because I WAS disabled! It never arrived.

If that evidence alone wasn't enough, I visited my general practitioner in early April for my semi annual and my lab report was awful. I had gained 6 pounds and my blood counts had all gone into the danger zone. I was perched on the edge of diabetes.

Emotionally, I was bereft, no energy, lethargic, but there was still a glimmer of my old metal left. I pulled myself together and decided that each day when my neighbor, John, walked the dog for me, as soon as they came back, I would put the dog in the house and go to the Planet Fitness gym not 5 minutes from my house and do a short work-out, very easy, very slow, just to get warmed up and unstiffened.

My neighbor had taken over walking the dog in the winter when the sidewalks were perilous with ice and snow because he walks twice a day for his health. He walked faster and further than I could so I was glad for my dog's sake as well as for mine.

The first day in the gym, I could barely turn the wheel of the stationary bike. I told myself to try to just do 5 minutes. By the third minute my stiffest, worst knee, the left one, had loosened up a little and I began to believe I could do 5 minutes, and I did. Next, I went into the 30 minute workout room and did 3 machines that strengthen arms and back, biceps and triceps curl, 20 each, and seated rower, 20. I did 25 on the leg curl machine which I googled at home and found out is good for knees and lower back! I decided I would add a little to each machine and one minute to the bike each week. The second week, I did 25 repititions on each machine and 6 minutes on the bike, then 30 reps and 7 minutes and I added two abs machines and did 30 on them. This week I got to 9 minutes on the bike (my goal is 15 minutes and I will stop there and just do 15 each time so I don't wear out my knees but just keep them flexible and strengthened. I am up to 60 on the abs cmbined and 60 on the leg curl.

Sadly, my walking hadn't improved very much, my back still hurt and when I tried to walk my dog in different parks for pleasure and change, she was too excited and pulled so badly she hurt my back.

THEN, I got the idea of trying Martin's Lake in Gloucester City. I drove by it many times and found it perfect. It is paved; it is small and peaceful and beautiful. My neighbor and I measured it on my car odometer and it is 1/2 a mile around! So, today, I put on my dog's best training collar and had a stiff talk with her about walking nicely and not pulling.

We drove over to the Lake and parked near the chain link fence on one corner of the park. The chain link fence helped to calm my dog's excitement when she first got out of the car and she is smart enough to have understood at least something of the lecture I gave her, my tone if not my words, plus the training collar helps a lot. She walked perfectly and we made it around the park with NO PAIN, no pain at all in my knees or my back. A miracle. I could hardly believe it!

I began in early April and as of today it has been a month since. Now I can walk the 1/2 mile Martin's Lake and I am going to walk it every day, even on gym days and try by the end of the month to walk it twice and make it a mile! It was 1500 steps. There is a park across the street, Johnson's Boulevard jogging track that I would like to measure in steps and perhaps by autumn, I will be able to walk that park! Maybe by next Spring I can walk both parks!

In place of my despair and lethargy, I have happiness, hope, and much better health! My spirits are revived as well as my vitality. I tell you all this because I am hoping it might give you inspiration to do something to improve your health, if you need to, not to mention your emotional state! By the way, additional inspiration came for me by reading health newsletters in my daily e-mail. I get about 3 of them, one is called 5 Good Things and I forget the names of the others but they all promote exercise as well as social connections at top of the list for health, happiness and longevity. I am not so focused on longevity but I want to the have the best years, however many I may have left. To paraphrase one of my favorite poets, Dylan Thomas, I will "not go gently in that dark night, I will rage rage against the dying of the light!" Happy trails (may they be outdoors!) Jo ann wrightj45@yahoo.com (e-mail me if you wish to comment, the comment section is entirely Love Canal level polluted by scammers)