It’s that day again…Monday. It comes quickly, doesn’t it? It starts my week to even though I don’t go to work anymore. I start each Monday with physical therapy again. Let me explain physical therapy. Physical therapy is like exercise. I hate it, but I know it’s important and it helps. Therefore I do it with a smile each time. You know those endorphins you are supposed to get when you work out? In the eight years I worked out every day never once did I get them. The only thing I ever received was the sigh of relief that I did the work. Physical therapy is kind of the same results. I go I do what I need to do and then I have the sigh of relief that I did it. It’s hard. They make me work on things my body can’t do. That’s the point. To strengthen the areas that aren’t strong. You’re doing things you wouldn’t do in your own comfort zone because they’re difficult. Even after I’m done with physical therapy I join the maintenance program. I’m paying to be miserable.

I’m curious how many people really love exercising? I just never got those endorphins. Then again I have multiple sclerosis maybe I don’t have endorphins. Maybe my whole system is broken. I am just happy when it was done and proud of myself for doing it. Physical therapy is the same idea. I look at it like exercise. The only difference is physical therapy I’m surrounded by people and when I exercise I don’t like people around. Of course when I exercise I do things I want to do and when I’m at physical therapy I do things that they make me do. I guess that’s a pretty huge difference. Physical therapy exhaust me. Maybe it’s because the muscles they’re hitting are so hard for me to move and work that I required more strain then a typical exercise, my recovery time takes much longer. Are usually try to plan nothing else after physical therapy where as when I exercise I can do other things.

Physical therapy never really gets my heart rate up or has a cardio aspect to it, but I do and have worked up a little sweat. I’ve had times coming out of physical therapy that I barely made it to my car to drive myself home. I’ve now take my scooter so I can use that in physical therapy instead of walking. Both my regular exercise and physical therapy exhaust me, but physical therapy is a much more serious fatigue. I leave with each limb feeling twenty pounds heavier than when I started. When I used to wear my fitbit, I get no credit for physical therapy. Yet the 30 minutes I’d wear it during my exercises I would get 30 minutes credit. So it’s amazing to think that the hour that I spent in physical therapy technically wouldn’t even register as exercise. However my body is completely shot for hours. So for me, it is exercise. They are one in the same. Everything for me with multiple sclerosis is seen in a different light. Everything is harder for me each step I take, each movement I make and that’s why therapy and exercise are the same.