I’m happy to report I haven’t felt any side effects from the infusion the other day. https://multipleexperiences.org/2022/05/06/rituxan-infusion-successful-2/. I might feel slightly more tired but it hasn’t stopped me. On both Saturday and Sunday, I did an actual workout from my bed. I put on one of my favorite cardio exercises programs from YouTube. It is a workout from Adapt to Perform. https://youtu.be/qbFvZEPTXDk. I had my Bionic Gym on at a high intensity, picked up a pole and turned on my music. I was able to go through the program twice. My left hand couldn’t hold the pole by the end. I was still pushing to get through. I actually had to put my left hand at the end of the pole, pushing in, as opposed to wrapping my hand around the pole. It is a twenty minute program. I took a lot of breaks. Two twenty minute programs took me an hour to complete. I use to go through the program three times for the hour of cardio. You know what? I don’t care. I did an actual workout. I was sweating, real drips of sweat. I had a great heart rate. I felt great!!! I still got up into my wheelchair that morning and that afternoon. It is going slow, but it is going. I am making improvements.

I can list everything that is still a major issue but I don’t need to do that. I am doing what I set out to do. Im getting into the wheelchair more often. I am getting dressed every day. I am figuring out how to work with where my body is now. I am starting to bringing my life back to normal. I am grateful that I have the aides helping me to complete many tasks that I still can’t do. I may never be able to do them again. I don’t know what I will or won’t recover. I don’t know how long it will take. My future is a big unknown. That is why accomplishing something like a workout program was so monumental to me. I missed how exercise, where I never loved doing it, made me feel mentally.

I needed to exercise daily for clarity. I never did it for the endorphins. I don’t think I ever got that endorphin high. I honestly never loved exercise. Although I was faithful to doing it six days a week. I loved completing a hard exercise program that it was just me and nothing else. It was MY time. It was my space. I didn’t answer the phone. I didn’t talk to anyone in the house, or at least tried not to talk. Exercise became the place I escaped from the world. It had nothing to do with liking exercise, it became me time.

That is what I missed. Figuring out how to actually workout in my bed felt great. I was getting that me time I missed. I had my favorite music on loud. I haven’t listened to my music since the end of December. I was lost in myself and the world. The sweat, calories burned and heart rate are bonuses. I felt like I was doing more activities of my normal life. That was a celebratory thing.