The Miracle We’ve All Been Waiting For…Kind of…

Let’s talk about exercise. (Anguished groans of despair emit from the gallery) Let’s have a show of hands from those of you who have been told that your condition is due to a lack of physical exertion, or that the cure to all of our ailments lies in the mantra of “no pain, no gain?”

Well, I’m here to tell you that exercise does work…up to a point. You see, after my diagnosis of diabetes, I decided to embark on a campaign of health and fitness that would have me bouncing around with glee and wild abandon, like a roller skating bint from a Tampax advert. I had become fed up with various doctors telling me countless times, that all I needed to do in order to be miraculously cleansed from the afflictions of my maladies was to exercise. I’m not sure if I took up the mantle of woman in charge of ‘Activity Requiring Serious Effort’, (ARSE) in order to prove them wrong or right but I needed to know once and for all, if exercising could legitimately be responsible for an overall improvement in both my physical and mental health.

Because of my limited movements, I started off with simple chair exercises. I raised an arm here, outstretched a leg there and soon I was doing the Hokey Pokey with no effort at all. After a few weeks, I moved on to Chair Pilates, which is exactly what it sounds like and soon enough, I found that I was not made of plywood and that my body could actually bend and flex. Being emboldened by my new found dexterity, I then decided to incorporate other methods of exercise into my daily routine, starting with low impact walking Tabata (short periods of extremely demanding activity which are alternated with shorter periods of rest) as well as low impact kickboxing.

But it wasn’t all punches and kicks and sweating so profusely that I often waterboarded myself. I had to change my diet too and that’s when I came face to face with my mortal enemy…kale. I childishly surmised that if I wanted to eat some leafy greens, I could go out and graze on the grass in my backyard like the moo cow that I am. My friend Madilyn had often espoused the goodness of kale and like any normal person would, I quickly came to the conclusion that she was indeed possessed by Satan. Of course she wasn’t and I admit defeatedly, that I and the leaf cabbage are now firm friends. Soon the weight was dropping off. I had gone down three dress sizes and felt better than I had done in years. I was still in pain, nothing was ever going to change that fact. After all, chronic pain is chronic but I could move about and was no longer bed bound. Gone was the bed frame which I used to hoist my meatsack off the mattress in the mornings. Gone was the use of the stairlift, as I trotted up and down the stairs like a cantering but slightly awkward show pony (I am that girl who trips going UP the stairs) and with flexibility came the realization that my dreams could possibly come true. That I COULD finally became a pole dancer, sliding down a greasy metal pole, legs akimbo and with a come hither look in my eyes.

And then it all stopped.

I got up at 6 am, like I did every morning and my body just didn’t work. Back came the stiffness. Back came the heaviness. Back came the nausea and the inability to even raise myself from my bed. Back came the wheelchair and the anxiety. The pain, which had never gone away, became even more crippling and it seemed like the last 8 months of well-being had never taken place. I still got up and I still exercised, pushing my body into a routine that I did every day but which now felt alien as my arms and legs failed to cooperate with each other. So now I’m in this kind of fitness limbo where my body will let me exercise but it wont allow me to do anything else. The highs of endorphins coursing through my veins, no longer lasts for the rest of the day. Twenty minutes after exercising, I am back to being unable to walk or stand for long periods of time, or dance around my room whilst tunelessly belting out K pop, leaving the cat and the Womb-Fruit, holding their ears and running for cover. The chronic fatigue which had been manageable, is now back with a vengeance, as is my low mood and I am left exhausted and feel at the point of when I was first diagnosed many moons ago.

The doctors have no explanation as to why I seem to have taken a step backwards. Why my body decided to no longer fight the fight and to be honest, it sucks. I had a glimpse of what it felt like to be “normal” again and I miss it. But no matter how hard I try, the joie de vivre of the last few months, seems to have alluded me forever. So, exercising when you’re chronically ill, does work…up to a point, well, for me at least. I’m sure that there are many people out there who have had some genuine successes and I feel both happy and a little envious for them. But at least I gave it my best shot. The only upside to all of this, is that I no longer have to hear the doctors telling me that all I need in order to get better, is to exercise.