HEALING - DAY 12 - 021407

First of all - You are ALL MY VALENTINES!

And Robbi is MY #1
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Everyday I experience little gains and then there is a new ache, or I am not able to breathe quite as easily as the day before...
With scleroderma, we learn that, what ever our abilities and/or limitations, we find a way to cope and work with this new limit. Then it becomes THE thing that we can do. It's not that we can't reach as far, or walk as long - it now becomes "This is as far as I'm going to go, so I can enjoy this journey.... so I can complete this task."

For this reason, many of us don't measure how we feel on a day to day basis. When my family and friends ask "How are you today?" I often answer, "I'm good... and I still have scleroderma." Often they laugh uncomfortably. Perhaps I've set them up for a bad joke. However, just like they can't know what I go through, and can't be faulted for their 'not knowing'; neither will I accept accountability for their feelings - whether embarrassed or not. It is what it is.

One difference I've noted over the 14 days since being in HEALING is that my tolerance for activity is on the upswing. Somedays it doesn't feel that way, but each of the last 4 days I've been walking with Robbi. We've increased the distance from a) the end of our driveway and back to b) the next door neighbor's driveway to c) the next driveway after that! Each increase in distance increased the totals by about 4-times. Then yesterday we walked all the way down to the end of our road - about 1/10 of a mile. On the way to the mailbox, at the end of the road, several neighbors drove in and stopped to talk. Not only didn't I talk (to save breaths) but I kept walking and left Robbi to speak for both of us. When I got the main road I STAMP MY FOOT DOWN HARD ON IT! This was a benchmark that I had set, without a specific timeline. Personally, I don't feel the need to set arbitrary dates, to meet challenges that will be forever increasing throughout my life. I look ahead, and as I approach what was once a horizon, I can already see a newer one.
I don't know who said it, except that my first boss used to quote it all the time: "Life is a progress, not a station."

So not only did I walk that distance but for the first ime, I didn't grasp and gasp for a chair when I arrived home. That was as wonderful a feeling as I've had. I was able to move around slowly and feel my heart rate come down to normal... just like a real person!

Oh, I forgot to mention - yesterday I stood up to take my shower >>> for the first time in more than 2 months. THAT was cool.

Today, the weather is "wintry in New England". Although it cold and windy, I'm planning to take a walk. I can be very careful, seeing that my pace is very slow and my steps are about 1 foot long. I'll just have to wrap up my face as the air is really hard on the lungs. Even the cat couldn't stand it today - although he's not so smart... he asked to go out and then scratched to come back in.... then a half hour later did the same thing! Now he's sleeping in some distant corner of the upstairs rooms... probably thinking that May might be a good time to go outside again.