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🏃‍♂️ Day-to-Day Living and Surviving With the Disease

What is life like now?

Whether or not we want to admit it, we need to take the time to grieve for our old bodies and our past abilities. I’m not trying to be a "Debbie Downer" or to imply our lives now suck. In fact, I’m saying the exact opposite: say goodbye to the old way of doing things, and embrace the new.

Yes, we are slower and generally weaker than before, but that doesn’t mean we stop living! I focus on every single new thing my body enables me to do today that it couldn't do yesterday, and that is what keeps me going.

I am not the hippy dippy type and not the type to say, "Just keep a positive attitude and everything is going to be perfectly fine." NO! Some days I wake up and say, "SCREW YOU, DM. Today absolutely sucks. Everything hurts... even breathing hurts.".

I am allowed to have those days. I am entitled to those days. But it just can’t become our perpetual mindset. Those days just have to get fewer and further apart. It's exactly like nutrition: Garbage In, Garbage Out. Negativity In, Negativity Out. Grieve, dust yourself off, and move forward!

🧱 Applying the Positivity to the Muscle

When I was at ground zero, shuffling like a toddler, dealing with severe muscle atrophy, and struggling to lift a 2-pound dumbbell. I had to completely reframe how I looked at progress.

Because this disease makes everything so tight and weak, consistency becomes your only weapon. I had to fight for every single second of mobility and strength. Day by week, month by month, I stuck to the most basic routines just to keep my limbs moving.

As the medications finally got my systemic inflammation under control, I realized that practical positivity meant celebrating the tiny increments. It meant recognizing that a fraction of an inch closer to touching my toes, or a dead hang that lasted five seconds longer, was a massive victory against a disease that wanted to freeze my joints completely.

The 10-pound kettlebells and sandbags I can lift today didn't happen because of an overnight miracle; they happened because I celebrated the 2-pound wins first.

🤍 Give Yourself Permission to Grieve, Give Yourself Grace

I know I might sound like a broken record, but there will be days you feel like you took one step forward and five steps back. When those days happen, you have to give yourself permission to grieve, and you have to give yourself grace.

It is okay if you are slower and weaker today than you were yesterday. Look at the bigger picture: you are still doing infinitely better than where you were at absolute rock bottom.

Please never expect overnight miracles. Take it one single day at a time, focus entirely on the functional strength that gives you your independence back, and you will get through it.

FIND YOUR PATH AND FORGE FORWARD! WE CAN'T LET THIS WIN!!!