I turn seventy in a few weeks, but I’m stronger today than I was before my 2019 illness. People have asked about my exercise routine.
So, here it is. In addition walking Kumba about 45 minutes a day, I do a daily, one-hour workout that includes cardio and strength training, and I usually hit around 10,000 steps in total. Because of the year-round summer of South Florida, I have the good fortune of a community outdoor pool to enjoy (with The Mermaids!), an enclosed lanai in which to do my strength training and stretching.
- Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays: swim and/or water exercise with http://www.waterexercisecoach.com.
- Tuesdays and Thursdays: 2-3 mile jog, weights, and stretching.
- Saturdays: 2 mile jog, stretching, and Tai Chi.
- Sundays: rest (walk Kumba 45 minutes).
- And I have recently added a 20 minute stationary bicycle stint after lunch and dinner, part of my commitment to turning around pre-diabetes.
The longer answer is that this routine has evolved over the past five years as I recovered my body’s abilities after ICU-induced weakness. Here’s a look back.
June 2019, Amsterdam, olvg hospital
One morning in June 2019, I came to my senses in an Amsterdam ICU (in OLVG Hospital) where I had laid for four weeks fighting to stay alive after suffering a ruptured celiac artery aneurysm on a cruise.
I now know that the mortality rate for such events is 40 percent. But that day, the only thing on my mind was how little my arms and legs looked under the hospital sheet. ”This is great,” I thought. “I can fit into my wedding dress!” As a lifetimer on Weight Watchers, I felt that I had grabbed the brass ring.
My immediate next thought was, “But I can’t move.” I was on my side, my arms and legs folded, and that’s the position I would stay in until my two nurses, working together, turned me the other way. The muscles I developed as a fitness instructor had been sacrificed to keep my body alive. In fact, I now know that, had I not been Super Woman, I might not have made it out of the ICU. Your body consumes itself. That’s muscle atrophy.
So, here I was, completely dependent on others.
That morning in June 2019 I began to work on getting my body back.
At first, It might not have looked like much: OT staff took on the challenge of re-awakening my jaw, my tongue, my throat, which had laid inert for weeks while I was fed by a tube. Physiotherapists helped me work my fingers, strapped me into a bed cycle that moved my legs for me, and strung me up like a puppet from the ceiling in a Jolly Jumper for infirm grownups. My daughter oversaw my very slow biceps exercises.
It was both hysterical and excruciating.
And the ICU nurses impressed on me that I would need to be able to push the call button when I was released to a recovery unit, where I’d no longer have nursing staff dedicated to just me. I worked on pushing that damned button, scared to death to be leaving the sanctuary of the ICU.
July 2019, Amsterdam, olvg hospital
I was rolled out of the ICU in July to an OLVG recovery unit to recover more of my strength so I could get on an airplane and fly home to Florida.
I had so little core strength that the first time I stood up, my firecracker of a physio hugged me tight and we rocked back and forth as if we were at a junior high dance. When another trainer dropped me to the floor, it was both excruciating and hysterical. And then, I walked on my own.
I walked myself right onto the plane home.
and then…
After one final week in Florida’s Shands Hospital, I was a free woman. I graduated from outpatient PT on Halloween wearing our daughter’s graduation robe and was then on my own for whatever came next. And here’s the thing: PT was over, but my rehabilitation had only just begun.
The next month, I walked up the steps to my daughter’s third floor apartment. I swam a lap in December, pulling my arm free of the water. When Kumba arrived in February, we began walking under the clear blue skies of Florida winter. We speeded up. Pretty soon, I was jogging and Kumba was trotting. I pulled out my daughter’s free weights and worked on my upper body. And it was all core in deep water vertical suspended classes.
I followed the advice of a rehab doctor in Amsterdam. He said to set my own goals, put my head down, and one day I would look up to see how far I’d come. At every point, I set the next goal. And the next. And the next.
I will move every day until the day I can’t…and then, you can bet I’ll pivot and keep on keeping on!