I got to Barwis a bit early so I was able to watch Darren workout. Darren is a quadriplegic and he has been coming to Barwis for 2 weeks. I watched him get into a harness and get ready to do squats. Because he is quadriplegic, getting him ready to do squats was more involved for now. Once he is hooked up and ready, I saw him look up and smile that smile that was the SAME smile I had when I first did my squats.
Ok. So, maybe my smile was a little bit bigger (I have BIG teeth) but the sentiment was the SAME. He started doing squats and I was TOTALLY impressed! When he was finished with his first set and sat on the bench with the help of the intern whose name I STILL don’t know (but I dug his socks again yesterday). I just started clapping with tears welling in my eyes because I was SO impressed. He did two more sets and then they moved over by the mat. I stayed by the Keiser machine a watched a team of high schoolers work out. Because I saw a few of the boys who were wearing shirts (MOST of them were shirtless because of the warmth); I saw that they were football players.
I am NO stranger to sweaty, shirtless boys; I grew up with 4 older brothers who played football in high school and I’ve been coming to Barwis for almost a year. But, I MUST agree that the air was THICK with humidity!!!
Phil stretched me at the Keiser machine and I attempted to stand. Apparently, this humidity was doing a number on my body! I hand already told my wrists to get “their sh** together” again this morning but that wasn’t what was hurting me. Phil told me to go over to the table and he stretched me some more. After he stretched me at the table, we headed back over to the Keiser machine. Phil brought over a half popcorn ball thing and placed it on my head as I was lining my wheelchair and myself up to the bar. He came around to the other side of the bar as I slid it off it off of my head. It was the PURPLE one!!! He found it! I wish I could say that I had a better showing because I had the PURPLE one but that wasn’t the case. I only got 3 HARD FOUGHT FOR stands but I have learned that SOMETHING is better than NOTHING. Little by little… Phil fist bumped me and shook my fist and yelled, “Joystick!” But I was too tired to fight it off. Nick took me out to my car. NOT a GREAT day to have MS but I’ve seen worse and I KNOW I will in the future but I did what I could.