Author: Jen Rios

So yesterday, Phil asked me how I have been feeling as he was stretching me.  I was happy to report that despite the weather (AND I AM SICK OF THIS WEATHER!!!  iT’S KILLING ME!!!), my legs have been feeling the most normal that they have felt in since I can’t remember when.  I was excited to tell Phil this news but then I needed to add, “except in the morning.  I feel bad in the morning!”  He continued to stretch me out at the Keiser machine and then told me to head over to the table.  He moved the table away from the wall again so he could get on both sides.  He told me to dangle my feet off of my bed in the morning as I dangled my feet over the side of the table.  I told him that they don’t want to dangle in the morning and he told me “but they can” and pointed to my legs and feet.  I told him that they FEEL normal and he told me that they LOOK normal.

Driving home, I heard my “Sean and Phil” song TWICE!  It ended and I changed the radio station and heard it again.  I don’t know that yesterday was “the best day of my life,” but it’s coming!  “I feel it in my soul!”

This morning, I woke up and turned my first alarm off.  I didn’t want to get out from under my warm covers!  I turned the second on off and reluctantly threw my covers back.  Man, it was SO cold!!!  My legs were all curled up and it took a minute to get them untangled from each other and over the side of my bed.  My “poop” leg knew what to do and it just dangled there.  My left leg needed some coaxing to “just relax.”  It started to and then I had to get up because otherwise I would be SUPER late.  I guess tomorrow morning I just have to “suck it up” and get out from under the covers earlier.  As I was driving to work, my legs did begin to normalize as I began to thaw from going from the house to the car.  Even now, as I write this, they are normalizing and that’s exciting!

I woke up yesterday morning at like 2 o’clock and my legs were hurting so badly! I refused to get out of bed and sit in my chair (makes me feel better sometimes) because I still had some time left to sleep until I had to get up to for work. I was miserable from 2 o’clock on. I told Phil about it when I got to Barwis.  I told him that throughout the workday my legs started feeling better.

I didn’t have students yesterday so I just was getting work done that I needed to get done so it was quiet. He stretched my legs out and they started to feel even better.  My colleague at work asked me if the pain was a “good” pain or a “bad’ pain that I woke up with. I had to think about it. I wasn’t sure. My legs have never awakened me because of being in pain like that but maybe it was a good thing because I was feeling something. Phil told me maybe it was because it was SO cold! I am SO sick of this weather!

Then he stopped stretching me for a bit and my legs remained slightly spread apart and my feet were pointed straight ahead. I felt blood flowing through my legs and feet and I told Phil that my legs feel “normal.”

That “normal” feeling remained with me the entire time we were working. I was able to get into my car by myself.  Phil grabbed my fist after we fist bumped and yelled “joystick” but I was okay with that. The “normal” feeling in my legs continued. My Mom called and she asked me and Sean to meet her and my uncle at a restaurant. On my way home, I was hoping to get the tears out of me that I felt were SO close. They didn’t come. I pull up into my driveway and beep for Sean to come out. The “normal” feeling remained with me throughout dinner. I was in the restroom after dinner that the tears finally started to come.  I was overwhelmed that this “normal” feeling still continued. I wiped my face and got Sean and got in the car to drive home. And the “normal” feeling was STILL with me. My legs felt good!

Sean reclined his seat and said he was going to sleep for a while as we drove home. So then the tears came. I would like to say that they were “strong, silent tears.” But they weren’t. I could feel the sobs originating in my belly and rattling my chest. I stifled them because my son was sleeping next to me.  I have been working SO hard at Barwis that of course this day would eventually come. But I guess I was not ready for it. I debated if I was going to go to bed or not because I knew I would wake up not feeling this way and I wanted to keep the “normal” feeling as long as I could. I remember my Dad telling a story about guys in the Army being on leave and having to go back to Vietnam. They would get really, really, really drunk and some would pass out before leaving and would have to be loaded onto the plane to go back. When they woke up the next day, they were back in Vietnam. They would cry.

I don’t want to be like them. I decided to go to bed with the knowledge that I would wake up feeling badly again.  I woke up at 3:35 a.m. and my knees hurt a little bit. I rolled onto my stomach to make them stop hurting.  I had that “normal” feeling in my legs for 10 hours. Wow! Even now, as I sit at my table and write this, the “normal” feeling has begun to return to my legs and my feet are straight forward. I thought I would be ready for this. I thought I prepared myself for this. Apparently not. I suppose I will be a “sissy, cry-face baby” like I was last night.  But I’m okay with that.

So I have been on Twitter since February 18 and I’m not going to lie – it’s kind of addicting and a little bit fun.  Based on people who follow me; I started following these 2 “people” Motivation&Success‏@MotSuccess and Book Quotes‏@BooksBestQuotes.  I get all kinds of quotes that I favorite and retweet to my followers.  It’s some good stuff!  But last night at my alleged “Walking Wednesday” #19 at Barwis, I was forced to LIVE these quotes.  If I was going to share them – it was necessary to BELIEVE in them in the face of adversity.

I didn’t even attempt to walk yesterday.  Phil grabbed my right leg and was aghast at how tight my calf was.  Being without brakes for just those 2 days, I tensed up my legs in an attempt to STOP my chair from moving when teaching on Monday and Tuesday.  Yesterday at work, I had to remind myself to engage my brakes because I HAD them now and to relax my legs.  My thighs hurt SO badly yesterday!  I told a colleague that,”Now I know how Suzanne Somers must have felt!”  She laughed.  It was true!  I remember that infomercial for Thighmaster.  Phil stretched me and told me to relax and I was re-harnessed.  I asked if we were going to try walking today and he asked, “How are you going to walk when you can’t even straighten  this leg?!” (He was talking about my “poop” leg).  Okay.  Grrr!  Defeat!  We stood with a harness and then did some single leg extensions on a machine I have not been on since my first day.

I have been favoriting and retweeting these GREAT quotes thinking that I really won’t need them.  Turns out I do.  I KNOW that walking WILL happen because I watched Chris yesterday WALKING out of the door at Barwis.

Retweeted by Jennifer Rios