A fresh perspective
Let me backtrack for a second… Last Friday a group of CFD peeps went out for breakfast after the Friday WOD. Fun times! Kinda funny too cause they restaurant offered us a good-sized wrap around booth, but didn’t expect us to keep filtering in to the tune of 12 people. It was cozy! Like, tuck your elbows in and eat like a T-Rex kind of deal. Haha! There IS a point to this story, I promise 😉 I was sardined in between KT and AM and somehow the conversation of school and “what are you doing for your thesis?” Came up. Yes, school. I live in a city with 2 major universities. A huge percentage of my crossfit buds are a good 10 years younger than me, but everyone gets along very well regardless. So… AM answered the question. The positive effect resistance training can provide for Multiple Sclerosis. That’s not a direct quote, but you get the idea. Anyways, I sat there stunned for a moment… Then half stuttered “seriously??” I think I got a “would I lie?” look and conversation continued. Anyways, we got to talking a little later and I shared the connection. AM was shocked! Said she had NO idea and never would have guessed. 🙂 In my books, that’s a win! I’m doing something right! But what an incredible opportunity this presented. I was more than willing to share my story, especially if it was of any use to AM’s school work, and I figured I could learn a little as well.
Fast forward to today – we arranged to grab a coffee after the WOD and chat. I’m trying not to ramble excessively but I find this kind of stuff fascinating! Since learning about me, AM has been watching me more closely. How I lift, whip myself with the rope, ya know… just function. “I hope that’s not creepy!” She mentioned after telling me that. Haha! The thing is, I’m coming up to 10 years since diagnosis this March. I’ve quite literally “grown up” (22-32 is still growing up. You never stop…) with this disease. To hear someone acknowledge things that I do or things that I struggle with as being traits of my disease can be very interesting. “Your struggles with double unders make perfect sense. You will get there, just need to realize it could take you a while.” She mentioned. The next question I didn’t expect. “Do you also have trouble with the snatch? That’s another highly technical one.” Umm… unless you’re new here, you KNOW that’s the case! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to change my self-competitive ways and start leaning on this as an excuse for my struggles. But I am going to try to not beat myself up over what I’ve considered failures in the past. I need to accept that it could take longer to pick up on certain things, but that doesn’t mean all hope is lost.
We got in to lots of other really interesting stuff, but I’ll change gears for now. I have a few little experiments to do which I will share at a later date. I truly DO believe in the benefits of physical activity. One of the many big wins in my books – I’m a week away from the heading to the Dominican with my mom again. When we went 2 years ago, second day of the trip I was running and just fell. I used to do that a LOT. Now two years later, my balance and coordination are soooo much better! I mean, I’ve now completed more than 300 laps around the track without even a slight stumble. Hopefully the day will come where modern medicine offers more support towards educating their patients on the powers of fitness and nutrition rather than just focusing on writing a prescription.