Feeling Good, Feeling Bad

I went to the park two days ago and walked while holding a water bottle in each hand. While walking, I did arm lifts and arm circles holding the bottles as weights. If I waned a drink, I made sure I drank roughly equal amounts from each bottle. Yesterday I felt great. The problem I have had in my muscles since 2014 is “being worked out” by exercising.  No one ever suggested exercising to me as a solution. In fact, it was semi discouraged by the pervasive message to “not let anyone tell you to just exercise.”  (In other words, go to a psychiatrist and therapist instead.)  

I found this meme message that resonated with me. “Do a rep for every lie you believed.”  It’s powerful. It’s really about rising above whatever situation you find yourself in after believing a multitude of lies. Scroll down to hear about my latest client at work. 

This is so true:  There’s so much “don’t exercise” mentality out there, and I’m trying to unlearn all of it. 

Gift card boss put me with a brand new client. What this client didn’t tell her was that she left skilled nursing against medical advice.  She has a fractured hip and shoulder. Her fall happened at church during a service for Holy Week. So it was VERY recent. I cannot turn her in bed to change, bathe or dress her. I have to do so by pushing things under her and pushing hard on the mattress. This itself is a workout. Plus, her husband is the literal king of Weaponized Incompetence. I had to show him how to start a wash machine and dishwasher. 

She really likes to talk to me and has said a couple times that I’m a good listener. They like me and are asking for me to come back. But I REALLY need my days off, which are today and tomorrow. If I don’t get my days off, I’m going to completely fall apart. Gift card boss took me off of the schedule of the bedridden 89 year old that I was working with to put me with this lady. The good news is that by the time I go back Friday, she will have been evaluated by a home health nurse. I need advice from an RN on this one. I’ve only cared for people who have had weeks to months to recover from fractures. Hers are so recent that she reminds me of the princess and the pea. 

And she won’t take pain meds! 

But on to how I feel. The exercise has really helped the problem in my muscles that I can’t describe. My arms and legs are feeling gooooooodddd!!!  But there’s fatigue that comes with it. Some of it maybe caregiver fatigue. Some may be that I’m working out about five days a week without really knowing how. I have not puked from dehydration any more than that one time. I know I need to rest to make it work, but I also don’t want to excessively rest to the point where I’m back into a sedentary lifestyle.