I follow a blog, of a women battling breast cancer. I felt the need to share todays blog. Wednesday, December 31, 2014 I havent had anyone come right out and ask me this yet, but Im sure there are people (and I dont mean just here on Spark) that wonder, Why bother to exercise if you have a terminal illness? Just because you know your life is going to probably shorter than you expected is no reason to stop living. At this point with my cancer, I dont believe that exercise will extend my life, but it can make the quality of the time I have left better. Exercise can boost self-confidence. I admit that most days lately, I really have to push myself to do it, but I always feel a sense of accomplishment when I finish, even if its only 10-20 minutes. Even on my worst days when I cannot stay on my feet for long, if I exercise, I feel like I have at least done SOMETHING worthwhile and healthy. I also have never forgotten how hard I worked to lose 39 pounds when I joined Spark in 2006, or how it felt to reach my goal weight in 2007. Ive worked too hard to maintain that goal weight to let cancer take that away from me. Exercise can also improve sleeping and relieve stress, and as you can imagine, living with a terminal illness can cause a lot of stress! Exercise can also boost energy, something my cancer treatments have left me in short supply of. It can improve muscle strength, something I really need because most days, because of what the cancer has done to my body, my legs feel weak. But I am still walking, and I want to keep on walking under my own power, even if I have to use a cane at this time. Some with terminal illness end up losing too much weight; exercising using weights and resistance can help build muscles. Of course, I dont expect anyone to just take my word for all of this; if you have a terminal illness, whether you were all ready regularly exercising or not before your illness, you should ask your doctor about it first. And nobody is saying you have run a marathon or even work up a sweat; any type of movement can help. There are ways to work around disabilities; I am not able to walk for exercise, or be on my feet for long periods of time, but I have found resources and DVD workouts for chair exercise. This is also the time of year to reset my fitness minutes goals for 2015. For 2014, I had a goal set for 7500, and reached 8049. Ive really struggled with fatigue though the past 3 months, and didnt even get my 500 fitness minutes trophy in October or November; that is when I was dealing with severe anemia, and also with the sudden death of my mom. I still struggle with the fatigue because of the damage the chemo has done to my bone marrow and blood counts, and I am starting a medication to treat the symptoms of that very soon. For now, since I dont know when, or if, my energy levels will improve, Im setting my 2015 goal at a modest 6000 minutes, that averages out to 500 minutes per month. I will see how I feel a couple of months from now, if I am doing better, I will increase that goal. Here are the sources for the information I posted in my blog today: healthworkscollective.co m/melanie-bowen/25494/how- exercise-can-help-those-wh o-are-terminally-ill endoempowered/th e-health-benefits-of-exerc ise-for-people-with-chroni c-or-terminal-illnesses/
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 21:43:51 +0000
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