Wednesday 9 August 2017

Bemoaning My Weakness

I hate the persistent, unsteadying shaking that goes on in my upper arms whenever I try to use them. It transcends the muscle weakness, causing continueal difficulties with almost everything I do. Of course the shaking is a sign of that self-same weakness. My muscles just can't provide endurance, notwithstanding any immediate show of strength.

It's like that in general for me. I may have a day where I am active. The following day, though, I pay for it. Yesterday I had Chris, Dianne and Anne over for Rack of Lamb. I got to be at around 11:00 PM. So today is a day of rest. I need this day to recover. Fortunately I have just that, an open day.

Tonight my daughter, Meaghan, arrives with her husband, Lewis, and her two children, Charlotte and Orson. Tomorrow, if all goes as planned, we will go to the Calgary Zoo. The next day, however, will have to be a day of rest for me. It's not like I wouldn't love to do something with them on Friday. I just know that the day at the zoo will wear me out; I will need to recover. If that goes well, then perhaps we will head up to Drumheller and the dinosaur museum on Saturday. They leave Sunday, which will give me another day of rest.

More and more it is becoming about what I can do, where my limitations are. It is about the weakness, about what I need to do to minimize it along with how I plan to recover from it. More and more I need to plan activities where I can get a break, things where resting, perhaps in the passenger seat, perhaps at a motel, perhaps just leaning back in my power wheelchair.

I truly am noticing the weakness increasingly each day. It is fast becoming the central issue in my life, the main feature of my physical limitations. I'm too weak to pick up things. I'm too weak to push my wheelchair over carpet. I'm too weak to sustain multiple days of activity. It's where I am these days.

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