I have spent a good deal of time thinking about gratitude lately. Really I guess it all started this week on Tuesday with a simple email. The message was from a woman who sounded confident and strong, clear headed and not at all sick. It was a simple, short message that changed the way I felt all week, hopefully for longer than that!

In the email this woman told me that she had been diagnosed with a motor neuron disease, which was causing foot drop on one side. Her goal was to have help getting in as good of shape as possible, so that she will be able to have the best quality of life as she adjusts to the progression of the disease that she has just been diagnosed with. She was looking for a personal trainer to supplement her weekly sessions with a physical therapist, (which by the way is who gave her my information and suggested that she get a hold of me, thank you Laura). 

Of course as with any potential client with an issue that I have not worked with before I got busy doing research.
The exact diagnosis that was given her last month was that of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease" what is this exactly? Nothing quite as simple as foot drop sounds that is for sure! I'll let the ALS Association describe/explain exactly what this is.

"Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.

A-myo-trophic comes from the Greek language. "A" means no or negative. "Myo" refers to muscle, and "Trophic" means nourishment–"No muscle nourishment." When a muscle has no nourishment, it "atrophies" or wastes away. "Lateral" identifies the areas in a person's spinal cord where portions of the nerve cells that signal and control the muscles are located. As this area degenerates it leads to scarring or hardening ("sclerosis") in the region.

As motor neurons degenerate, they can no longer send impulses to the muscle fibers that normally result in muscle movement. Early symptoms of ALS often include increasing muscle weakness, especially involving the arms and legs, speech, swallowing or breathing. When muscles no longer receive the messages from the motor neurons that they require to function, the muscles begin to atrophy (become smaller). Limbs begin to look "thinner" as muscle tissue atrophies."

What a new challenge this will be, for both her and I. Together with a team of 10 health care providers we will be working as many days as possible to gently give her as much strength as possible for the months/years ahead.

What a different experience it was for me to discuss fat as stored energy with a person who is likely to need that stored energy to fall back on in the near future. How much easier is it to accept the fat vs. fit idea when one is faced with ones own mortality at an unexpected point in life? (I will add at this point that she is not obese whatsoever which would indeed in itself make life harder on her joints).
How frustrating is it to know that every bit of mobility lost will stay lost, there is no going back and trying to rehab what is gone with ALS. Once it is gone it is gone, period. This is not at all what I am used to in working with personal training clients.

I have had an amazing rewarding 18 months or so spending a lot of time focusing my research/reading on my stroke clients issues, and they have been having fabulous results! It has been and will continue to be such a rewarding experience with good happy results, and now here I begin another journey, one that will not have a happy ending but will certainly make one woman as strong as possible to face what the future holds for her and will absolutely play a role in shaping how I view everyday life from here on out.

In just a few short days I have consciously become aware of being grateful for the ease in which I can move my joints, pick my feet up off of the floor and walk, for the ability to swallow, breathe, touch, feel and of course for the ability to speak, for without that ability communication is much more difficult.

Being part of this journey is going to be a humbling experience for me, as you can see it already has made me think long and hard about even some seemingly simple but vital things.