Celebrate movement!

Celebrate movement! I don't think we really appreciate something or someone until they are gone. For me, it is my back.

I inherited spinal arthritis and until the last few years, I have had no thought on the effect it had on my grandmother or my father until I started to feel the affects at the age of 38. My grandma broke her back at the age of 50 and I remember the back brace, the sleeping on the ground , her hunched back and the way she would manuever things around without really picking them up. I understand so much better now! My arthritis has caused some spinal stenosis or narrowing of the bones surrounding the spinal cord. I had to have some bones removed last week to relieve the pressure they had placed on my nerves causing leg pain and numbness. I put the surgery off because really, who wants to do that? But wow, what a difference! I woke up later that evening and commented to anyone who would listen that I could feel my feet! Now, it has been a trade-off. I am now prescribed to the BLT rule for the rest of my life---No Bending, No Lifting and No Twisting. See, I told you I finally understood my grandma's weird way of manuevering things. I have learned how to pick things up without really picking them up, I have a weird way of getting out of bed and out of a chair now, too. I didn't really appreciate the mechanics of our amazing backs because it was so automatic but now that I have to think before doing anything --our backs are incredible! Not only do they protect the nerves that run the rest of our body they are the starting point of all the movement our body does (and thus the saying "backbone")!

So, today, I celebrate movement! Yes, mine has been limited but guess what? There is still so much movement this body can do. I can walk, I can talk, I can hug, swim, sit, think, love and live!