Our Fibromyalgia Blog Book

Kenzie's Right

         Kenzie had told me a couple times in the past that with Fibro the more you exert yourself physically, the more you hurt later. Last night I proved the truth of her statement all over again.
         Tiffany and I went bowling. We bowled 16 games. By the end of the 15th or start of the 16th game, I was almost - but not quite - walking up to the line, not running, then putting all the force I could muster behind the ball using just my arm. Momentum was out of the question.
         By the time we got home afterward (roughly 25 minutes after the last game, after we'd turned in her shoes, paid for the games and driven home), there wasn't a part of me that didn't hurt. My back, my knees, my arms, my legs. All of it.
         I walked up the front walk from the driveway like a 90-year-old man might do. Short strides that looked like every one of them took all the effort I had. Because they did. And, for those of you old enough to remember the TV series "The Real McCoys", which starred the late Walter Brennan as the grandfather, Amos, here's another visual for you on my condition. Amos did this with every step he took, but I did it only going UP steps. One built into the front walkway, and the other from that walk to the porch. Each time I stepped up to that next step, my motion was EXACTLY like grandpa Amos McCoy: step up with the right foot, and as the pressure is applied to that foot my left arm bent at the elbow and my left shoulder raised up as I took the step. I was going up a step using the same limp that Amos McCoy walked with in every step he took.
         I realized that right after the first of the two single steps had been conquered. And I grinned. The memory of the fun of that series kept me from feeling like I was aging before my time and reminded me of Kenzie's comment about the "down side" of excercise when you have fibro.
         Even walking to the bed later last night, and climbing INTO the bed hurt like crazy. But, thank the Lord, I didn't feel much if any of that pain when I got up this morning. I figured it would be even worse after having a few hours to make the muscles stiff, and all that. But thanks to Him, I lucked out.
         I shared a bit of a revelation with Kenzie before we crashed last night. I had told her before going bowling that the exercise I got doing that, much like the deep knee bends I need to do about every 2-3 hours when we travel, helps my knees; takes the pain away for that 2 hours or so. But I've noticed, too, that after reaching a certain level of exercise, Kenzie's fibro premise kicks in, and I hurt MORE, not less. I'd love to have a way to figure out wherre the cutoff point is: the point where the benefits of the excercise taking the pain AWAY from my knees, and my body is suddenly replaced by things getting MORE painful, forcing me to stop the exercise.
         I have noticed, too, that another true fact of fibro rears its ugly head at those moments of "transition": the fact that the added pain saps your energy even faster. That's why I was walking like the 90-year-old man, and taking steps like Amos McCoy when I got home. It was the best mobility I had at the time; the ONLY mobility I had at the time.
         I don't think Tiffany and I will be bowling 16 games again any time soon. Maybe 5.
         There was an upside to all this pain, however. I had my highest, or at least second-highest score since she and I started bowling a little over a year ago (137), and she did better last night that she had in a long time, even beating me the first game. That was a big morale booster for her after a few outings in the past when she got so frustrated with gutter balls that she wanted to resort to the using the bumpers. Last night she didn't need them. So, we both had a bright side to the experience. We'll have to see what next time brings.