Coming Back after Sickness or Injury…It’s Hard

There is no direct answer to this.  Injuries and illnesses are so different across the spectrum, as are things like age, weight, etc.  What I can shed some light on is when I started, why, and how.

When I was getting treated with the first line of chemotherapy, I was left with uncertain results.  Was the cancer gone?  Was it simply scar tissue showing up on the scan? There’s nothing to do but “wait and see.”  I certainly wasn’t healthy, but I couldn’t discern whether that was an effect of the chemo or cancer.   So, with no known answer here, I chose to start the comeback.

I was originally optimistic and started to go to a few workouts with my friend Tim.  I tried to do a few basic movements and body weight exercises and was super gassed, tired, and quite discouraged.  I cried in the gym, and it never got easier.  I knew I was not ok.  I didn’t think that I could just tear the roof off of the place but my struggle was obvious and I felt terrible.

Fast forward a few months, and my next scan revealed the cancer was not only still there, but had spread more aggressively than the first time.  It was all over my body.  It was no wonder I was so banged up in these early workouts, that I stopped altogether.   This was clearly my body telling me something was wrong and that maybe it was the wrong time to begin pushing it.

The next step was more intense chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant that would not knock me down but, more complicatedly, mandate that I stay away from other people for months afterward for fear of catching so much as the common cold.  This definitely meant no gyms.

From the first day in the transplant ward, they encouraged you to walk the halls and get moving.  This was embarrassingly difficult, and I needed to wear a helmet and use a walker because if I fell, I could bleed out in minutes.  They emphasized the need to move to speed up recovery, and I was all about getting out of the hospital as quickly as I could.  Then they send you home and tell you not to leave the house for 100+ days so that your immune system can be strengthened.

At this point, it was very easy to kick back and let complacency set it, and boy did I!  Video games, pizza, books, and naps were my life.  3 months after I left the hospital I again tried to start working out (if you could call it that), and let me tell you, no one prepared me for this!  I was already scared of feeling the way I felt the first time.  The anxiety of the possibility of me feeling the same way I felt when I worked out with Tim and having my mind spin to the possibility that my cancer was still not gone.

Not only was movement 10x more difficult, but I also had to face my mortality every time.  Not that I didnt have to face it daily, but the stress of exercise made me that much more cognizant of it.

Even to this day, I work out and gauge my health on my ability to complete workouts and how I feel.  It is like I get a “check-up” every day on the treadmill.

Exercise not only did not feel good, but it was downright terrifying.  I suppose it is a challenge for anyone to get back in shape after a long hiatus, but the fear of what unknown stuff was going on in my body at the same time, was palpable.   I was not at all prepared for this mental obstacle course that was ahead of me.  While the physical achievements are obvious in the photos, it was the mental and emotional fight, you cant see, that was the most difficult and most rewarding!

I was happy to be out of treatment and breathing, but on the other hand, there was just no way that I would ever be “in shape” again.  The best I could dream of was to look human again.  Maybe just enough to fool someone, if I was wearing a t-shirt,  that my body just hadn’t been to hell and back.

Hopefully, eventually, I could trick someone into wanting to be with me again. (I will get into my dating experience in a later post.  I learned a tremendous amount from being in both conditions over a relatively short period of time)

Scrolling through my phone most days I watched a Facebook friend who I didnt even know (Jan) exercise at home.  I figured if she could work out at home, I could try to do something here and I did.

My emotions on the way back to becoming “fit” ran all over the place.   I don’t think anyone can prepare you for that internal mental struggle.  Everyone from your family. to your friends. to the doctors are just so completely focused on you being alive, that no one even dares to think you are going to try to be healthy and fit too! Some days I felt guilty for expecting to be anything more than alive.

I mentioned before that there was one day I wanted to quit in the hospital, but when I started to work out, I wanted to quit EVERY SINGLE DAY! Only God knows why I kept pushing.

Tim stepped in again and told me to do something. Anything.  Even if it was just 3 push-ups a day, he held me accountable for those 3.  3 turned into 5, and eventually, 5 turned into 10, and I could walk a mile. Some days this seemed harder than the chemotherapy, and every day took everything I had to be grateful that I was moving at all.  (Gratitude was much harder than I can describe)

I spent about 20% of the workouts in my living room in tears.  Even as I type this, I get choked up remembering it.  Using vinyl weights that I will never get rid of and that I still keep in my living room as a constant reminder of where I was.

It was the hardest and most pathetic time in my life.  You might think being sick was harder, but then I was on so many drugs and in and out of sleep I lost track of much.  My frailty, however,  was all in the light of full consciousness.  I was so far gone, that even imagining that I would look like this now never dared cross my mind.

At that time I had no idea what was actually happening was the birth of the toughest version of Mike Maley to date.  Every notion of what I previously thought was tough or hard went out of the window.  Now I was in it.  Here is where you get busy living or get busy dying.  Where I was once embarrassed by my tears, I still can now occasionally be seen shamelessly crying in the gym after big lifts.  Very few people witnessed those first workouts, and  I had to hide most of them from my kids. Only those few will know where I was and all the heartache that had to happen between then and now.

I share this so that you know how embarrassingly difficult and hard this was for me, and no matter what you are trying to overcome, you might feel shame and depression, but you still must keep pushing forward.  There is a light at the end of every tunnel.