February 2025

It is winter here where I live.  I am pretty much confined to my room as wheelchairs and snow just don’t go well together.  I have been working on my exercise routine and increasing reps on my standard exercises and adding new things such as yoga poses and weights which I am using to increase my upper body strength.

I have been working out at a gym since I was 16 years old, when my mother signed me up so that she didn’t have to go on her own.  After I was married, my husband and I went faithfully twice a week and then worked out at home on my own.  When I moved to the farm in 2006 there were no gyms close by and just being on the farm was a workout.

Now that I am disabled and living life in a wheelchair I have come to realize how important keeping physically fit, especially having a strong upper body is.  Upper body strength is the mainstay of living in a wheelchair.  The ability to do transfers and be self-sufficient all depends on upper body strength.

I am now one year after my back surgery.  The time that I spent at Providence Health Care doing physiotherapy was the absolute best experience and it served to inspire me to get into doing my own physical therapy exercise routine when I got home.  The worst setback was the effects of the chemotherapy (Melfalin) that went along with my stem cell transplant, which resulted in about six months to get my immune system and physical body back to where it was prior to that experience.

Now I am in a much happier place.  My body has been responding very well to the exercise routine that I have created for myself.  I have increased the number of reps on many of my regular exercises and with the help of these three wonderful books I have added quite a number of additional exercises to help with flexibility, upper body strength, back and abdominals.  I have also added a yoga routine to my workout.  My annoying bloated belly is actually going down and becoming much firmer.

In pushing myself and trying to develop a more intense routine, I have strained my back a number of times, which means that I have to take it easy the next day or not do exercises at all.  It doesn’t take long for my back to come back, which to me means that my muscles are responding to the workouts.

I have been doing some standing exercises using my stationary walker and my wheelchair.  These are going well, but the progress is slow.  I am finding that my left side of my body is not as strong or as responsive as my right, but at least it is doing its best to keep up.

Kathryn