Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- The Urban Fringe
She was fairly active. She was a regular gym goer, cycled good miles at weekends with me. She did more than 95% of the population and kept herself trim enough to breeze through the older, and much more stringent, police fitness test.
Sadly the first MS symptom was losing her sight in one eye overnight. When the other started to fail a few days latwr the medicos hammered her with massive doses of steroids, 30 times that which they would use for other conditions. It saved her vision in the remaining good eye, but she went from 10 to 21 stone, and that alone made exercise very difficult for a 5'4" woman. It also left her with T2 diabetes as the cost of retaining some vision.
The sarcoidosis is linked to the MS and may or may not be transient - some sufferers recover in two or three years - and makes exercise difficult because the condition reduces lung capacity. I sold two of her regular cycles- she wouldn't let me sell her road bike, it sits there unused- and bought her an ebike, which she has been using under my supervision.
She has worked hard to reduce her weight, being really strict with her diet and walking as much as she is able, and over several years has got her weight back down to 10.5 stones, close to where she started. The lessons learned along the way have helped me lose weight too, 56lbs down since March, so I'm in the shape required to care for her as her illness progresses.
Sadly it will progress, and ever weakening limbs is making walking difficult, although she still walks using her sticks when she can. She's very much of the use it or lose it mindset. Some days she has no choice but to use the wheelchair though. Its relentless, but the current scientific understanding of the illness indicates she has done nothing untoward to contribute towards it. She didn't smoke, barely drank, exercised, kept an eye on her weight, taking more care of herself than 95% of the population borhter to. Indeed, it may be the case that her underlying health and fitness were such that the illness may have manifested itself later and less intensely than it otherwise would have done - its a life limiting illness and a lot of sufferers have dropped off their perch in the 16 years since she became symptomatic.
Your point is worthy of consideration. She would dearly love to be riding a proper bike or go for a jog and it narks her that healthy people who could do so instead choose to fritter away their health on processed food and too much tv.
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