Same Story Different Wednesday

Getting to the gym on Wednesday has always been the barometer for how I’m doing mentally. I know Uzor starts praying for me if I slip down to one time a week or miss a week altogether.

He’s so relieved when I show up on a Friday after missing a week and two days. Someone in the gym will spot me coming in and shout, “Yo Ryan!” and I’ll hear Uzor say, “Oh, thank you Jesus!”

Getting to the gym on a Wednesday is an early sign I’m in a good place. The true indicator of positive change is when I start stringing them together.

Maybe the most discouraging part of my SCI is the muscle atrophy. Everyone comes preprogrammed with a resting muscle mass. Some lucky guys, like my brother-in-law, don’t need to workout and just look like lumberjacks.

My resting muscle mass is paralyzed. I lose gains frustratingly fast. It’s devastating.

Imagine clawing your way up the side of Gains Mountain. For years, hand over hand, slowly climbing, up, up, up. You’re finally on the ledge you’ve been climbing to, just resting in the achievement, taking it all in, and the ledge breaks.

The first time I experienced this was right after graduating from ASU. School provided daily structure and access to the Student Recreation Center (SRC).

There was a trainer at the SRC just for students with disabilities. He programmed, encouraged and cussed a blue streak, which made it fun and easy to show up and get a good workout. Basically the same setup I have right now.

My last semester at ASU, three years post-accident, I was in the best shape of my disabled life. I was getting around easily without any mobility aids.

After graduating, I got a job sitting in a cubicle 40 hours a week. Within six months, I started walking with a cane and have been ever since.

It was honestly soul-crushing. I wondered, Why work so hard and spend so much time on this stupid body? You would never choose a colander to fetch water from the well. That’s what it felt like, spending so much time trying to get stronger.

There were a bunch of years where I didn’t work out at all. Those were hard and painful years.

Around the time my son, Lucky, was born, I recognized the problem. I wasn’t doing myself or my family any favors by ignoring my body.

As I started back to the gym, it dawned on me: You’re never going to get in real good shape unless you’re training for something. This has proved to be one of my most effective workout hacks.

This past summer, I really wanted to be in better shape for waterskiing and wake-surfing, but that wasn’t specific enough to motivate me.

To achieve my general goal to be more athletic all summer, I set a specific goal to kayak through Horseshoe Bend on the Colorado River the first weekend in October. About a 12-mile paddle. I worked hard all summer, and the trip was AAWSome!

With those goals achieved and two months in the rearview, I have been less consistent and yet again, Ilost much of my summer gains. Picking the next big adventure to train for will need to be added as part of this project.

After Monday’s workout, I stopped at Bosa Donuts for a ham, cheese, jalapeño croissant and a Boston cream donut, $6.06. Today I went to Ahwatukee’s new Randy’s Donut shop for the same order, $7.49.

Bosa is my winner on price and taste. I think Randy just about burns his donuts, but I guess way-overdone is what you want when you’re from LA.

I got to Mom’s house around noon. She was in her chair working on getting her makeup on. I was happy to see her up and at ’em because of her adventure in real life the night before.

She started crying as I sat down. She was fatigued and having a hard time getting the beds made for her siblings’ visit. The pullout beds needed fresh sheets. The job was started, but she’d needed a break, and getting it finished was overwhelming her.

I’m always reminding her that what she is experiencing is okay and normal. I told her, “You did so much yesterday. It’s normal to be tired after all that.”

I assured her that her family was coming to help. If they got here and heard about how hard she worked to get the rooms ready, they would say, “I wish you hadn’t gone to the trouble,” and they would mean it.

She has always been a very generous host. She loves taking good care of people. She has very high expectations for herself that she is still trying to meet, even though it’s hard and it hurts.

Inspired by me, she wants to keep moving so she doesn’t shrivel up. “I’m going to keep getting up and doing it. That’s what you did. You’ve been through hell and you didn’t give up.”

I told her I was proud of her. I reminded her that she too has been through hell with all the chemo and radiation over the past few years.

So sweetly, she said, “You are proud of me?”
“Of course I’m proud of you, Mom. Everyone is proud of you.”

She was excited to see her family but didn’t like thinking they were coming to say goodbye.

I told her, “Everyone is coming to see you because they love you and want you to live, but we’re all afraid of how much we’re going to miss you if you do die. Since you are alive now, they want to come see you now.”

I reminded her how I drove to Grandpa’s deathbed three or four times before it took. I wasn’t upset that Grandpa didn’t follow through with what he’d started and kick off just because I made the drive to Florida. I was stoked to spend one night by his side in the hospital and two nights with Aimee in the beachfront bungalow he wasn’t using.

Later, when he finally did die, I had great memories and good stories about my road trips to Grandpa’s not deathbeds.

I helped her understand what everyone is hoping for. Your family wants nothing more than for this trip to be another memory and story to be told later when you are healthy and in remission.

I feel like we’re living on extra time. She very nearly died a couple of years ago but managed to squeak by. The recent bad news was jarring. It made me take serious stock of the situation.

We only have a limited amount of time to spend with each other. Pretending like that isn’t reality will only result in squandering the most precious and scarce resource there is: time with Mom.

She told me that she is scared to die, she doesn’t want to die and she doesn’t want to have to think about dying.

Then we talked about our friend who got caught by the desert this summer. It was a sad shock to everyone who knew her. Perhaps one blessing for our friend, who is now in heaven, is that she didn’t have to spend a long time thinking and worrying about dying.

I’m burdened with grief for the years of pain and sickness Mom has been through. I’m sorry she has to go through the mental and spiritual anguish of pondering passing away.

But I’m really glad that I get to spend this time thinking and talking about it with her. We have cried together, held each other, and laughed. I’ve had opportunities to ask questions about being young and hear her stories about growing up.

We are all hoping Mom will live, but if she doesn’t, I want to soak up every opportunity I have left. We already have a better relationship after spending all this time having meaningful emotional conversations that we have never had before.

That was Wednesday 12/4/24

A whole week has gone by since we had that conversation. Uncle Corwin, Aunt Stacey, Auntie Jenny, and Uncle Ed have come and gone. It was such a great week with everyone around, laughing and telling stories.

I got Gram to tell my kids my all-time favorite and easily most famous family fart story which I will happily and with permission recount for you.

Gram taught kindergarten at the Episcopal church school. One day, she opened a door to the fellowship annex, accidentally disrupting a meeting of the bishops. Head down, she ripped ass as the room of men turned toward the opening door. Seeing the room full of men, she said, “Excuse me,” and shut the door. As far as fart jokes go, it’s perfection.

Today was almost a cut and paste from last Wednesday: Uzor, Bosa, Mom’s hard day.

Last night, they all went to see Michael W. Smith’s Christmas Classic cash grab at Grady Gammage and absolutely loved it. This morning, Jenny and Ed went home to WA.

She started crying as I sat down to check in with her. She said it had been a hard day but didn’t know why she was so fatigued. I had her tell me all about the concert, and we rehashed the week with her mom, sister, and brother. We cried together, laughed together, and she “felt refreshed” from our time together.

She goes into the radiologist tomorrow to get measured to create the guides for consistent, accurate blasting. If the pain in her hip and leg goes away or gets diminished, this treatment will have been a success. Like everything else with cancer, we’ll wait and see.