Meeting Goals!

This blog is at least a week overdue. That's probably good. I do have a case of Facebook plague, the disease that strikes Facebook users and causes them to think that their life is far more interesting and important than it really is.

By the way, I am trying to make myself discoverer of the disease with the right to name it. I posted on Facebook so that I had a time stamp for my discovery. I'm probably not first, but I'm at least going to see if I am. If you have any suggestions for a name for that disease, which strikes bloggers like myself as well, please post it in the comments.

Okay, now for the real reason for this blog:

***I RAN A HALF MILE STRAIGHT AFTER A HALF-HOUR GAME OF SOCCER!!!***

Are there any other emphases I can add besides caps, underlines, bold, italics, and asterisks, which are just bold duplicated anyway?

I'm going to be honest with you. I was so happy I cried. I was planning on shouting in victory when I reached a half mile, but I just cried instead. I guess that half mile was a deeper goal than I realized.

Somehow, a quarter mile just doesn't seem like much distance. A half mile, even though it's not much, either, is like a real run, a real effort. My mind says I could run a quarter mile even if I was sick, but a half mile? That means I'm getting better. It means I'm improving and getting stronger.

I also got up out of my chair with one leg, the other leg stretched out in front of me. Have you ever tried that? For those of you in good shape, it's very easy. For those of us who are older or who are or used to be sick, it's not so easy. In fact, when I got out of the hospital, I couldn't get up out of a chair with two legs. I had to lean forward and let my upper body weight help raise my hips off the chair, then press on my knees with my hands to get up.

I can only do it with my left leg, which I thought was my weak leg, but I guess it's not.

Meeting Goals

I've set all sorts of goals since I left the hospital one year and five days ago. I have met, uh ... let's see ... counting ... zero of them.

All my previous goals had time frames on them. Run a 5K by July ... 2012, that is. Very funny. In July I was lucky to run without falling down on my face. I did run and fall on my face twice, in front of witnesses. I did it once trying to play a game of softball and once trying to play a game of soccer. It scared everyone because back then I weighed about 135 pounds and I was losing weight because I still couldn't eat right. (That's 6 months after transplant for those that are going through it and want to know other people's time frames.)

Somehow, back in December (2012), when I realized that I was actually going to be healthy enough to do real exercise, I set a goal in my mind to achieve a real jog. I didn't set a time frame on it, but my subconscious must have decided that a half-mile straight was a real jog. I think I documented when I ran a half of a quarter mile, about 200 yards, on this blog. That was a few weeks ago. Then I ran a quarter mile a week later. A week later I ran for 4 minutes, downhill. I don't know how far it was, but even at my slow jogging pace, that's more than a quarter mile.

Last week, I managed to run a quarter mile and a half. It was very hard. My thighs got tired, and my legs were wobbling enough that I was a little worried about stumbling and falling down. My calves hurt and were starting to go numb a little bit. I could have pressed the half mile, but I was scared of overdoing it and causing a blood clot, which is what I think happened back in October. That blood clot, which literally crippled me for six weeks, was my last major setback.

My Training Program

Some of you who have to come back from nothing may try a program prescribed by your hospital. I didn't like my hospital's program. Here's what I've been doing:

• Walk at least a mile every day. Two is better, and that is the most I shoot for right now. Usually I pull this off about five days per week. If the young warehouse workers will let me play at work, I play soccer on a small field during lunch instead of walking. (I have one goal and a couple assists!)
• Kick box the punching bag we have out back at the warehouse or practice kicks at home. 5 minutes if I walked or 10 minutes if I didn't. Close to every day I do this.
• Run some during the walk. Don't overdo the running, but never do a whole walk without running some.
• Weightlifting: Bent over rows, 3 sets; Upright rows, 2 sets; Military presses, 3 sets; twice a week
• push-ups: Whenever I think about it, up to 2 or 3 times a day, three or four times a week, as many or almost as many as I can do.
• Try and do one pull-up whenever I find a bar to try on. I just got to where I can move up at all.
• Crunches and leg lifts: Whenever I think about it, one set of leg lifts till it hurts mildl, then one set of crunches until it hurts mildly.
• Stretches: pretty comprehensive stretching after walks and whenever I'm bored. I know something about stretching and joint protection, and I am carefully keeping my joints working to the best of my ability. No more setbacks that I can prevent!

Name for Facebook Plague

I mentioned wanting a name for the disease I'm trying to be the discoverer of, in which FB users and bloggers begin to think their life is more interesting and important than it really is. A friend suggested IBS, Individuals Broadcasting Self-Obsessiveness. I didn't like that too much, but I did like the idea of having an acronym. Most psychological disorders have an acronym, like OCD.

My current best idea is FBI: Facebook Idiocentricity