Now You've Done It!

There are five stages of grief. They are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In the last two months I have gone full circle and have decided to settle on my all time favorite. Anger. I've been told that when you're sick, you disassociate the problem from your body so that you have something to focus on. It's the mother of all defense mechanisms and boy does it work! Cancer patients hate the cancer not themselves. Heart patients hate their hearts. I absolutely need it to stay alive and my heart absolutely isn't cooperating with me. For the past two months it has done everything it can to make my recovery road just a teeny bit harder. I'm doing my part and my heart isn't pulling it's weight. The battle lines have been drawn with my body on both sides.

Anger is a good thing. It's a huge motivator. All you have to do is turn on the television to hear a story of a double amputee that gold medals at the special Olympics, a breast cancer survivor running a marathon, or a spinal injury victim learning how to swim. All of these people have the same thing in common. An absolute refusal to listen to their body's restrictions. Well my nose is out of joint now to. There is nothing in my life now that I hate more then heart disease. I fear it, I'm disgusted by it, and I absolutely refuse to let it dictate my life. I WILL stop my heart's progression with heart disease and keep it at bay. I will run in that 5k because I just don't understand why I can't. This "nonsense" picked the wrong girl to mess with. This is a fight I'm going to win. Sorry, but when you're angry enough to see red, losing isn't an option.

If diet and exercise will halt my heart's attitude I'll show you the mother of all training programs. Every weight training session that turns my muscles to lava, every apple I eat instead of a Snickers, every sweat soaked shirt is a punch in the face of heart disease. Every push up, sit up, and chin up is fueled by pure hate. Thousands of people (many in worse shape then me) have pressed on and held on and I will follow in their footsteps. I will always have heart disease but it doesn't have to have me.