Rehab at the Ann Arbor Y begins

I continue to get stronger every day, and have now begun physical rehab at the YMCA in Ann Arbor. Monday was the start of the program, but it was mostly filling out paperwork and orientation. Today was the first day of exercise and fitness testing. It felt great to be exercising again, and I did much better than I expected. That is not to say that I don't have a long road to recovery, I do, but my stamina was much better than I expected.

The fitness testing involved some relatively simple exercises, or at least they would have been simple 7 months ago. They involved exercises that tested my balance, strength, and quickness of feet. I completed all of them just fine, but I definitely could feel it in my muscles and lungs. We then spent time on the cardio machines, and I spent 22 minutes on the elliptical machine, and 10 minutes on another cardio machine. This was much longer than I expected. I used to work out on a very similar elliptical machine at the Trenton Athletic Club prior to cancer. The difference is that now I am working at a much lower resistance setting, but I will get there. It just felt great to be on the machine and feel like I knew what I was doing.

The first week I was home it was tiring to walk to the mailbox, and when I tried to run to get out of the rain, I felt like I did not have the muscle coordination to run. Now, I am up to walking nearly a mile in our neighborhood, and after today I know that I have regained the muscle coordination to run. I am still going to take it slow, but it is very encouraging to see the progress I have made in just a few weeks of walking and gradually increasing daily activities.

I also had another blood draw today while I was in Ann Arbor. My blood counts are getting back to normal. My WBC's are still a little low, but they continue to creep up and are very close to normal. My Hemoglobin is back to normal and my platelets look good. The body is truly amazing. I told the nurse before my blood draw that the numbers would be better today, because I could just feel that I was improving each day. It is hard to explain; I just have an increased awareness of how I feel since the completion of treatment, and I can tell each day that my body is getting better. On Monday I will find out if I am correct.

We will head down to Indianapolis on Sunday for my one month follow-up with Dr. Einhorn on Monday. I will have my HCG checked again at that time and hopefully find out that is normal. As good as I feel, I have to remind myself that I have not beaten this yet. If my numbers are good on Monday, I will be well on my way.

I hope you are all doing well. Megan and Ethan celebrated "birthdays" this week. Megan's birthday was Monday, and Ethan turned nine months on Tuesday. We celebrated with a trip to the Toledo Zoo on Sunday. Ethan slept through most of the zoo, and although he seemed to enjoy watching all of the people more than the animals, he did get excited about the aquarium and a Tiger that came right up to the front of his enclosure. It was a fun day.