Progress Not Perfection

A friend of mine posted something on Facebook today that kind of slapped me in the face:

Those who see me every day or every week know my struggles for the last four months but If you saw me walking around today you’d never know I suffer from osteoarthritis. I don’t limp anymore, I’m somewhat active, and I’m working hard to get back to where I was in October.

It takes an average of 3 years, and 5 doctors, for a person to get a proper diagnosis of an autoimmune disease. I just wish more people understood what an autoimmune disease is. It is not a cold or the flu, you may never get better, and even a nap will not help. Just eating a salad and hitting the gym won’t slim your face or get the pounds off. At the other end...eating well & exercise won't help to gain weight or build muscle back; Sleeping 10 hours doesn’t leave you well rested, ever! Achy joints and bones, dry skin, breaking hair, mood swings, and depression are just the tip of the iceberg. You are also prone to having multiple autoimmune diseases.

Please, in honor of someone who is fighting Lyme Disease, Osteoarthritis, Neuropathy, Sjogren's, Scleroderma, Hashimoto Disease, Ankylosing Spondylitis, Fibromyalgia, Lupus, Sarcoidosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Hepatitis, Raynauld's Syndrome, Celiac, Crohn’s, Thyroid Diseases, Scoliosis, Spinal Stenosis, Degenerative Bone, (Osteoporosis) Ulcerative Colitis, Pemphigus, SPS, MS, PBC, Psoriatic Arthritis, POTS or CIDP, copy and paste to your page and reply "DONE" on mine.

The first paragraph is mine, the rest is what she had posted. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I have an autoimmune disease. I have been so focused on getting back on track that I haven’t really faced what knocked me off of the track in the first place.

I have an autoimmune disease.

It got  me thinking, though. I have come so far since that awful day in November that started this whole disaster. Today I am going to focus on my progress, and forgive the imperfections.

When I turned in for the night tonight, it was rough going up the stairs. It’s always harder at the end of the day, and honestly, I avoid the stairs all day if I can. When I first injured my knee, I had to scoot up the stairs on my butt. I’ll take the struggle over the scoot any day.

Last weekend I finished a 10k. I could only run the first half of it, and I walked the rest. Four months ago I wasn’t allowed to walk around the house without crutches.

On Valentine’s Day, the hubs planned a whole night around the same basic neighborhood in Charlotte. We parked the car and walked all around that area all night. It was a lot of walking, and I was wearing heeled boots. Remember those crutches?

I’m a running coach, and in the past I’ve coached from a bike when I was injured. For the first two months I couldn’t even do that. Yesterday I rode 8 miles while my group ran.

I’m a yoga teacher. When I first injured myself I couldn’t demonstrate a lot of poses. I still have really crappy balance, but now I can at least demonstrate the pose, even if I can’t hold it as long as I’d like.

I love me some carbs. This is not a secret. One doesn’t run as much as I do and stay chubby on a clean diet. I have been focusing on eating an anti-inflammatory diet to help with my osteoarthritis. Did I have ice cream cake for dessert tonight? Yes I did. But everything I ate all day was super healthy and carb free.

Progress. Not perfection. I’m getting there.

My current goal is to be able to complete a half marathon this July. It’s called the Scream and it’s a mostly downhill race on mostly dirt road. I will start that race and I will finish that race.

Tonight I joined a StepBet challenge for the first time in months. I am finally in a place where I can walk 8-10,000 steps a day without having a swollen knee at the end of it.

Progress. Not perfection.

It really is the little things, and those little things are going to get me back on track, and they will help me learn to work with my osteoarthritis. Please notice that I didn’t say that I would beat it. This disease is forever. I just have to learn to work through it.