Not Giving Up

I have had a rough week.  I went to a real estate sales rally last week and in 36 hours my legs gained 22 pounds of fluid (I would guess about 7 pounds in my left and 15 pounds in my right). Driving there and sitting through the speeches and then an extended drive home due to a snowstorm caused my legs to swell almost to the breaking point. To make matters worst my right leg did not go down in size at all this week. My left one seems to be back to normal, I mean normal for me, not normal for a normal person.  🙂

At one point in my life this issue would probably have made me stop doing everything and spend my time laying on the couch with my legs elevated and watching TV and feeling sorry for myself and everyone would have understood, especially if they saw my legs. I really felt like giving up. It would be so easy. No one would blame me…

…But that is not what I did. Instead, I continued to go to work. I went to meetings, I showed houses (even traipsing (Is that a Newfie word? Maybe, but you know what I mean) through the unploughed driveway of a vacant house after a snowstorm to show it to a client), did internet advertising, wrote up flyers, etc.  I also continued to go to the gym. I was going to say that I probably didn’t get as good a workout as I normally do because I had to limit a few types of exercises but in reality I probably worked out harder because I still had to lift this  bigger/much heavier leg just as high as I always have and I am sure that made a few muscles work a lot harder.

I am not giving up!!! I love my job and I love the gym (never thought that I would ever say that   🙂   ) and I love having a life where lymphedema is not holding me back (except for shoes…lymphedema does keep me from having nice shoes).