Zoralei has struggled this week to make time to fit in her at home exercise program. An hour of exercise and a half hour of desensitization each day with church commitments, lots of homework, the normal day to day of showers/meals/chores, and then add trying to be a social teenager; it's a lot to try to make happen between the hours of 3:15 pm and 10 pm each evening. She missed a two days. On one particular afternoon, she had early outs from school and a friend was supposed to come over, but cancelled without telling Zoralei. They are planning a church event together so this was particularly stressful to Zoralei as things are now left undone. Zoralei spent the whole afternoon waiting on the friend and did not get her stuff done. Then she felt badly that she did not get it done and of course, we talked about putting first things first and her health is first.
Thereafter, she has been trying to be better, but she said it is a lot and when it is basketball practice on Tuesdays, that is fun because she is interacting with people. Other days not so much because she is trying to do these exercises she was taught at the hospital alone and it is not as motivating for her. I believe the trick is to find a sport or gym class or friend to exercise with that she enjoys. If she can do that, she will have a lot more fun with it. Of course, she still places limits: I do not like timed activities, only numbers of repetitions. I do not like going to the gym, because the elliptical does not offer variety like different kind of exercises do. Those kind of excuses are limiting and we are working to push past them and recognize that it is her attitude that will equal success. She recognizes them as success, but it is also important to find some way to exercise that is enjoyable as it will mean success in the long term when the pain is gone. With her still being in pain, there is a motivation to continue, but when the pain hopefully goes away, she will find it more difficult to sustain if she cannot find a way to love what she is doing.
The main motivator that she continues to use is to see how her muscles have really developed and using their improved changes as a gauge to measure her success. This is excellent I think since there still is pain so becoming pain free has not been the reward we have been hoping for.
One other thing I noticed is that after Wednesday when her friend did not come and Zoralei's life was on hold waiting for this friend, that she began complaining again about doing some of the things we asked. It was not as prevalent as it was before she went into the hospital and did not have any emotional outbreaks either, but there was this undertone whiny feeling. As soon as the disappointment and stress set in, Zoralei began to revert to some old ways of responding. I could see an immediate change at how her stress affected her ability to take care of herself by completing her exercises and her reactions to the outside stressors, and could see how if the trend continued then Zoralei's pain could become magnituded just because overall she was in a 'negative' focus on life.
Despite being a bit more whiny, Zoralei was easy to talk to about it and point it out to which has been a definite change since the program. She was not all defensive, admitting that she had noticed it too and was planning to work on it. She even talked to me about how upset she was that she was letting people down by not being able to get things done for this event as she committed too. She took the time to share those feelings and once she did, she was able to get back into doing her at home exercise program. A little complaining still existed, but she did not stagnate, choosing to move forward instead.
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