Today Reminded Me Of A Big Reason Why I Work Out

I slept ok last night, but I am not sure my brain was ready to wake up when I did. It is much warmer and more humid today, continuing the pattern of most of this summer.

My legs still feel like absolute dead weight after the sled this weekend. I am sure that using the D-ball helped wear them out. They feel dead in the best of ways, though. For that reason I convinced myself to forgo on the squats today and do my deadlifts instead. I know it sounds crazy. I expected this week’s deadlifts to be maybe a failure anyway. And I want to be 100% with the squats after the hip stuff a few weeks ago. Deadlifts: I fail to get them off the ground. The big reason is I lack the confidence in my form, so I abort the reps too soon. I am fine with that. At this point I would much rather keep lifting lighter and be safe than fuck up my back.

The lighter sets of deadlifts, I have to say, felt great. The pulls felt nice and easy off the ground, and I felt like I had a deep focus. As they got heavier, of course, they felt a little more challenging, but even the working sets felt great. The 5 reps at 230 pounds felt pretty easy, as they should have. The three reps at 260 pounds felt surprisingly great as well..

The last AMRAP called for one or more reps at a fairly heavy 290 pounds for me. That is up in the ballpark of my one-rep max at this point, I think. I never got that off the ground. I didn’t feel like my body wanted to set up quite right, so I didn’t put a ton of effort into it. I was okay with it.

This morning while I was lifting, I was in a good mood about it. My brain was flying with a million thoughts going through it, but mostly good thoughts. Well, at least as good as they can be.

My mom bugged me for many years to get tested for multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2a. It runs in our family. I didn’t for numerous reasons. Finally, after my brother had it, I got tested, and sure enough, I had it. I had a lump on my neck. My thyroid had medullary thyroid cancer. To my knowledge, they got all of it even though it is known to spread early and microscopically.

I haven’t had follow-up appointments in many years because our medical system is a shitshow. Also, local doctors are incompetent at best, and many of them are liars just in it for the easy boomer money because so many people retire here. I am talking about stuff like doctors canceling appointments the day before because they no longer accept my insurance. Endocrinologist refusing to tell me numbers other than that they are good. I am hoping to actually get to an expert sometime in the not too distant future. I actually called but got disconnected, then life happened. A lot of life has happened over the past couple of years.

Back to the real story now. That’s the pre-story story that I make fun of my girlfriend for. Because of that and the potential for a pheochromocytoma, I decided to take my fitness seriously after I recovered from surgery. Thinking back, I started before surgery but not seriously yet, as I was waiting for cachemine tests and stuff like that.

I figured I wanted to do the best I could to keep my body as healthy as I could to deal with either the cancer if it ever comes back or the pheo stuff. I live with the assumption that the cancer is still there, but I also know I have relatives that we know have it or had it that lived pretty long, so I don’t sweat it too much.

This morning while doing my deadlifts, I kept thinking how grateful I am that I decided to start working out. Before all this, I would go on nice long hikes with a friend until she almost got us killed falling asleep driving deep in Virginia or West Virginia. I woke up to swerving towards the median that night. Never went on cache runs with her again.

An added bonus about my working out is it really, really helps me with my mental health. Depression is always somewhere in my mind. I fake it, but reality is there is a lot I miss out on in this world. That’s okay though. I have a wonderful relationship with my girlfriend that most people don’t experience at all.

I have a shit ton of anxiety too. That something that , I’ve had that since I was a baby. My mind has always raced about everything. Moving helps that so much! I remember getting yelled at to go to sleep when I was very young. The thing is, I was awake because of my mind simply never shuts down.

I don’t think I could ever put into words how grateful I am I started working out all those years ago. Next year will be 15 years since I was diagnosed. That wasn’t a pleasant experience in any way to sit here and wonder what the extent of the spread and all of those things was, but here I am all these years later. I live a much healthier life now. I love life more than most, but I started doing that back around 2000.

Now, after a rough couple of years of false starts and inconsistencies, I feel like I am getting back to the drive I used to have. I hope that drive gets back to where I was during the pandemic. The only side effects of my working out are being healthier both physically and mentally. Why would I not want to get back to that? You only get one shot at this life, so you may as well make the best of it.

I urge anyone who may stumble on this to find fitness activities that work for them. Do a mix of strength and cardio. It doesn’t have to be intense like I do. You’ll be so glad you started!

I think a lot of the reason this is on my mind is that I ordered a physical copy of the book “After the Diagnosis, Medullary Thyroid Cancer Memoirs.” I have the Kindle version and have read all the stories. One really vibes with me, and the author of that one will be entwined in my life now. That’s why I bought the physical copy. I have a strong hunch now of why we think so similarly. Buy the book and read it.

Music for today was Alice In Chains.