During our Cape Escape vacation, we were blessed to meet a woman using a wheelchair at the pool. We struck up a conversation after we watched her beautiful and graceful strokes carrying her through the water without using her legs. She had remarkable upper body strength and transferred herself from the wheelchair to the pool. She shared with us how 5 years ago she had a benign tumor removed from her spinal cord. It was pressing on a nerve and when they removed it, she became paralyzed from the waist down. She said that her neurologist gives her a lot of hope with all of the advances in recovery from spinal cord injuries. I shared my story with her.
As Tom and I were out on our 5K run yesterday, I felt a sense of gratitude surge through me. While I am always grateful for the miracle of healing that I've been able to co-create in my life, there was a deep connection to the awareness of how truly blessed I am!
As my foot struck the asphalt, I felt a connection to the Divine and gratitude well up from deep within me.
Eleven years ago I was told to be prepared to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. I was using a wheelchair at times for mobility to conserve energy. The admonition I received from the Post-Polio Clinic Team was, if you use it you will lose it. Yes you read that right. The thinking was that because so many nerve cells were damaged as a result of the initial polio virus, that with the "normal process of aging" they would die off at an even faster rate. I needed to preserve what functioning was left to try to stabilize the progression where it was when I was diagnosed in December of 2006.I was weak. I needed a leg brace and a cane. I had difficulty swallowing and breathing. I had to eat a semi soft diet, do a chin tuck and a dry swallow to avoid aspirating my food. I woke up tired regardless of how much sleep I got. I knew it was time to leave my award winning VA career and took a leap of faith not knowing what my future held for me. I had only one goal: to heal my life even though I had no idea of what that meant.
In the midst of a flurry of appointments with doctors, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, brace clinic and facing a grim diagnosis and future, I got still and asked for Divine Guidance. In an answer to my prayers, I penned the poem, "Running the Race." My heart and soul opened; poems poured out of me inspiring my healing mind, body and soul. By February of 2008, I told my personal trainer that I wanted to run the 2009 Boston Marathon as part of my next health and fitness goals!
Every step I am able to take is a gift. While I have in my mind's eye that some day I would love to run a 12 minute mile, I am very content when I can get my pace below an 18 minute mile for now.
Every run is a gift especially when I get to spend time on the roads with Tom.
There are many who take the gift of running for granted; who don't even pause to think about what a gift it is to have one's health and be able to run. I am so grateful for the gifts of childhood paralytic polio and trauma because I have this deep connection to Source and an overwhelming sense of gratitude being tuned into even the simplest of pleasures like the gift of my feet hitting the pavement!
From my heart to yours,
To your health and wellness,
Mary
My healing journey is going to be featured in David R. Hamilton's soon to be released book, "How The Mind Can Heal the Body."
Be sure to visit my website by following this link.
My books are available on Amazon.
Feel the Heal: An Anthology of Poems to Heal Your Life
Coming Home: A Memoir of Healing Hope and Possibility that chronicles the first 7 years of my healing journey:
Going the Distance: The Power of Endurance (With a Foreword by Jacqueline Hansen):
Coming soon *** The Adventures of Runnergirl 1953 ****
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