Slow and Steady... Encouragement for the Slow Steps of Healing

Something that many people don't know (or that is often lost in the "messiness" of my Lyme story) is that I was hiking when I was bit by a tick and contracted Lyme. What some people may be surprised to learn is that getting back to hiking has been a goal these past eleven years.

Six years ago when I became unable to walk (due to Lyme) this seemed like an incredibly hopeless & far reaching dream. Each year as I have continued to slowly heal it was a learning process of how to do the simplest things (even walking to a different room) in an effort to regain strength without completely crashing (which happened a few times).

Three years ago I started the process of re-learning in a SLOW way how to incorporate exercise back into my fragile body. At first I could only do one minute & then had to rest for 30 minutes(true story). But by September 2015 I was able to walk some... until I did a 1 mile walk (which I foolishly tried) in October 2015 on the New England and Canada cruise.  Unfortunately this brought on a serious crash to my adrenals (and pushed them to failure), which was taxed even more by the placement of Nic the PICC.

So I started again...even more slowly this time. I started by doing tons of stretching in bed when I couldn't get out of it. It was ridiculously slow and many times I thought it would be impossible to walk, let alone see this dream happen. 

Fast forward to last summer (2017) and my goal was to be able to walk every day & I was able to do that!!

Then my summer goal this year was to get back into hiking (smaller hikes!) and some running. YES, I said running!!

One step at a time I have been adding this back and also working towards my goal of hiking. I did a "hike" last weekend and can't wait to continue to see this dream come to fruition. To think back to where things were six years ago and all of the slow steps that have brought me here reminds me that slow steady steps in every area of life add up to big things.

I know some of you are at those places I was years ago and I hope that sharing this part of my story is an encouragement to you. It may seem that your changes in the healing process are coming so slowly that you don't see how you will possibly continue healing. You can friend, you can & will. Start today with dreaming big goals and then making the practical steps to get there.