So very glad my back is getting better!

Since January 1, 2006, I have had terrible back pain for 3 weeks. So, I did very little exercising or therapies for those 3 weeks. I could not even sit to type very long or even practice my handwriting! Needless to say, my typing (E-mails and my BLOG) and my writing (my Spanish and French) suffered too. I took my tree and decorations down in my bedroom after Orthodox Christmas as our tradition to my father's Ukrainian upbringing with a brother's help. (I have a very large bedroom in my sister's house - also serves as my private living room too when they are home from their work travels. Once a month, she and her husband come for 3 days - I guess I am their "house sitter" and baby sit their two dogs too - HA HA ) I did not even "put back together" my bedroom as usual after Christmas - no cleaning or rearranging. Finally the week of January 22, 2006, I improved enough to only do the stationary bike every day for 2 miles. I felt so useless and lazy those previous 3 weeks. I have not been used to lying around for the past 4 years. The first 2 years of my bout with PML really limited me and now I enjoy my independence. I hate when I am unable to do my daily exercise and therapy routine and my daily house chores like dusting, etc. I get very listless and edgy I was anxious to restart my daily routines, because I really was feeling "unhealthy" by not doing these things. Since I began my 2 miles on the bike and my back fared no worse. I felt better since I felt like I accomplished something, anything. My attitude also improved. So, the week of January 29, 2006, I started 3 miles on my bike every day and my arm and finger exercises. Last weekend, I also rearranged and cleaned my room finally. YEAH

This week, I had planned and did 4 miles on my bike and start basic standing exercises on the parallel bars to start getting back to my routine and my hobbies.

So, now my back is feeling much better and I have begun to use my short-lived free time to keep myself busy. I have begun reorganizing all my CDs and DVDs into storage binders. It will free up a lot of space on my media shelves. I plan to use them more for all the books I have read over the past 3 years. It has been fun going through the CDs and DVDs and reminiscing as I try to categorize them. Listening to some of the CDs that I have not heard in ages brought back many forgotten memories. Revamping my media shelves was brought on by having to buy new speakers and CD player.

My stereo was acting up for months. My CD player went belly up and my speaker were humming and crackling. I decided to buy a new CD player and speakers and started to save money just for that purpose. I got my new equipment and am so thrilled by the sound and the ability to play my CDs again. My old speakers were floor models from 1987 and when we took off the front panel, loads of black curly shavings fell to the floor. I guess they really had dry-rotted!! Anyway, I am enjoying my stereo again, but it has evoked many memories.

I listened to Disco from the 70s, Dance from the 80s and 90s, Salsa, and Country. I got sad when I thought about dancing at the clubs in Wilkes-Barre/ Scranton, Philadelphia and New Hope. I could not wait to go dancing back then. In NYC, I danced to all kinds of Dance music sometimes on top of the huge boxes set up as mini-stages on the floor at a famous night club. Remember twirling fans or a groovy fabric to be cool? I do - HA HA One of my lovers was Puerto Rican is a great Salsa and Meringue dancer, so he taught me and we would go to a Spanish club to dance. In my business, I traveled quite a bit to Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. So, in the late 90s, I became enamored of Country music and "cowboys." I fell madly in love with a very hunky and handsome Tex-Mex cowboy in Dallas. (He looks like Brad Paisley - that's why Brad's my favorite Country crooner now.) He loved to 2-step, square dance and every other country dance and liked me to dance with him. He taught me many dances, but any slow-dance with my "cowboy" to a Country ballad was my favorite dance. Sing. I loved to sing. I was good, but not near the range you would ever need to make it. American Idol I am not!

Enter PML (Progressive Multifocal Leucoencephalopathy) in November 1999. Well, if you do not know what it is - it caused by a virus (possibly) when/ if your T-cells go under 50. Mine were 10. I lost my coordination, balance, speech and fine motor skills when it hit me hard. Over the past 6 years, I work every day on all of them with determination to get all of it back some day. I now do all my daily routines from a wheelchair now. My near future goals are to walk again and get my driver's license back. Who knows? Dancing may follow. So, in my mind, I can imagine myself doing the Salsa, a 2-step or any of the dances from the clubs. And, hope for the day I can do all of it again.

A friend of mine near Philadelphia reminds me I will have to 2-step with him when I improve. I promised him.

I went shopping at a craft store to get things for my Country Western paintings. I did 5 all together. All in multi mediums on vellum in black, white and shades of gray. I have re-matted all of them on denim. And I cut them out too, to focus on the persons in the paintings before I matted them. I think the denim definitely ties into the whole "Country" theme. I like them so much better now. I was going to include them as visual aids, but I will put them in a BLOG in a few weeks. My digital camera is acting up, so I am sending it to be fixed.

It does seem things are acting up or quitting on me a lot lately and some new projects beg for attention, but I just fix, re-do or take it easy until it is correct or back to normal. I hope everything gets on track for me, so I feel as if I am handling and enjoying my life again. Being unable to be active has given me far too much time to think and/ or wallow. I do not like being morose and am so glad to be on my very busy, very tight, but enjoyable daily routine.