Keeping Strong For Life

When you feel like you no longer need it is when you are preparing to need it more than ever.

Personal Experience

I’ve seen the effects of weakness first hand both as a nurse and in my personal life.

Situations like mine, after being in a coma for a month, are pretty much out of your hands. It happened suddenly, I was incapacitated and woke up weak and feeble.

But then there’s two other sides to it. Laziness and Age.

As a CICU nurse, it never ceased to bother me when older men would come in for open heart surgery, resist the therapy to get back on their feet, and then go home to sit around.

Approximately 3 days later, some of those patients would be back, sick and in the ICU because they refused to move and be active.

A Specific Case

One patient in particular said he just couldn’t bring himself to walk. He was miserable in the hospital after open heart surgery and just wouldn’t get up.

After a couple of days of this, his breathing was worse and he still just laid there, refusing to move and put in any effort.

Another nurse went in with me and we just put it as bluntly as we could.

“Sir… it’s up to you. But if you don’t get up and start moving, you’re going to die.”

His eyes got wide and he was skeptical but that was the only message we had to offer.

“It’s basically that simple, sir. If you don’t start moving, you’re most likely going to go home and die.”

He walked shortly after.

And occasionally, I still see him around and he tells my kids that story and says “Your daddy saved my life”

A Lifelong Commitment

Felicia and I watched as my father aged and my mother continued to serve him hand and foot.

We would often tell her “You’re spoiling him. He can’t even make a sandwich. What is he going to do if something happens to you first?”

Her reply was always “Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’m way healthier than him.”

She died a few years ago and my father collapsed in on himself. He gave up on life.

• He stopped paying his bills
• He (a diabetic) tried to live off of candy bars
• He refused the hospital’s offers for therapy
• Other than to eat, he wouldn’t go anywhere with anyone
• Sometimes… he even refused to bathe or clean himself up

We had to take over everything, managing his life while handling our own lives as well.

As his muscles wasted from refusal to try… “Why should I try? I don’t have anyone to impress.”… He moved slower and slower. Hunched further and further.

A cane was needed. Then a walker. Then a scooter. Anything besides trying to stay strong enough to walk independently.

Now, in his early 80s, when he gets any type of illness that drains him in the least bit, he is done.

• He struggles to drink
• He struggles to feed himself
• He cannot get up to use the bathroom
• He cannot get dressed or undressed

He is completely dependent on all of us to even stay alive until the illness passes and he starts to regain some strength.

And during that sickness and weakness, the promises start coming.

• I promise I’ll start walking more
• I’m going to do light exercise to get stronger
• I promise I’ll start eating healthier
• I’ll throw away all of the junk food

It doesn’t even make it a week past him being out of bed before tv and junk food become life again.

It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way

A man in his 80s may not have the goal of being a body builder.

He may not plan on running a marathon.

But a man in his 80s should be able to feed himself. Should be able to walk. Should be able to use the bathroom alone.

The danger is that, by the time you realize you’re too far gone for independence, its a real struggle to get it back.

He used to workout several times per week. He used to walk miles and miles for fun. But as life got easier, his hobbies shifted to lazier, easier things.

Age, by itself, is an excuse.

I watched my grandfather work into his 80s, swinging an axe and sledgehammer, working on cars and never complaining until the day he died.

The difference is, what are you willing to do today so that, in your later years, you’re not completely dependent on others?

A Segway Into A Great Program

I wouldn’t recommend 75 Hard to the elderly, although technically, all of them could do it and would benefit greatly from it.

But if you’re capable and have any hope of being more independent in your later years, now is the time to take action.

Now is the time to start…

Not when you’re so far gone that the struggle is 10x harder.

So, check out this next blog post of mine about the FREE program that is 75 Hard and get yourself started on your future self.

It’s coming whether you like it or not.

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Why 75 Hard?

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