PMR/GCA UK and AFAR

[cycli]

Patience is central to getting on well.

The opposite leads to a new phase of hell.

Saying it's easy, as most of you know.

Making it happen means changing the show.

When pushing ahead was all that I knew,

the switch into neutral's a hard thing to do.

Envelope stretching is fun when you're fit.

Do the same now and you're taking a hit.

Knowing ones limits is ever so safe.

It holds the best back and how it does chafe.

Most of my life has been pushing the limit

Never a once did I look for a remit.

Obstacles never presented an issue.

I broke through them all just like tearing a tissue.

Autoimmune disease hit me so hard.

Instead of a mile I'd just manage a yard.

We trust in the medics for help on the way.

Some of them fail and they lead us astray.

You'd think they'd know better, it's hard to believe

that experts are lacking the means to relieve.

The comrades in arms I have found on this site

provide the help needed whether daytime or night.

So thank you ambassadors and staff I do praise.

I hope we're all clear of it one of these days.

[Charlie1boy]

You’ve been going mad these last few days or so, but this is one of your best yet.

Well done.

Paddy

[cycli in reply to Charlie1boy]

Thanks Charlie1boy. The truth is that I have been forced to understand my motives for doing what I have and being who I am as a result of this disease. I do have the ability to understand where I am and express this in rhyming doggerel. To be as fit as I was took effort and a level of selfishness which detracted from some tasks which I put off thinking I would have time to get them done. More fool me. Now I feel I've let my wife down as she is still waiting for me to complete the barn renovation for her weaving studio. If I'd finished it before taking off on various wonderful cycling tours It would have been finished. Getting back to cycling is important, but finishing what I started is far more important.

[Charlie1boy in reply to cycli]

I can understand how you feel. For almost all my life I was partaking in physical exercise, and couldn’t believe I had suddenly been afflicted by this condition (pmr) of which I had never heard.

I guess we all cope with it in different ways, and, if writing poetry, like you do, helps to cope, then that is great, and it expresses feelings that a lot of us experience.

Hope springs eternal though, and, if you have read of what Skinny Johnny has achieved post pmr, then you will realise that finishing the barn conversion may not be an impossibility - nor cycling again.

You know, however, that patience will be required, and, at three(?) years in, you may have to wait a bit longer taking it easy.

Good luck

Paddy

[cycli in reply to Charlie1boy]

thanks Paddy. I've met S.J. some time ago. Sadly I've not been as quick as he was to get over this. I appreciate the thought.

[diana1998]

Brilliant poem. Good luck..

[Mfaepink1973]

Brilliant cycli, thanks

[Almostaweed]

Hi Cycli thanks for your heartfelt poem and thanks to those who so faithfully and expertly help us on this website.

Key lines for me:

"Envelope stretching is fun when you're fit. Do the same now and you're taking a hit."

It helps to see this put into words by you. Good luck with the barn renovation. I hope it will be a healing project.

[cycli in reply to Almostaweed]

In time maybe.

[Bcol]

Just to echo Charlie1boy's words.

[cycli in reply to Bcol]

thanks Bcol

[Nextoneplease]

brilliant cycli - so true 👏👏👏

[sidra1968]

I like the "you're taking the hit". I helped run an estate sale and just sitting in one of those camping type chairs has really made my glutes and leg hurt, which is new areas for me. I wasn't even sitting for any long length of time, as I was up and down a lot. Seems that was all it took.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to sidra1968]

Had you been practising squats before sitting in what was probably a lowish seat?

[sidra1968 in reply to PMRpro]

It was a lowish seat, the fold up camping chairs. Probably DOMS, but it's been 2 weeks now. It isn't excruciating, but definitely painful when those muscles are used and a new pain for me. You'd think I did 4 straight hours of Buns of Steel It's more on the left side, which is odd to me , since it's not my dominant side.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to sidra1968]

"You'd think I did 4 straight hours of Buns of Steel" - as a healthy person with non-PMR abused muscles??? You don't fit that any more. PMR means a whole new criterion. It is easier to develop DOMS and having done so, it takes much much longer for it to resolve. That's what we warn about again and again. We know it sounds daft - but it is what happens. What healed in a couple of days before can take a couple of weeks now. And if you are really unlucky and really overdo it, it can take months.

[Macas]

I loved the envelope stretching, thank youx