Gym Class.....

Babygirl and I went to the gym together yesterday. 

Given how craptastic her life has been for the past few months this was more than a small accomplishment.  Her mornings have been owned by pain and darkness, ruled by nausea. and managed by medication and sleep.  This past week she's had some day/night reversals, and suddenly she is waking up in the early morning, headache free.  It's not a long enough period of time to be able to call it a real trend, but it is nice to see her with the lights ON in the morning.

But I digress.

Babygirl gained quite a bit of weight after the kidney transplant.  This was multifactorial:  Prednisone prevents rejection but packs on the pounds.  Headaches lead to immobility which leads to muscle mass loss which in turn causes a decrease in metabolism.  And the new medication for her headaches has 'carbohydrate craving' as a potential side effect.  She isn't walking half a mile to and from school every day, or attending PE class three times a week.

Medication side effects are an interesting thing.  When you ask laypeople how likely any one person is to have a 'common' side effect of a drug they tend to answer with "Twenty to fifty percent" when the odds are usually less than five percent.  And people don't think in these terms:  You only get the side effects that YOU get - not all of the potential side effects listed on the paper.  I've been on prednisone for over a month at a time and lost weight (rare, very rare) and been on Depakote (Babygirl's new med) and had no weight effect at all (common enough).  But then, most people on anti-rejection medications don't have any increase in their migraines either.  Babygirl is just lucky like that.

So we have a battle to fight.  And few tools to fight with.  Trying to make Hubby's and my free time coincide with Babygirl's well time so that we can go to the gym with her is our New Year's hope. 

Yesterday was a great day.  We went to the gym, exercised for half an hour, and later went to the mall and walked.  She didn't get a headache until the end of the day, and she is up this morning already so the plan to try out the pool today will likely happen. 

If we can make this a regular occurrence and find a way to document it, I think the school will allow it to stand as part of her PE requirement, which would take off some of the homework pressure. 

So here I am, almost 57 years old, and attending freshman gym class.

But as Babygirl pointed out:  "This doesn't smell like the school locker room. At. All."  Ah, the bright side.

DeeDee