Doing What I Shouldn't

I found a third tick of the season walking steadily up the back of my hand onto my wrist this morning. That makes this something of a record season already and we have the whole summer ahead. I don't know where this guy hitched his ride. I hadn't gotten out in to the bushes yet. I had done my morning walk at Rockwood, but where I walk is not usually conducive of ticks. Anyway, I plucked him off and flushed him out of my life.

You know my walks are limited these days. The only good thing about that is I don't wear out my sneakers as quickly. Given the circumstances, maybe this pair will last me a lifetime. This morning I did go a bit further, I think. Doing more than I should.

The doctors want me to keep walking, but not to push myself. Walking is good, they say, but not much else. I am not to exert myself because of the fatigue factor. As your muscles deteriorate, you get fatigued easier and longer.

I was about to go out and do something else I shouldn't, trim off some bushes and trees in the back yard.  

I've actually been doing this over the last two weeks a little bit each day. I mowed the front yard, which is difficult for me because of its slopes and embankments, on Thursday and I mowed the backyard yesterday. If the back yard had been two feet wider I wouldn't have made it. Backyard is bigger, but easier that the front; at least for me, but I do run out of whatever doing it and then I can barely make it inside. Trimming all our surrounding jungle is a bit of a challenge, but as they say, it has to be done, even if the doctors say I shouldn't do it.

Some of me trimming I filmed. This was near the end. You can see some rubble of branches off on the left. I did along the fence row first.  Then I trimmed about the corner and started lopping off branches of this tree. That was nearly the end, too, as a branch came down upon me, knocked me off balance (and it doesn't take much to do that) and sent me stumbling backward, out of control, toward the bird bath. I tossed the limb loper off into the air as I went. Fortunately, I did not fall.

I'm really not good for long at the chores. The video is about 8 minutes long. With what I did before and the cleanup after I probably did a half hour. It was starting to get hot by then. To tell you how bad the fatigue factor gets, in that short of time, I could hardly keep to my feet and I was staggering about like a drunken sailor on shore leave.

What I don't know is whether these short bursts of energy are good for me or if they hasten the progression on the disease. But as I said, it has to be done.