I Bought a Zoo!

I bought a zoo.  Well, really I didn’t.  I joined a gym. But I bought a zoo sounds so much more exciting.

I bravely went up to the gym that opened just up the road from where I live, paid my joining fee ($9) and agreed to the $10.95 per week for usage of the whole gym 7 days per week.  Even for a non-gym person, how great is that?  $47 a month for using every machine and access to every class.
I digress.

I have joined a gym once in my life.  It was Contours in Mortdale (they have since moved) – a woman’s only circuit gym.  I hated it from day 1.  I hated everything about it.  For a girl who spent most of her early life playing sport, since I broke my hips at age 15 (long story) I have a lack of confidence about my legs holding me up sometimes (again, long story, but when I hip breaks, you collapse quite spectacularly) and this affects my coordination.  Once I am comfortable with a “move” it is not a problem but the first few times trying to master something can be challenging.

Anyway back to my story.  I was completing a circuit when it was time to do some move or rather and I hadn’t done it before.  The instructor yells out to the whole circuit “new girl up the back, can tell, she can’t keep up”.  I was freaking mortified.  I left, mid circuit and never went back.  I never gave them that feedback – hopefully one day someone will show them this blog and they understand why they only had me for 3 weeks (by the way, a circuit gym is rubbish – just rubbish).

Forgive me getting off track.  Again.

Bottom line is I am 42 years old and I was petrified of joining a gym.  I thought it would be full of beautiful people all preening and pomping around.  I was wrong, thankfully.  The majority of people I see every day are just like me.  Phew.

A 5.30am start is not ideal in winter but you know what, I don’t hate it. I will stick this out, finish what is set out to do (lose weight) and who knows, will probably continue to attend that gym.
Thanks Crunch Fitness – you may have taken your sweet time opening but I appreciate it!

 

 

Moving Mountains..

If you have reached this page and this particular blog entry, take the time to watch the follow up story titled “60 Minutes – Kristy Cruise Story” and then go to her blog page called “Moving Mountains” and read her story.

Moving Mountains - Kristy Cruise

60 Minutes - Kristy Cruise Story

Right – watched the clip?  Read her blog overview?  Good – read on. 

I  watched 60 Minutes last Sunday night and cried.  I cried a lot.  I cried those heart wrenching sobs that come from the heart, the ones you didn’t know were there.  I cried tears of joy for Kristy, tears of sadness for the people who would never have known about this procedure had it not of been for Kristy but who probably can’t afford it anyway and tears of despair for people like my mum, who technically doesn’t have MS (and this sounds terrible, but if she did it would be a lot simpler to get our government to help her) but Parkinson’s Disease – which, if you want to split hairs, is likened to MS sometimes (I digress with the part about my mum, but bear with me, there will be a link in a few paragraphs).

I feel my blood pressure rise just thinking about the fact in Moscow, Tel Aviv and Chicago RIGHT NOW there are amazing doctors who are conducting stem cell transplants (HSCT) on 100’s of MS sufferers with such positive results and yet the Australian government says “NO”.  Guess there is too much money to be lost by the pharmaceutical companies if we suddenly had an operation that may mean you don’t need to rely on so much medication if you do have MS.

I’m angry – even 2 days after watching this story I am still damn angry.  What exacerbates this anger is I wonder how many other amazing doctors are using break through surgery to help people suffering from other diseases – such as Parkinson’s Disease (link to my mum).

I know there are no guarantees this would work.  I know there are risks surrounding it.  But I also know that you may as well have an option because you chose to not because the government won’t allow it.

I think I will still be mad in a week.

 

#KristyCruise #MovingMountains #MS