50th Birthday – 200 Push-ups

Dear Friends:

I had a great relationship with my neurologist. He was a great doctor who diagnosed me quickly and treated my GBS with a high degree of skill, but he was also a super motivator. When I had one of my last consultations with him, I asked him what long term effects of GBS I would have to deal with. One of the things he said was that I would probably experience some residual weakness. He said that I would probably never be able to do 150 push-ups, no matter how hard I tried and that when I was 50 years old, I probably would not be able to do even 50 push-ups.

I smiled at him when he said this and he gave me a wink. On the way out the door, he said, “About that push-up thing, I would be very disappointed if you didn’t prove me wrong.”

“Prove you wrong?” I asked, “Hell, I’m going to do 200 push-ups on my 50th birthday and I am going to e-mail you and let you know about it!”

He said, “Good! Sometimes I worry about telling people what they can’t do because they actually take it to heart instead of seeing it as a challenge.”

Well, that was five and a half years ago. I started doing push-ups as soon as I had recovered enough. At first I couldn’t do even one. I had to stand next to a wall, lean forwards about 7 or 8 inches and just use my arms to push myself upright. After a year, I could lean on the third step up on a flight of stairs and do 25 push-ups. From there, I just worked every day at doing one more or moving to a lower step.

Today, after I got home from work, I did 205 decent push-ups. A friend of mine who is a fireman made sure they were ‘legal’ push-ups, whatever that means. 205 was all I could do. No matter how hard I tried, there wasn’t a 206th push-up in me. I was really tired and rubber armed afterwards but nothing felt better than to beat a seven and a half year challenge!

And today I also sent an e-mail to my neurologist. I didn’t rub it in that he underestimated me. I thanked him for estimating my will and resolve to prove him wrong correctly. He truly is a great doctor.

Thanks for reading this. I hope I didn’t sound all braggy.

Lee