How an MPN Patient Resumes Exercise After Time-off from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

MPN Network Managers Summer and Jeff talk about Summer’s journey to resuming exercise after a shingles diagnosis.

Summer believes exercise is important and strongly helps with her myelofibrosis. She currently does a daily Zumba session and is working her way back up to 10,000 daily steps.

We would encourage you to continue and be as active as your disease allows you to be.

Want to connect with Jeff and Summer? Email them at question@powerfulpatient.org or text EMPOWER to (833)213-6657.

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Transcript:

Jeff:

Hi, I’m Jeff.

Summer:

Hi, I’m Summer.

Jeff:

And we’re your MPN Network Managers for the Patient Empowerment Network, here to talk to you about…

Summer:

Resuming activity after you’ve been laid up and haven’t been active for a while.

Jeff:

How many steps did you get, Summer?

Summer:

8,000. Only 2,000 more to go, so yay!

Jeff:

That’ll be great. Summer’s always been really an exercise addict. She really, truly, she’s tries to get 10,000 steps a day. She does Zoomba for an hour and she really tries to get a lot of exercise. She believes that’s really helped her with her myelofibrosis, but then something happened.

Summer:

Yeah, about the middle of June I got shingles even though I had the vaccine and shingles really made me exhausted. Really affects the nerves, it was horrible. So, I got really out of shape. I was just doing exercises laying down, mainly. So now that I am recovered, I’m trying to get back in shape.

Jeff:

And how are you doing that?

Summer:

Well I started out trying to do 30 minutes of Zoomba on my exercise tape, and that was only a couple of days ago, so I’ve gotten up to 50 minutes today. And I’m trying to get a total of 10,000 steps. When I get that goal, I’ll be back where I was before.

Jeff:

And how do…what are you working your way up to it, dear? What’s happening?

Summer:

Yeah, so many steps a day and today I got 8,000. But part of it, this helps your exercise a lot. I hadn’t been clothes shopping in those two months, so we went shopping today and I bought something to wear to a birthday party. So, that kind of renewed me and gave me energy to walk through the mall.

Jeff:

So how many steps did you get in the mall, do you think?

Summer:

I don’t know. I have now, like I said, I have 8,000 total, so I don’t know maybe I got 2 or 3 thousand in the mall.

Jeff:

So, we would encourage you to continue and be as active as your disease allows you to be. It’s sometimes a struggle. You may only be able to walk just around the block, but it’s really important and Summer knows how important it is. And, it’s been a real struggle getting back to where you were. Is that correct?

Summer:

You’re correct. That was the worst thing in my life.

Jeff:

So, that’s our advice to you for this short bit of advice is stay active to the very best of your ability.

Summer:

Right. Well, we better get back to walking.

Jeff:

We have 2,000 more steps to go. Yep. Well that’s our advice for today. Till next time, I’m Jeff.

Summer:

I’m Summer.

Jeff:

Bye.

Summer:

Bye.