Cathy Beesey Founder Stories Connecting Us  

This piece was written in September 2023 to share with the writing group I facilitate at University of the Third Age – U3A Merri-bek.

Back against the floor, knees raised to create a triangle, black ceiling above, tears begin to form, “Oh no I’m not going to cry. I can’t cry here.”  A deep breath as my shoulders leave the floor, completing a ‘crunch’, that’s what the instructor called it. A goal met, one I have struggled for. 

November 2018 I stopped my gym membership: dry cough since March, then ears ringing loudly and incessantly, more like the sound of crickets. Lightheaded at the end of a session I rest before walking home. I can’t make it, lying on a park bench on Lygon Street East Brunswick. 

Goals change as my once strong healthy body is fatigued and fragile. It’s an achievement to do three sets of arm exercises without weights and to walk three hundred metres. And oh how I envy those going for a run, tears begin to form. It is the one and only thing I envy of others. 

February 2022 I return to the gym, ever so carefully, feel great, relapse, I stop. Treatment for this overactive immune disorder depletes my strength, energy and I am confined mostly to my home once again, except for those important outings: appointments with specialist and GP and significant events. 

March 2023 all medication stopped, overwhelmed by fatigue, not taking steroids, my cortisol struggles to activate. Seven weeks later fatigue lessens. Grief overwhelms with the hospitalisation of my father in law, death five weeks later, tears begin to form and flow. 

June I begin an at home exercise program using the many pieces of exercise equipment, both large and small accumulated over the years. There is so much I set up a gym in our backyard. Running on the spot, exercises most days it isn’t quite working. I begin walking with a goal of 3km in 30 minutes – increasing a minute a day from a starting point of 15. Achieved within a month. Workouts on the gym equipment legs one day, arms the next five days a week. 

Holiday in Fremantle, walking 4km in 40 minutes along my much loved Swan River and incidental walking. A new goal achieved. RSV diagnosed, three days in bed, two weeks to recover.

11 September 2023, back against the floor the forty-five minute session at Listen To Your Body is coming to an end. I move to the treadmill increasing speed and end with a fifty second run. No tears form.  

Epilogue 

September 2024, regular gym sessions at Listen To Your Body Brunswick: strength increased, fitness improving – working to meet that elusive goal. 

Copyright Cathy Beesey, October 2024. All rights reserved; this intellectual property belongs solely to Cathy Beesey.