Friends,
Ask Luther about his experience horseback riding
It sounds like this was the first time Luther was on a horse since he was a kid. I love it when people get to experience things like this despite their challenges with MS.
Thanks to Linda, Gloria and the people at the horse farm who made this possible! If you’d like to do this, please talk to Linda or see their website https://www.horsepowerhealingcenter.com/spring_open_house.html
Rebounding on the Trampoline
It was great to see more of you on the trampoline last week after reading my e-mail about the benefits of it. I loved seeing Marlene on it. She was really bouncing on it!
Again, I would highly recommend you work “rebounding” into your regimen each time you come to the gym. Do yourself a favor and google the “benefits of rebounding”. Or go to youtube and search for “benefits of rebounding”.
Light switches
We had light switches installed for the lights in the gym. Please don’t go in the elctrical panel anymore. Please use the switches on the wall marked Exercise floor East, Center and West. Thanks for the nice sign Joe!
Students are back!
Dr Becky Thomas, Dr Sarah Andreucci and their Physical Therapy Assistance students from Bryant Stratton College are back on Wednesdays. We are thankful! We have 16 students joining us this semester. This is an excellent opportunitity for the students to gain knowledge about people living with MS and get some hands on experience. It’s also beneficial for us living with MS to learn from the students and their leaders.
Friday Morning Bike Rides
We had another awesome ride last Friday with an Amazing group of people!
It looks like the weather is going to be beautiful again this Friday so…let’s ride again!
We’ll be meeting Friday mornings at 7:00am at Nettesheim Park in Pewaukee. It’s on the SE corner of Hwy SS and Oak Street. The GPS address is: N26W27495 Prospect Ave, Pewaukee, WI 53072. Come a little early so you can get your bike out of your car and be ready to ride as close to 7:00 as possible. We’ll ride until about 8:45. Let’s ride and have some fun!
Again, for those who wish you could join us but can’t; please know we have you in our hearts on these rides. We’re riding with you and for you. I hope you too can join us someday. We really need to get this MS thing figured out. Let’s keep working on it together.
MS Bike Ride – August 5th and 6th
The MS bike ride will have a new route this year in the Wisconsin Dells area. If you want to ride and haven’t signed up yet, there’s still time to do so. You’re welcome to sign up on our Peppy Pedaler’s team. We have 44 people signed up on our team so far and 6 of these 44 are people living with MS. We have fun on this ride!
Here’s the link to sign up on our Peppy Pedaer’s Team https://mssociety.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.team&teamID=33945
If you’d be willing to support me on this ride by making a donation to the National MS Society, you can do this on my personal page. Here’s the link…thank you in advance for your support! https://mssociety.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=232246
It’s critical we continue to support the National MS Society and all the research and programs they fund. Thanks to all who have supported us in the past. I’m proud and thankful to say that our Peppy Pedaler’s team has already raised over $1,000,000.00. Yes, that’s over one million dollars as of last year. Thank you for your support!
We need to continue to support reasearch so that perhaps one day, we’ll have more answers for MS. These answers are going to come from research. The National MS Society funds the research we need. Let’s do our part by supporting the National MS Society.
Rest, Recovery, Wellness and Safety
We are having biweekly workshops that focus on achieving our fitness goals and preventing injuries. They will be the 2nd and 4th Fridays of each month from 11am – 12pm. Please join us for hands on activities and learn how to rest, recover, be well and stay safe.
Upcoming Topics:
Friday, June 9th – Tom Holtackers will facilitate a discussion about emotional health – we can all use help with this. Tom has truly “lived” through a lot with his MS challenges and has a lot of knowledge and wisdom to share. You won’t want to miss this discussion with Tom. As we all know, living with MS is not easy.
If you’d like to join this via zoom, you can do that. Here’s the link
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89691575727?pwd=SmowVlo3a3o4U1JYTmdTdy82dWg0UT09
Meeting ID: 896 9157 5727
Passcode: 542905
By the way, at 80 years old and recently pretty much bed ridden for a year and a half or so, Tom is excited to share with us that this week he hit 10 miles on the UBE machine on his road to the Day of Endurance August 26th with a goal of 15 miles that day. If you ever think you can’t make progress even after being bed ridden; Tom, at 80 is showing us we can. Amazing!
I’m excited Tom will be sharing with us how we can deal with these challenges emotionally. We all know how devastating getting the news that we have MS is as well as learning how to accept it and to live with it. It’s been life changing for all of us. Please join us for Tom’s discussion on June 9th.
Friday, June 23rd – Dr. Robert Motl will be coming here from the University of Illinois and giving a presentation on the cutting edge of exercise research in MS. The last time Dr Motl was here and seen what we’re doing, he really appreciated it. He will have an interesting and educational presentation. You won’t want to miss it.
Friday, July 14th – To be determined
Future topics could include: emotional health, nutrition, yoga, tai chi, wellness topics, safe use of gym equipment for your body and more. What topics would you like to see? Please let Joan, Traci, Ricky or Dan know
Golf Outing June 30th – We would appreciate your help…and Golfers!
Do you golf? Would you consider golfing with us and for us? Our outing is filling up. We only have room for 14 more golfers. That’s amazing! We would love to have you join us. There are brochures about it at the gym and here’s a link to sign up as a golfer. https://www.eplatinumhealth.com/eph-cares/
We’re getting some awesome silent auction items and nice baskets for the raffle at “Teed Off at MS”, ePlatinum Health’s annual golf scramble. Thank you to all who donated and solicited for donations!
We are still accepting donations of new items to create raffle baskets. Popular items have included: tickets to sports games; camping gear, picnic items, gift certificates to local shops and restaurants.
If you have a personal relationship with a local business, please ask them if they’d be willing to donate to benefit our gym.
Please either bring the items to the gym or let Rick Talbert or Joan Ruffino know about them. We would appreciate your help with this…thank you in advance!
Day of Endurance Journey – Progress – Let’s share!
It’s time to record our progress again 😊. This next Sunday, June 11th concludes another two-week period. If you don’t have your long workout in yet, let’s get it done by Sunday. Please share your progress by recording it on the board. We have some amazing and inspirational progress being made.
Each two-week period, let’s record our longest distance or time of each event we’re working toward for the “Day of Endurance”. Along with that, let’s share a few words about how we felt after our long event for the two-week period leading up to the day of endurance on August 26th. That’s it!
Each two-week period, let’s try to do just a little more than the last two-week period and record (share) it again.
Let’s enjoy our journey…together!
COVID
We didn’t have anyone test positive for COVID this past week. Yeah! It’s still around so let’s not let our guard down and do what we need to do to stay safe.
To all who have reported their positive testing to me…thank you for letting me know and for being socially responsible and staying away until your symptoms are all cleared up. If you do come down with it, it’s important we let people know that you have been in close contact with so they can watch for symptoms and help stop the spread.
We’ve all been dealing with COVID long enough and are very well educated on it by now. I’m not telling you what to do but I’d highly encourage you to wear a mask again if you haven’t had it recently. Let’s make good choices and be safe.
Please stay home if you have any symptoms or know you’ve been exposed to someone with the virus. Please don’t come until your symptoms go away. Let’s also give each other some space when talking to one another and continue wiping the machines down before and after you use them with disinfectant. Again…let’s be socially responsible and stay safe!
Let’s get together!
We’ll be getting together again from 9:00am – noon on Wednesday and Friday mornings at the gym. I hope you’ll join us!
Wisconsin Metal Parts – Westmound Building
MS-Just Keep Moving, Inc.
W228N791 Westmound Drive
Waukesha, WI 53186
Prayer Group We’ll be having our prayer group Wednesday @ 11:00am.
I just love the way we share, pray and laugh together while we witness prayers being answered weekly. It’s truly amazing!
Thanks goes to God and to everyone that joins us. Let’s get together to share, listen, talk, give thanks, and pray however God leads us.
MS Just Keep Caring – Our Caregivers support group will be the first and third Friday of each month from 10:00 – 10:30am. The next one will be Friday, June 16th. If you’re a caregiver of someone you love with MS, please join us and share your experience of caring for your loved one. This has been very helpful for many. Thanks to all who participate!
Our Facebook page is private. That means you’ll need to join if you want access to all our fun and progress. We’re now up to 384 members. That’s awesome! https://www.facebook.com/groups/2639832389489709
Our Facebook page is very active and fun. Lots of people are doing more and sharing their journey on Facebook. Feel free to join, post and share your experiences and comments.
There were some awesome pictures, videos and comments shared again this past week. Thank you to all who are sharing!
Thai Massage with Ricky Heldt
Ricky will be here Wednesday and Friday doing Thai Massage. Ricky says he is comfortable to work with you even if you’re not wearing a mask. Ricky will continue to wear one to protect you.
Many continue making great progress with chronic pain relief, range of motion, walking better and a new sense of hope when Ricky works with them. Please keep in mind that consistency is key. Not only with Ricky…with exercise too. We need consistency to realize the benefits long term. We want you to have long term benefits and relief.
Ricky has a sign up sheet based on first come first serve. You can pick the time slot that works for you. I highly encourage you to take advantage of Ricky’s Thai Massages each day and sign up for your time slot as soon as you get there.
Reiki with Linda Linda will be here on Fridays doing Reiki. Many people say Linda’s Reiki work is “magical”. We’re thankful for Linda sharing her gifts and talents to us. Feel free to let Linda know you’d like to do Reiki with her. She also has a sign up sheet.
Inspirational Humor with Adam Wollert
We’ll be having our inspirational humor zoom call with Adam again next Tuesday. Adam is a gift to all of us. Thanks to all who joined us today!
Please join us if you can.
Tuesdays @ 1:30PM
Here’s the link to join us…I hope you do!
Join Zoom Meeting with this link
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9431389152?pwd=bWlYbFNaazVnM1M1cWxWMitlODdXUT09
Meeting ID: 943 138 9152
Passcode: 3qP2hu
Phone: 1-312-626-6799
Let’s reach out
I encourage you to share a smile and encouragement with someone. Perhaps you could call someone that you have not talked with for a while just to say hi and see how they are doing. We all could use a little extra love and encouragement.
MS is tough. Let us have faith, remain calm, be flexible, help each other and learn as much as we can about the challenges of each day as we make good choices.
Let’s keep moving and smiling 😊
In God We Trust…we are in good hands.
Dan
P.S. The last two weeks, I mentioned that spring time is always a good time to enjoy babies. Last Thursday, I was on a walk with Cal and we saw this deer.
We watched her for a little while and then her fawn came by her
A little while later, they decided we weren’t supposed to be there and they took off.
We also saw a red bellied woodpecker that must have had babies in the hole in the tree it was on. I watched it a little while and it went into the tree.
What else did we see on that walk? Let’s see, we saw a nice dragon fly on an oak leaf.
A complex spider web
And a cool snapping turtle. We saw three of these guys.
For those who can’t get out and enjoy nature due your challenges with MS…my heart is with you. You are with me every time I’m out there. I enjoy being out there and I also enjoy sharing with you. I know how hard it is not to be able to get out and enjoy nature. Let’s enjoy nature and God’s beauty together this way.