Being Unstoppable w/Guest Blogger Adam Powell

This is an FUMS guest blog post.  Please read about and support the author in all of their endeavors.  Give ’em a little love – FUMS-style!!  

 

GUEST BLOGGER: Adam Powell lives in Fenton, MI and his sole focus is to not let MS define him.  He has made it his mission to spread awareness about the disease and help other warriors that are battling MS alongside him.  If you want to see more of his journey, follow him on Facebook (www.facebook.com/adam.powell.161) or Instagram (@MSdwiththewrongMFr).  Also, keep an eye out for his new website that is currently under construction, www.MSdwiththewrongMFr.com and the nonprofit organization he is founding, www.MSdwiththewrongMFr.org

 

On Sunday, May 22nd 2022, I completed my very first Walk MS in Milford Michigan at Kensington Park.  This doesn’t sound like much because people do these walks all the time, all over the country, but the road for me to get to this point was a very long and very hard one.

My name is Adam Powell, I was diagnosed with Primary Progressive MS on June 17th, 2019.  It was the fastest, most aggressive case that my doctor had ever seen, and it reared its ugly head really quickly.  Within 6 months I was unable to walk.  I could kind of stumble myself to the bathroom, the kitchen, and my back office, bouncing off of walls and grabbing onto anything in sight to keep me upright.  The upright part didn’t always happen either, the evidence of that is a giant hole in the wall that my shoulders went through when I went down.  I printed out a picture of the Kool-Aid man and put it in the big hole in the wall.  I tried to blame him for it, but no one believed me.  The living room in my house was a no-go area for me.  It was a big wide-open space and I had nothing to grab onto to catch my balance, and if I fell, who knows how the hell I would’ve even gotten up, so I just avoided it.

This was the place I was in for about 6 months, I started up Physical Therapy and I was kind of able to walk, using a walker, 2 ACL braces (so my knees wouldn’t hyper extend) and 2 Ankle Foot Orthotics (because my drop foot was so bad, I would trip myself).  I usually had to wheel myself in there and then wheel myself back out.  I was in a bad place, and then Covid hit which put me in an even worse predicament.  4 months of being unable to drive, unable to walk, unable to leave the house at all because I had no way to get around.  It was absolute torture.  One of the darkest times I have ever had to go through.

July 2020 comes around and things were starting to open back up again, so I was able to get back to physical therapy.  By this time, I had come to terms with having MS and what it was doing to my body.  I grieved that loss of my old life, and by doing that I was able to get out of the darkness and saw what I needed to do.  I refused to let MS define me, I was not going to be that guy in the wheelchair.  I just straight up refused.  Anyone that knows me, knows that I am stubborn as hell, but now I finally decided to use that for good instead of evil, and I just dove into therapy as hard as I could.  

A couple months later, in November, I had hand controls installed in my car so that I was finally able to drive again.  That was probably the best money that I ever spent.  To get that freedom back, that independence, it was life changing.  I no longer had to get rides to everything, I could just stumble out to my car and go.  I felt like a huge burden for so long, always having to rely on others, and once I was able to drive again all that weight just lifted off of me.

Fast forward to July of 2021, I have been doing therapy and yoga for a year, and my body was starting to respond, starting to get better.  I got rid of the wheelchair, got rid of the walker, lost the knee braces and AFOs.  Now I’m just using trekking poles, and I am able to walk on my own again.  Most times I just carry the poles and only use them when I need to catch my balance (which sadly is still a lot, but I do the best I can).  It was my monthly retest day at therapy, and I had gotten stronger, my balance got a lot better, and I was feeling good.  Then my PT drops a bomb on me, she says “you don’t need me anymore.”  I was floored, I begged and pleaded with her saying that I did need her, she got me walking again, how was I ever going to switch things up and continue getting better?  She dealt with my tantrum and talked me down.  She made me remember that I was an athlete before the MS, I used to go to the gym all the time, that I do know what I have to do.  The very next day I went to the gym and reactivated my membership.  I now think of that day as me “graduating” PT, not being let go.

So now my gym journey begins.  The first two months I did legs 3 days a week.  Legs were my main focus because that is what was keeping me upright.  Everything she taught me in therapy I just transferred over to the gym, and it was going well.  In September 2021, I decided that I was going to throw in 3 days of upper body, just to see how it went.  It went really well, I mean, it sucked because my workouts were brutal, but I still went every day except Sunday.  Every.  Single.  Day.  I did this from September until the end of February.  6 straight months going to the gym 6 days a week.  

March comes along, and I think, why not add the 7th day in, arms and legs are going really well, but I need to work out my core more.  So that’s what the 7th day became, purely an ab and core day.  I have stuck to this regiment to this day.  Around this time my support group, Mind Over Myelin Sheath, started talking about the Walk MS Milford.  We were going to join up as a team and walk either the one- or three-mile route.  One mile.  One mile, which seems like an eternity to me, but I was determined to at least attempt it.  So in typical Adam fashion, I just said, let’s do this.

 

Seeing as it was my first walk, I really wanted to make it special.  I wanted to get as many people out there as I possibly could.  I wanted to raise awareness, raise money, and get people to see that this MonSter does not have to take you down.  It worked.  We had the biggest team at the walk.  I’m not sure exactly how many people came out for it, but I would guess over 70.  People from all different times in my life, neighbors, old coworkers from UPS, coworkers from the campground, family, people from the gym and anyone else who had seen my flyers in person or online.  I probably handed out 500 flyers for this walk.  The turnout was absolutely incredible.  

Our team, our amazing team really came together and raised 22,518 dollars that is all going to the MS society.  Our original goal was 15,000, once we surpassed that, we figured why not shoot for 20,000.  We were the number one fundraising team at the entire event.  I hit my personal goal of 5000 dollars, I actually blew passed it.  I was able to raise 6,381 dollars.  The event itself had a goal of 55,000 dollars, everyone involved ended up raising 66,448 dollars!!  It was incredible, the support that we were shown was nothing short of amazing.  I made team T-shirts for anyone that wanted one, Mind Over Myelin Sheath on the front and MS’d with the wrong MF’r on the back.  Those were a big hit, I sold out of all but two shirts during that event, then handed Sarah, the MS Walk leader, a stack of cash that I had made from the T-shirts.  I donated it all right back to the cause.

As amazing as the day was, the walk itself was brutal for me.  That first half mile was great, I was cruising right along at a pretty good pace.  I’m 6’5 so I have quite the long stride and I was using every bit of it.  I stopped about 50 yards from the half mile mark to rest.  One rest after almost a half mile of walking straight through was something that I had never done before.  The return journey, once I turned around, that was a whole different story.  That was rough, my left knee started buckling, my left ankle just landed wherever the hell it wanted to.  I was so thankful to have Kathy Chester (Move it or Lose it podcast) by my side for that last half mile.  She was like a little angel on my shoulder, telling me to slow down, watch my pace, focus on heel toe and just keep going.  Every little rest break, she was right there helping me stretch out and most importantly encouraging me.  Telling me what a great job I was doing, and that was exactly what I needed to hear, because damnit, I was doing a great job. Each time I had even a little bit of doubt creep into my mind, I would just think, two years ago you couldn’t even walk, look at you now.  That thought was able to keep me going.  Every time I sat and rested, I felt like I had an army around me, just ready to go into battle as soon as I stood up and led them.  So I did.  I took 4 breaks on the way back to the finish line, but I got there, and that is all that matters.  Hearing the applause when I stumbled across the finish line is something that I will never forget.  It was surreal.  

Seeing all the pictures and videos of that day has been so, so, so awesome.  It really was an army of people around me as I crossed the finish line.  A sea of Mind Over Myelin Sheath/ MS’d with the wrong MF’r shirts as far as the eye could see.  It’s a memory that will be burned into my brain forever and I cannot wait to do it again next year.  I’m already excited about it and thinking about ways that we can make it bigger and better, raise more money, and more importantly, gain more awareness of this disease.  

As I have been saying for over a year now, Be Unstoppable.  Keep moving forward, going after the things you want, even the things you don’t think that you can do, just try, and you will be amazed by the results.  You never really know how strong you are, until you have to be, and once you are at that point, the sky is the limit.