Physical MOtivation – Just Say Mo Foundation

Michael Jackson took the words right out of my mouth….

“I’m Gonna Make A Change,
For Once In My Life
It’s Gonna Feel Real Good,
Gonna Make A Difference
Gonna Make It Right . . .”

“I’m starting with the Mo in the mirror,
I’m asking her to change her ways
No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change…..”

Me jaundiced, hooked up to my IV patiently waiting with my cousin, Courtney, for a matching transplant in very late April 2012 just a few days before my transplant — Me, jaundiced, hooked up to my IV patiently waiting with my cousin, Courtney, for a match for a liver transplant in very late April 2012 just a few days prior to my transplant

Looking and feeling a million times better ready to celebrate the holidays with my family early December 2012 a short 7 months later

Ever since I was hospitalized (first in Greenville in March and then at Yale in April), I have had no choice to make so many drastic modifications to my lifestyle in order to be healthy and stay alive. A transplant results in no drinking, no smoking, no raw sushi, and no salad bars just to name a few restrictions. I continually work out, and I am now fully dedicated to adhering to a gluten-free diet (in result of being diagnosed with Celiac Disease).

After my transplant and brain surgeries, I was having to swallow 46 pills a day, 46! Excuse my French, but holy $hi+ that is a lot of pills! I now am currently down to 29 pills/day, which is significantly less, but I still feel like an 80-year old doing organizing my weekly pills in one of those Monday-Sunday pill containers.

Swallowing a meal-full of pills several times-a-day, with all of the side-effects, on-top of feeling like my body had been run over by a16-wheeler was not fun. I could hardly perform simple tasks that you would never even think twice about doing like: walking, going to the rest-room by myself, getting my shoes/socks on without help, showering without sitting in a chair, without being constantly babysat.

One of my favorite lines in Adam Sandler’s “Big Daddy” is when Adam’s adopted son yells, “I wipe my own ass! I wipe my own ass!” The thought of this scene makes me chuckle to myself, and let me tell you why: when I was confided to the hospital bed (attached to what felt like enough wires to light up a Christmas tree), I couldn’t use the rest-room as I pleased. If I had to go #2, I had to buzz the nurse, wait for someone to bring me a bucket, do my thing, and then get my ass wiped, not by me, all while laying in bed (I am very good at back bridges when I do my workouts now haha). Talk about feeling violated, and privacy? Ha, I have lost all concept of what that is after my 52 days spent between the ICU and the transplant floor.

I endured a total of 71 days of hospitalization in the year 2013 which I later reflected on. I missed out on most of the spring starting in mid-March going through the end of April, the entire month of May, and half of June from the outside world being locked up in the hospital (except for a brief two-week hiatus when I moved from Greenville, SC to Danbury, CT). While it was a great feeling to be out of the hospital, I wasn’t exactly “free” and nowhere near being back to “normal”. I am not allowed to drive because of my visual field impairment which is not expected to come back (I have lost my peripheral vision in both my right and left eyes to the right, so unless something is directly in-front of me I can not see anything to my right-side).

My hair is finally filling in from where it was shaved in a line straight down the middle of my head for surgery. It is no longer falling out, which is very awesome to not have to pull handfuls of hair out of the drain every day. Since it is filling in, I no longer have to sport what I named a “Reverse MO-hawk.” I have gone from being completely independent and living on my own, to moving into my grandparent’s house. My grandparents are snow birds, so as they flocked to Florida for the cold winter months, I moved-in with my aunt and uncle and their two teenage boys, my cousins Robby and Rocco. I love my cousins, they are like my little bros, but if Call of Duty was never invented I think I would totally be okay with that.

My friends live in various states across the country, and I have no one besides my family here in Danbury. When I say no one, I mean no one. I love my family dearly with all of my heart, but sometimes I just want to be able to hang out with my friends, go out for a drive to clear my mind, or go to the store alone. It are those “little things” in life that I can no longer do anymore that I long desire.

I never realized how valuable those little things were to me, until they were no longer readily accessible to me. While my recovery is improving gradually and I am feeling much better, it still does not dismiss the fact that I am not exactly living the lifestyle of a normal mid-20-something year old.

The first few months after I was discharged, I wasn’t allowed to be home alone. There was a chance I could have more seizures, or fall, or that something else could easily go wrong with me. It is nice to have people around and be there for you, but everyone needs a breather by themselves every once in awhile; it is too often I lock myself away to catch a “breather” away from everyone else.

Although I’ve had to do a complete 180 with my life, I don’t wish to go back to the way I was living, not even for one second. I was going down a dead-end road, and wasn’t paying attention to the signs to tell me to pump the brakes and turn around. Sure I was having the time of my life, but deep down I wasn’t really happy with myself. Each day felt unfulfilled and I was yearning to do something with my life that was actually admirable. I wanted to feel proud of myself like I had once felt in my junior golf and college days.

Now, I finally am proud of myself again. I look in the mirror each day and I am in shock. Each day I see myself and when I see the “Mo in the Mirror” I’m like, “Wow, Mo, you’ve come such a long way, in such a short amount of time.” That feeling that I get when I see the new, improved, healthy Mo is what gives me the “Mo-tivation” to keep trucking along and give each day everything I have to offer.

Besides doing physical therapy I keep myself active each and every day. My over-anxious-self tried doing the Insanity work-outs within the first two months of being discharged, and that was probably the most idiotic set-back of my whole healing experience. Even though my mind was ready, my body was no where near being ready for that kind of physical activity and movement. So after that set-back and spending the last few months trying to heal from those injuries, I now finally feel SO much better and I can now begin to increase my physical activity gradually.

On Sept. 30, 2012, I participated in the Liver Life Walk held in Stamford, CT and walked 3-miles, which is my farthest recorded walking distance since being discharged from Yale in June. A few days after the Liver Life Walk, I felt like a small car ran me over, but that is definitely better than a 16-wheeler! My legs were giving me large amounts of trouble, so unfortunately, I regressed once again. I continued out-patient physical therapy and ended that treatment in early November. Now, on my own, I work out in my aunt and uncle’s house with their treadmill, small weights, resistance bands, swiss ball, and use my own body strength with certain exercises and yoga poses. I walk a minimum of a mile each day, and sometimes I go up to 2.5 miles. My times have continued to improve as I continue to get stronger and gain more endurance. I incorporate a minimum of 100 crunches or similar type exercises to strengthen my core because that is very important to getting my entire body stronger.

I started off doing around 25-minute miles. I didn’t really keep track of my times at first because I was so slow–“Slow-Mo” you could call me, ha. Now I have started to keep track, because comparing times is really the only way to truly know if I am getting quicker or not.

Two-weeks ago, I did a 19:00 mile, two days after that I did it in 17:52, and the day after that I pushed myself really hard and did the mile in 14:09! Of course that is not an awesome speed or anything but I did shed over three-minutes in one-day, and with these chicken legs and everything else considering, that is a pretty big accomplishment! I left the treadmill with a big smile and felt pretty proud of myself, ready to set my next mile mark for 13:30.

On January 9th, 2013 I ran the mile in 10:39! I was so excited and proud of myself. Yes, my legs did hurt and I had to take-it-easy for a few weeks after that, but it was very much worth the gratification of kicking so much ass!

Ran the mile in 10:39 just 7 months after discharge in June when I was hardly able to walk from one side of the house to the other

Everyone is different in what motivates and inspires them to succeed, but I have found that my “mo-tivation” comes from seeing the results. When you can actually see a difference or a change for the better, that makes you feel like all of the hard-work you put-in is actually paying-off; and that is a damn good feeling. When you can look at the clock and see your times have gone down, or you can see in the mirror the physical changes taking place, that is fulfilling. I don’t know if it is the same feeling for you, but it gives me the inner drive to set goals and work harder at attaining them. I will work until I reach that goal, and then once I reach it, because I WILL reach it (and not let anything stop me), I then set higher goals to achieve.

I believe if you have a fierce mentality, you believe in your goal, and put the work into it, you can do anything you dream of. You have to believe in your goal, but most importantly you have to believe in yourself. When you can get to that point, the work won’t seem like work, it will be overshadowed by your strong desire to succeed, and you will succeed.

One thing that I have found that is critical to achieving almost anything, is having patience. I am half-Italian and my last name is Gesualdi, so being patient isn’t exactly a characteristic that comes naturally for me. I have never really been patient in my life, but somehow, somewhere, during my ill-times, I dug very deep, the deepest I hope I will ever have to dig again, and found this patience with-in me that I never had before. My family was shocked. I was even shocked. It came out of nowhere. I don’t really care where it came from, but it was there, and it was crucial to saving my life. Without that patience I could have so easily given-up each and every time a doctor gave me negative news that pretty much suggested I had a greater chance of dying than living. Like I’ve said before, I firmly believe in mind over matter, and that is what got me through.

If you want to make a change, you have to start with yourself. It feels real good, it makes a difference, and it makes it right. That’s why I want you to know, I started with the “Mo in the Mirror”, and if I can do it, so can you, and so can anyone, you just have to believe you can 🙂

This past March (2012) I was experiencing what the doctors call, “acute liver failure,” which essential means that my liver was losing its ability to function; at a very rapid rate I might add. Your liver has a variety of vital functions including processing just about everything that enters your body. It then regulates it, metabolizes it, stores vitamins/minerals, assists with digestion, removes waste, rids the blood of toxins, and I’m sure many more things that I don’t know a thing about. I am no doc, but every function listed above sounds like it plays a pretty legitimate role in how our bodies function. At this time, basically all I knew is that my liver was ready to say, “see you later jack ass!”–I just didn’t know when or how soon that was going to be.

In late February/early March, the first symptom that I identified was jaundice. I usually have a decent tan going on, but when I started getting more “tan” without going into the sun, and the whites of my eyes were the color of a lemon peel, I knew something wasn’t quite right.

I had other symptoms, but I disregarded them, mostly because I have come to find I am quite stubborn, in a way much like both of my grandfathers; getting me to go to the doctor for ANYTHING was a task in itself.

So, I Google searched “yellow eyes” and what I my results yielded was that I was “jaundiced.” I was thinking, well what the hell is jaundice? I looked that up it is pointing toward something being wrong with my liver.

In a normal functioning body, your liver breaks down billirubin (left-over old red blood cells, yellow in color) and removes it through your waste, (which I like to refer to as “poopski”), but since my liver was failing, it was unable to break down and remove the billirubin. The billirubin was building up in my bloodstream, along with toxins that my body was no longer removing on it’s own, and that is how I became jaundiced. No bueno.

Along with being jaundiced, I began starting to experience edema, which is swelling caused by fluid trapped in your body. My feet and legs became so filled with fluid that you could press down on my foot and it would leave a big indention with your finger, and a few seconds later it would resume its position of being a big, fat, jelly foot. Simply put, it was gross. Not only were my edema-induced legs and feet absolutely disgusting to look at, but they were quite painful to walk on. I had to constantly lay down and prop my feet above my head in attempts that maybe gravity would displace some of the water and reduce some of the swelling. That worked for about all of two-seconds before my feet would swell-up and be in awful pain once again. My docs put me on a low-sodium diet to reduce retaining any additional water, which would just make the swelling even worse.

Four years prior to this time, I had been diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Celiac Disease? I was like, “what the hell is that?” My GI doc in Greenville failed to fully educate me on what the hell that was, plus not only is eating gluten-free a pain-in-the-ass when you are always on-the-go, but it is expensive, and it usually tastes like cardboard (GF has come a long way since them in terms of awareness, taste, and options). After about two months of being gluten-free, I said the hell with it, I don’t have any symptoms, that doc must be nuts, I’m not spending extra money on all of the crap that tastes horrible, AND it doesn’t make my stomach feel sick, so the hell with it!

The hell with it alright. Four years later the Celiac monster re-surfaced during testing and so the docs added gluten-free restriction to my low-sodium diet. At this point, I can’t get these fluid-filled stumps that I’m supposed to call feet into my shoes, they hurt, and I am on a low-sodium, gluten-free diet, somehow only managing to looking more and more like a balloon with arms growing exponentially by the day. The edema was painfully obnoxious at the time, but the worst had yet to come.

If my body wasn’t completely swollen and disturbing to look at enough, it began building up large amounts of fluid in my abdomen called ascites. It was starting to fill-up quicker than my skin could stretch, developing almost instantaneous stretch marks. My stomach got huge and when I say huge I really mean gigantic! Dear Mo’s body, can you get any more swollen, I mean seriously? If I bumped into a sharp corner, there was a good chance there would be a “Clean-Up, Room 302!” I’m just kidding, I wouldn’t actually pop like a balloon, but you get the point. If you can imagine, I was beginning to get very frustrated because it seemed like no matter what I did to try to keep the swelling down; it just just kept getting worse.

I have looked back at pictures and I looked like a bowling ball with two fat stumps sticking out! Not to be a negative Nancy, but throw on a high dosage of prednisone to my unbearably fat feet, legs, and stomach, and now I have no option but to add a “chipmunk” face covered in pimples and cysts to that laundry list of already highly frustrating side-effects that prednisone offered. Sooner than I expected, I would have something really worth complaining about.

Edema/Ascites/Stretch Marks due to failing liver — Edema and ascites due to failing liver caused severe swelling and the beginning of stretch marks that quickly worsened as my condition worsened

Fast-forward about a month down the road to Yale in the ICU, and I’m on the verge of dying. A swarm of my medical team were literally pumping me with bags upon bags full of sodium chloride to try to keep me alive, flushing out the toxins building up in my body. My failing liver is unable to properly dispose of these toxins, so where were they going if my body wasn’t eliminating them? Up to my brain, which led to on-and-off bursts of dementia.

Things were not looking good, and I just kept getting heavier and heavier with fluid. I believe the heaviest that they have me recorded weighing-in was a weight of over 220 lbs, which is about 50 lbs over my prior weight. Now, I have never been super-model thin to start off with, but that is an abundant amount of extra weight to be carrying around all-of-a-sudden, no matter who you are!

While I was in the hospital, they checked my weight frequently because it would change so dramatically from day-to-day. My weight each day depended on how much I urinated the night before. At around 4 a.m. every night, the evening PCA would come in and take my weight. After transplant, no joke, I would lose seven-nine pounds in one night…ONE NIGHT! (I’m assuming that is because my new liver was working properly, that my body was then able to dispose of the excess liquid properly? I am no doctor, so that is just my assumption based on what I have read.) Either way, I was losing the weight, and I was losing it fast; too fast! On June 1, I weighed in at 161.4 lbs, about 60 lbs lighter in less than a month.

Chipmunk face and all, still happy to be alive and kicking!

While it definitely was nice to not be carrying around so much extra weight, it was happening way too fast. I acquired stretch marks all up-and-down my upper thighs to my calves, my stomach, my feet, and even under my boobs. Thank you to some Mederma and other creams, those stretch marks have subsided greatly. I continue to lather myself in cocoa butter creams daily in hopes to rid the marks even more, but my stomach area definitely is taking the longest to reduce the marks.

When I was released from the hospital on June 14, 2012 I weighed approximately 155 lbs. I have been off prednisone now for about a month and today (12/5) I weighed-in at 128.8-lbs. Of course each scale varies a lb or two or three here and there, but I have lost roughly 90-lbs since my heaviest weight at Yale, about 50-lbs from my pre-transplant weight, and about 25-lbs since June (6-months). I never really broke it down like that, but that is a lot of weight when you really think about it! I am very proud of my progress and that gives me the MO-tivation I need to further keep pushing myself to get stronger until I am fully recovered. I am actually aiming to put-on some weight, in the form of muscle, but I have been having a tough time doing so because my legs have not been fully cooperative in my efforts to do so. In one of my next blogs I will attempt to address the struggle I have had with my MO-bility on my road to recovery.

Category: Physical MOtivation

MO in the Mirror

MOving the Weight