"Get Moving, Mother!"

For years my doctor urged me to exercise, and for years I ignored him. Until my daughter spoke up

- MARION BOND WEST

How do you feel?" My husband Gene's familiar question came as early-morning light crept through the lace "H curtains into our bedroom. My silence said it all. For months, I had barely managed to get out of bed by noon. Lately I hadn't even made that herculean effort.

Gene reached over and held my hand. My thoughts felt like poison darts from an unseen enemy: You'll never have energy again. Stay in bed. It's all downhill from here. The good life is over. Just pray that God has mercy on you.

Three years earlier, I'd been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. At last, the joint problems I'd dealt with for the past few years made sense. Except now the pain was far worse. Hands, feet, knees, elbows, shoulders everything hurt. I barely made it from the bedroom to the sofa most days. Forget about cooking, cleaning or shopping. Just thinking about folding the laundry exhausted me. I had no spark. Didn't want to leave the house. Didn't want to feel, didn't want to think. Not even my favorite Milk Duds brought a smile.

The phone rang. My daughter Julie. She phoned most mornings to check on me. "How are you?" she asked. That question again.

"Mother, you've got to exercise," Julie said before I could answer. Exercise! If one more person told me to exercise, I'd scream. Every three-month checkup with my rheumatologist: "What are you doing for exercise?" Gene, gently, every day: "Honey, exercise is the key." How did anyone pect me to exercise if I could barely dress myself? "Exercise strengthens muscles and bones, lessening impact on the joints, and it improves circulation," the doctor repeated until I was sick of hearing it. "You won't get better without exercising." Okay, but I was too ill, too old for any of that now. Wasn't that obvious?