Published 12:05 am Friday, September 18, 2015

tubby-hall

Receiving a simple Silver Sneakers card in the mail changed Tubby Hall’s life forever.

The 94-and-a-half-year-old Patton’s Third Army veteran, Opp Little League baseball organizer and integral part of Lions Sight Conservation, said he received the card in the mail about a year ago and it said it would pay for wellness center visits.

“I called the girls at the Mizell Wellness Center and they told me it would cover everything except the pool,” he said.

Since then, Hall, who has been battling prostate cancer for about a decade, has visited the wellness center on Tuesdays and Fridays.

He recently made his 100th visit to the center and was honored by the wellness center team.

Before joining the wellness program, Coach Hall, as many call him, had been having increasing health problems and his strength had begun to decrease.

“My cardiologist got in on it,” he said. “He told me not to extend my heartbeat too much.”

So Hall spends a good bit of his 70-minute workout doing the Nu-Step, a seated recumbent cross trainer, and then some other strength training that is part of his personalized program.

“We’ve been able to step up my strength,” he said. “I’m enjoying it. I’m getting to see people I haven’t seen in a while. I’ve also got people who needed to go, too.”

All of Hall’s hard work has paid off.

He now has better balance and increased strength.

Before working out, Hall was unable to do things such as getting into taller vehicles, but now he can practically jump in.

“If I had not started coming when I did, I would not have been able to continue walking and have possibly become invalid,” he said. “The girls at the wellness center are good, They encourage and provide support to me.”

Hall said he took chemotherapy from November until March, but stopped taking it because he felt so bad.

“I’m not taking any kind of cancer treatments right now, except an occasional shot,” he said. “I feel better than I have in a long time.”

Hall also has macular degeneration and is legally blind, but he doesn’t let anything slow him down.

“I’m 94-and-a-half, and I ain’t complaining,” he said.