A few days ago, I had a follow-up appointment with my cardiologist. We talked about how I was feeling. He teased me about how I “power through” my symptoms a little too easily. He assured me that being on medication is not a permanent solution. We ran some more bloodwork, and he gave me the news I’ve been waiting to hear for over a year:
“You can start safely exercising again.”
Ya’ll. I wanted to cry.
Typically, I’m a fairly health-conscious individual. I tend to be more focused on nutrition and balance than exercise as a general rule, but I have always been active. Since I was a baby in my mother’s womb, I’ve been moving. Bouncing my leg at the dinner table, doing yoga in my office while a program loads, I am that person who is click-click-clicking her pen during a business meeting. I’m not a gym rat, I’m not a fitness guru, I’m just restless.
And for the last year, my activity has consisted of no more than some mild yoga and long walks. Often, on bad days, those long walks probably weren’t a good idea. But I was going crazy. I was LOSING MY FREAKING MIND staring at the walls and click-click-clicking my pen. Finally, FINALLY, I got the “go.”
For the last two weeks, I’ve been slowly, agonizingly slowly, easing my way back into working out. Starting with light weights, and then some 120-second intervals on the rowing machine. Two walks instead of one.
But.
Even with a month of meds, and salty foods, and disgusting sports drinks, and listening to my body when it says “enough,” I’m still not there yet. I’ve turned a corner, from almost every day is a bad day, characterized by spotty vision, brain fog, chest pains, etc, to a two on, one off pattern. I have two “good” days, where I manage to be up and productive almost all day, even up to six hours, followed by a “bad” day.
Yesterday was a bad day. Today was a good day. Was.
I was itchy. I was restless. I haven’t been sleeping well because I. Need. To. Move. So when I got up this morning, I decided today’s walk was going to have some intervals of running in it. I set goals. I set limits. Thirty minutes of 4:1 walk to run to complete two miles. Not to exceed 180 bpm or I’d stop. (That’s the point when I tend to start losing consciousness.) The first couple intervals were ok, I felt heavy, as you do when you haven’t run in a while, but my attitude was “KILL THIS.”
My third interval, my heart rate hit 172. “It’s not 180.” I kept pushing. At 25 minutes, and 176 bpm, my chest started to hurt. But I. Was. So. Close. I kept pushing. At 28 minutes, my head started to feel foggy and my footing started to zag and zig. I glanced at my watch 178 bpm. 2.05 miles. Well. Crap. I stopped, sipped some water, and began the guilt trip.
I was mad at myself. I was beating myself up because of this thing in my body over which I have zero control. I wanted to feel strong and healthy again, and instead black spots were creeping in on my vision, and I was forgoing my cooldown walk through the woods so that I could stay in sight of people who could call an ambulance if I collapsed.
This isn’t anything new. I’m notoriously hard on myself. Those closest to me know I’m my own toughest critic. I always have been. My middle school soccer coach used to pull me out of a game and then leave me alone on the bench for a couple minutes, knowing I didn’t need him to tell me what I was doing wrong, I just needed to take a second to tell myself. He’d turn to me after a while and ask me if I was ready to go back in, and that was it.
So today, on my good day, which I managed to turn into a bad day, now on the couch with a pounding headache, chest pains, and spots in my vision, I pulled myself out of the game. I sat myself down on the bench. And I told myself what I was doing wrong.
“You have got to forgive yourself for being sick.”
I am so mean to me. My cousin, a personal trainer, fitness guru, and one of my dearest friends, told me that she’s had two clients with POTS, one a tennis athlete, and both took almost a year of treatment to get to feeling “normal” again. I’ve only been doing this for a month. And here I am, beating myself up for not being an overachiever at getting control of this thing.
Typical Heather.
Granted, I have gotten the usual reaction chronic illnesses, particularly invisible illnesses, tend to illicit. “You should have done [x]. You shouldn’t have [y]. This is your own fault.” Blah, blah blah. I’m trying to forgive those remarks. I’m trying to not let it fuel any kind of blame I have for myself on the bad days.
I made a decision while I was out there, on that bench, getting ready to get back into the game.
I’m going to get up every day. I’m going to set goals. And if I don’t accomplish those goals, because today is a bad day, that’s okay. Maybe tomorrow. Today, I’m going to do what I need to do to be healthy tomorrow. Today, I’m going to make tomorrow a “good” day.
GOALS ACCOMPLISHED:
– Bought Udemy courses on mastering WordPress, HTML, CSS, and Javascript. 27% complete
– Downloaded WordPress, signed up for a .org account, began building my new website through local databases and free plug-ins
– Discovered I hate WordPress Block Editor
– Comfortable making lists using development jargon I only 27% understand so far
