(Jamie) Not wanting to mislead by reporting only the positive, I - TopicsExpress

(Jamie) Not wanting to mislead by reporting only the positive, I had a few not so great days. My granddaughter brought a cold home from preschool that swept through our household. Im one of those ME patients that almost never catches anything, immune system being really good at fighting viruses, so as often happens with me, I had a prolonged prodrome and no real cold. My husband, Anthony, got the cold, so we took 4 days off exercising. Each day I felt worse and my mood became less stable. To make it worse, it got harder to do the things I needed to for myself and I didnt use my oxygen. Sleep was disrupted and I became more afraid each day that I was slipping back into the pit. Yesterday, still feeling unwell, we decided to go for a tandem ride anyway. It was a beautiful day and we were just going to toodle around. Instead, we both felt better moving and we ended up riding 17 gorgeous miles. Anthony had Lyme carditis in 2003. He had severe arrhythmias and was offered an ablation by the chief of cardiac electrophysiology at one of the Harvard hospitals. As luck would have it, we were treating a patient in the hyperbaric chamber at the time who had developed a tamponade during an ablation and suffered an anoxic brain injury, leaving him with only 20 seconds of short term recall. Anthony declined the procedure and, despite 20,000 PVCs/day and severe dysautonomia (passed out at 9 minutes on a tilt table), cardiologists advising him not to exercise, he exercised himself back to health. We shared many symptoms at the time, but he went uphill and I went downhill (thanks to my Lyme doctors). He always said he felt like exercise, the more extreme the better, beat back the disease. I understand that feeling now. I spent an hour and 20 minutes on the bike yesterday and felt better after, especially my mood. I was afraid starting out that my muscles would be weaker again, but they were stronger after the break. No payback this morning. In fact, I want to go for another ride. I am not asymptomatic, but something fundamental is better. PEM or PENE, or whatever you want to call it, is the hallmark of the disease. I have not had it for 4 weeks. That is more than a blip, enough for me to cautiously think about a future that was impossible only a month ago. There are no words to express my debt of gratitude to Dr. Terry Wahls. I was always willing to eat the right things, but never knew what that looked like. When we started this diet, Anthony rolled his eyes, oh no, not another diet. But he is completely onboard. Except for some rice and potatoes, we are eating the same things. Thank you, thank you, thank you dear daughter, Julie, for feeding me back to wellerness, bite by bite. I look at my beautiful grandchildren and am so glad we are protecting them from some of the toxins ubiquitous in their world. It is so much easier to prevent than to cure.