Well… we turned in our application for the new apartment and are still waiting to hear back. I’m starting to get a little impatient but we’re doing everything we can to turn this mini-relapse around.
Thankfully I’m tolerating the cholestyramine very well and haven’t had to miss any doses. I’m also doing infrared sauna treatments twice a week. It all seems to be helping but I’m pretty sure that I need to get out of this apartment in order to really bounce back.
On the warmer days, I’ve been able to go hiking and I always feel better within ten minutes or so. It’s hard getting out the door when I’m exhausted or in pain but I usually don’t regret it. After those first few minutes of struggle, the clean air brings relief and energy.
If you’ve been following my blog from the beginning you might remember that I went hiking for the first time in years on my birthday back in April. That hike was 2.8 miles and it took me 3 hours to complete it because I had to stop to rest so frequently.
Well, yesterday, despite not feeling well when I started, I hiked 3.4 miles in 1 hour and 17 minutes. It was amazing. And I felt so much better afterwards. That means that in spite of my relapse I’m hiking three times faster than I was in April!
It really encouraged me to remember that even though I’m not doing as well as I was two months ago, I’m still way stronger than I was 8 months ago. Yes, I can feel pretty awful in our apartment but not too long ago I couldn’t even go indoors without risking anaphylactic shock.
We weren’t sure if I would ever be able to live in a normal apartment. This summer we were thinking we might need to spend the winter camping in New Mexico. My relapse is disappointing because I was finally starting to feel like a normal person. After having such a great September and October, I started to expect good days and lots of energy. But before that, we didn’t have such grand expectations. We just wanted to get through the winter without freezing to death or suffering a major health crash. And by those standards, I think we’re still on track. Sometimes you just need to readjust your expectations and keep putting one foot in front of the other. 🙂
By the way, Brett and I made a beautiful PDF of my favorite resources for suffering souls. I created the content and he made it look fancy with his superduper graphic design skills. It’s available for free to my email subscribers. Click here to sign up and receive 5 Resources for the Suffering Soul.
