ILLNESS AND RECOVERY

Today I rode my bike for 45 miles. I rode for just over 2.5 hours.  A few years ago I thought I would never ride my bike again. And today, and really every day, I am very, very grateful for my health and energy.

When I developed CFS I was training for a triathlon, playing tennis and religiously going to boot camp classes. I loved ( and still love) to exercise, but I will admit that at that time in my life, I was probably addicted to exercise. But in terms of developing CFS, I was under a tremendous amount of emotional/family stress in my life, to the point where if I wasn't exercising, I was obsessing, running loops around in my mind, trying to think my way out of a family issue. I was aware that I was feeling more and more fatigued after my workouts, and I wasn't sleeping well. The night before the triathlon I came down with a virus. Because I had trained, I decided to compete anyways,( and came in the top 10 for my age group!). I never recovered from the virus, and spent the next three years being very, very, ill, with a variety of puzzling and disabling symptoms. Lucky for me, my doctor knew me very well, and she is an integrative medicine practioner-she diagnosed me fairly quickly with adrenal fatigue, which I soon learned was really under the whole CFS umbrella. 

I spent three years looking for a cure. My children were young, and I was very, very limited in what I could do...I spent days, weeks, months, getting up only to take them to and from school and to make meals. I was so dizzy and weak I couldn't even do the grocery shopping. But I was determined to find a  cure. My motivation was that I wanted to be able to exercise again. I wanted to do yoga, play tennis,

go to boot camp, run and ride my bike-I couldn't imagine living the rest of my life in such a debilitated state. And now, I'm happy to say I can do all of those things again.

©themedian_of infinity