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My trip out west (Colorado, Wyoming, and South Dakota) the past week and a half was not only truly fantastic, but provided quite a bit of time to process the last decade of my life (especially in the area of my chronic illness, POTS).
A decade ago I spent the summer coming close to passing out every few days. I still hadn’t started my beta blocker, and exercising was absolutely out of the question. I had no idea what was really going on in my body, even though I had my POTS diagnosis for a year at that point. Hiking would’ve absolutely been out of the question.
Nine years ago I lived out in Colorado for the summer. I had a fantastic time, but over the entire course of the summer, I only made it on three hikes, and they were incredibly difficult. I thought every weekend about how fun it would be to climb the incline (I’ll be talking all about the incline tomorrow!), but knew that it would be unsafe with where I was at with my chronic illness.
It was my dream one day to be able to spend time in Colorado and actually hike around the area. This past week this dream finally came through! I spent a week and a half hiking in all sorts of cool places out west, and while I had a great time and marveled about what I was seeing, I also spent time enjoying the fact that I can do something I haven’t been able to do in 10 years.
Part of it is that, of course, I am stronger and in much better shape. It took me multiple years to slowly begin to exercise with POTS and begin to develop strength again. I’ve increased my drive and willingness to push forward even when I don’t feel well. I’ve also learned how to manage my POTS and do things that I know will lead to the highest likelihood of success in being active (i.e. wearing compression sleeves or drinking nuun while working out). Each of these things plays a big role.
The thing with POTS is that each day can be SO different. There are some days (or hours in the day) where I feel like I’ve lost every ounce of energy I have, and ache so badly that it hurts to move. There are other days I can run a half marathon, bike 70 miles, or hike at a crazy elevation.
To most people, this makes no sense. It doesn’t seem possible that these days are unpredictable and so different, but that’s life with POTS. I take the good and keep plowing forward with grace and patience with myself. Having a chronic illness like POTS is a LONG, long journey, and it’s important to celebrate all the little steps along the way. For those of you who have POTS who might be reading, please don’t feel discouraged about where you might be at as you read these posts about hiking or exercise. Know that I didn’t just develop POTS and immediately jump into this. It’s been an almost 12 year process now.
I’m excited to share more about my hikes with you all as I scatter some recaps throughout the next few weeks. Mostly, though, I want to encourage you to look at your own life and look at the progress that you’ve been able to make over the past few years, and use that as encouragement to keep moving forward. I know it can be frustrating to have the desire to do something and not physically be able to do it, but keeping at it and slowly building on your current abilities can grow into something much bigger than you had hoped!
What a difference a decade makes. This past week I hiked with a smile on my face, enjoying nature and enjoying the miracle of my journey. POTS deeply impacts my life on a daily basis, but I continue to try to not let it define me. I’ll take every little moment that I can get and celebrate it as best as I can.
How was the inlcine? I love climbing the incline.
The incline was really fantastic! I have a whole post coming up tomorrow about it 🙂
[…] of July, I immediately texted my brother and asked “can we please do the incline?”. I‘d really wanted to do the incline the summer that I lived out there, but I had only been diag…. I can obviously work out now, but I didn’t know if I would be able to climb up a steep […]