In some ways, I sort of feel like the woman in my poem. I don’t have anyone attacking me, but my body has felt attacked for the last 16 months. Every time I stand up, I feel as though my body has a huge weight on it, as if someone was pushing me back down, throwing a weighted blanket over me, making it that much harder to remain upright. But I also see the light.

I began Pulmonary Rehab/PT on March 5th, 2022. During that first visit, they were doing tests to get my baseline when my heart spiked to 200. That’s an arrythmia, which had happened to me on previous occasions, too. The difference this time was that someone in the medical field recorded the event. When I mentioned it to the pulmonologist 5 days later, he encouraged me to call the cardiologist. So I did, and they had a cancellation for the next day! Light.

We did another round of heart monitoring and ultrasounds and bloodwork. The whole shebang. These initially seemed like obstacles to hurdle, and yet they weren’t. They were helping hands. My bloodwork came back first. No surprises there, but my CRP test (inflammation markers) was more than double what it should be.

Pro tip: Personalize your voicemail on your phone so your physician can leave a detailed message if they need to.

My cardiologist left a message to tell me that I should not eat sugar or processed foods. Just what you want to hear from your doctor at the beginning of Spring Break! We were going to surprise the boys with a trip to Magic Mountain in CA. It was also just before my birthday! So no cake for me. it’s easier to forgo cake when you’re at the beginning of your new diet, but still. Who wants to celebrate their birthday without dessert?

It was a good birthday, regardless. The boys loved all the coasters, and I even got to go on some tame ones (roller coasters + heart issues = sitting and reading a book while everyone else experienced the G’s). The book I brought kept me company. After the park closed, we headed back to the hotel and enjoyed a nice soak in the spa and a late dinner.

When I finally took off the Holter monitor and mailed it in, I started taking the beta blockers the cardiologist had prescribed. She was worried that I would be dizzier since my blood pressure was already low but to our great surprise, I was less dizzy! I can’t tell you the euphoria I felt. It was amazing! I had so much energy and my motivation for writing started to come back. I have been so unmotivated as you can tell from my 5-month long absence from this blog, but Light.

Now my obstacles have shifted. My shortness of breath (SOB) has gotten worse and that could be because of the medicine or it could be that I’m just doing more, so I’m more SOB or it could just be my symptom of SOB cycling back as all my symptoms for Long Covid seem to do. I have also been more fatigued. I’m even dreaming about not being able to keep my eyes open while I’m trying to do stuff, during my naps! But overall, I feel way better and have been able to do a little writing on most days 🙂 I almost forgot what it was like to actually enjoy writing!

So, where do I go from here? I’m going to keep pushing forward. I think I will start writing a Wordle Poem once a month with all the words for the month in it, and maybe I’ll start writing a new book. Who knows what the future will bring? All I know is that I see LIGHT up ahead.