Too Close to the Sun

A few years into my mysterious illness, several doctors insisted that increasing my exercise would help. At the time, I was attending studio yoga six days a week. Hmm. Clearly, that wasn’t enough.

So, what did I do? I joined a bodybuilding gym and hired a personal trainer. Oh, but that’s not all. I also signed up for an intense fitness competition, alongside hyper-muscular men and women preparing for a physique contest.

When I decide to do something, I’ve always been one to go full-boar. If exercise would help, I wasn’t going to simply walk the neighborhood. I was going to lift heavy, throw tires, and do burpees until every muscle in my body burned. I was going to recover.

I pushed my my body to it’s limit. And I pushed it too far.

By the end of the fitness competition, around Thanksgiving 2017, I couldn’t walk from my bed to the bathroom without my legs shaking violently and giving out. Needless to say, the doctors were wrong. Exercise did NOT help.

Six years later, I still have my progress pictures from that competition saved to my phone. I recall the immense pride, as I pushed my body through the uncharacteristic pain, convinced I was promoting recovery in my body.

And I recall the crushing sense of defeat when I realized that I had made a mistake.

Just as Icarus took to the sky on his glorious set of wings, I too flew too close to the sun and then tumbled into the sea and drowned. I suppose the only difference is I didn’t have Daedalus issuing me a warning. I didn’t understand the risk.

Every few months, I find myself pulling up those weekly progress pictures. This picture represents the point at which my mild fatigue plummeted into the severe category and my life began falling apart. You can’t see it here, but I was beaming when my trainer took this picture.

I find myself staring blankly at my old body several times per year, yet I’m not sure why.

Am I grieving my loss of physical fitness? The ability to do things I once loved, such as hike, lift weights, and teach yoga? Do I regret pushing my body and ignoring it’s now-obvious signs to slow down? Am I lamenting the loss of muscle tone and the confidence to wear tight-fitting clothes? Do I miss the belief–though it was an illusion–of good health?

Or is it quite the opposite…

Am I inspired by what I was once able to accomplish? Is my admiration also my motivation, and my reason to keep pushing through life’s challenges? If I was once fit, toned, and physically healthy, my body must still have that muscle memory tucked away somewhere, right?

When this picture was taken, I was confident that I was on the road to recovery. I could see no reason to believe otherwise. I had blind faith in my body’s ability to heal.

I don’t have the luxury of concerning myself with physical fitness, as my ATP production is stunted and my body does not tolerate any exercise beyond walking at a slow pace on a level surface. Instead, my focus is on eating well, supplementing nutritional deficiencies, and getting adequate rest.

I still have the lean, boyish figure. It’s just softened at the edges. And I’m realizing as I write this that I don’t miss the physicality of the body I’ve lost. Instead, what I miss is that unfounded belief that better health is just around the corner.

Next week, I anticipate receiving a new set of mycotoxin labs back. From there, I’ll consult two physicians and, hopefully, start a heavy-duty anti-fungal medication to address the suspected systemic fungal infection that has been plaguing my body for eight years.

I’ve been pulling up this photo a lot the last few weeks. After years of disappointment and letdown, I am clinging desperately to that fanciful notion that perhaps this treatment will be the one that works.

The greatest challenge when facing a chronic condition is the balancing act between hope, realism, personal accountability, and action. We must accept our bodies’ limits, take responsibility for solutions that may improve our health, and exercise a reasonable level of trust that things will get better.

Where I was in this photo embodies just that. I was soaring high, just before the balance was disrupted and my makeshift wings began to melt. Why do I keep pulling up this photo? I think, for me, it’s an inspiration to keep going, but also a reminder not to fly quite so high this time around.