Dear Sundays,
About a month and a half ago, I met my friend Sheila for a walk on the Clackamas River before dinner. About a mile in, I fell short of breath and had to stop multiple times because I felt very lightheaded. At one point, I started to see stars and began to fade. Sheila asked me if she should call an ambulance, but I told her it would be fine. I was going to keep walking. But the truth was that after another quarter mile, I had to stop walking altogether. I couldn't keep going. Instead, I sat on someone's lawn while Sheila walked the mile back to the car so she could pick me up. A month before that, I had completed a 16-mile hike up a mountain.
Over the past year, I have worked so hard to improve my life, both mentally and physically. Not being able to walk a couple of miles on a flat surface felt embarrassing. I told myself I wasn't working out hard enough and joined a gym a few weeks later. I started working out five days a week but didn't see much gain in my cardiovascular health. I would get winded easily, but I kept going. I still wasn't working hard enough.
I decided to take a look under the hood and made appointments to see my naturopath and doctor. I haven't seen either since before the pandemic. The appointments were weeks out, and I felt myself begin to fade again. This time it was massive fatigue. Most nights, I started to crawl into bed at 7:00 pm because I couldn't stay upright. I called myself lazy and asked, "What is wrong with you?" I used to go to bed at 11:00 pm and get up at 5:00 am without a hitch.
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