I Have Energy

I've been off Valcyte for 2 and a half months. These past few weeks I have had great stamina. I mentioned in the last blog that I'd been dealing with lots of fibro pain, especially in the morning when I woke up. I started stretching and doing yoga poses before I went to bed this past week and I feel great when I wake up, in fact yesterday and today are the best I've felt in the last year and a half.

I went to Glacier National Park for a family reunion and was able to enjoy myself, which I was worried about. I went on two or three substantial hikes - on one of the hikes I saw a grizzly bear eating in a huckleberry patch! What's even more remarkable is I didn't have pay back the day after the hikes, and I wasn't in bed for a week after the trip. In fact, I went to Education Week at BYU a couple of days after I got home. I was able to go to about 3 classes a day for 3 days, and walk to the buildings around the campus. It's quite remarkable when you come to think that walking across a parking lot use to wear me out. On Tuesday I went to Thanksgiving Point Gardens, which are huge. The last time I went was in April, and I used one of those battery operated scooters to get around. This time I walked and did fine!

I've had the "sick" look for ever, even before Valcyte. My eyes were sunken in, dark circles, grayish look to the skin. I thought that I must be aging. My mom noticed recently that I didn't have that "sick" look, and that in our pictures from our vacation I looked like my old self again!

Starting next week I will be teaching 8 piano students. I'm excited to have this stamina and I hope it continues and improves even more.


The Offer foundation is holding a half day conference on September 13Th in Salt Lake. It should be really good. My doctor is speaking at it. So anyone interested should go!

I have been lifting weights and the theory is to under do it so you don't have pay back. Anyway I got a kick out of this joke:

Fibromyalgia Exercise
Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of room at each side. With a 5-lb potato sack in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute, and then relax. Each day, you'll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer.
After a couple of weeks, move up to 10-lb potato sacks.
Then try 50-lb potato sacks and then eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100-lb potato sack in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute.

After you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each of the sacks....