If you haven’t read part 1 please click the link here to read.
I was then able to return back to the initial medication protocol that I’d been on (I've messed about with medication in conjunction with my consultant to see if I could get back to exactly where I was) and since the end of September I've been back to a pretty standard dose of thyroxine (150 mcg per day).
And so, I am tons better than I was at the end of August and at the end of September and in March but not better, better.
After yet more bloods to exclude pretty much everything and receiving bloods back which say everything that you can measure is absolutely great with my biochemistry including my diabetic screening, my cardiac screen, my kidney screen, my blood lipids, my prostate, all of these things. Everything great or even better than great.
And so, why do I still have symptoms?
The symptoms are imperceivable at times or almost imperceivable but when you try to ride a bike or work hard or think really hard, they are right there all the time.
I kind of imagine it like a pilot light on a boiler.
The pilot light stays lit and has the ability to light everything else when the dial is turned up.
My pilot light is in a locked box in the middle of my chest surrounded by my soul and so it's carefully connected to my motivation and my creativity and my innovation and my drive and all of that type of stuff.
It's fair to say that there are and have been times regularly where my pilot light has gone out and the sheer force of will that is required to relight it through this process is almost unmanageable time after time after time.
I think it must be getting better, but I think that it has a name and now we've excluded everything else including glandular fever, it's the dreaded long covid effect.
Long Covid is a ridiculous diagnosis because it's a diagnosis of exclusion so you never know whether or not you have it, but you can check the list of symptoms and tick them off and if you have 90% of them then you have it.
The difficulty with long covid is there's no treatment and so you can go to the long covid clinic at the hospital for them to do more tests to confirm that you probably have long covid, but they can't really help you.
You can exclude caffeine and sugar (I need to do this a lot better).
You can rest, you can lie down in the middle of the day, you can try to limit your workload ect, etc, etc but that's all you've got in the hope that you'll get better.
I'm writing this on Thursday right at the end of the sabbatical because today I went into the shed to ride my bike (which has been extremely difficult) and I completed an interval session on my bike for the first time in months despite, and in spite of the symptoms that I have.
I started the interval session with a ramp warm-up (I’ve dialled everything down to 80% of what I was able to do only a short while ago).
I did the warm-up and tried the first interval. I couldn't do more than about 30 seconds of a 4.5-minute interval and therefore dialled it down.
Got to the next interval, couldn't do it again and then I got to the next one, 3 to go 4.5 minutes each. Hard work.
It's not my heart that’s the problem.
It's my legs and my motivation and my pilot light.
And so, at the start of the 3rd interval I put on Bloodstream on my headphones.
For those of you who are not regular to this blog, you might want to read the bloodstream blog here.
The song bloodstream by Ed Sheeran and Rudimental and I have a long history in exercise that goes back to 2015 and the Ironman bike ride where I sang the lyrics to myself.
And so, on comes the song and I finish interval 3.
I carry on with the song and finish interval 4 and then ultimately finish interval 5 and climbed off the bike.
Maybe this is the start of the beginning of something better.
But what I have to do is gather the strength and the will and the motivation to relight the pilot light as much as I can and that's all that you have to do if you're suffering from a similar sort of thing.
To reiterate again, I'm doing great.
I've done some of the best work for the business that I've ever done during this time off, I’ve redesigned my boys football team, I've spent lots of time with my family, I've cooked more than I've cooked for years and I’ve regularly done some training (at a much lower level than that, which I've done before).
I want to climb back out of this long covid thing in exactly the same way that my patient and friend and podcast guest, Sara Symington, climbed out of her post viral chronic fatigue and went on to cycle at the Olympic games and World Championships and then head up various sports teams in the most extraordinary way.
I don't think I have it in me to stop, I think that's the thing.
Even when I want to, it's not possible and I think that's the same for you.
If you are one of the millions of people who are suffering from these symptoms and you're telling yourself you're getting old or it's because you're working too hard or your family are causing this or it's because of the winter, re-examine it and go back and imagine the pilot light and relight it and go again.
I promise you’ll get there.
Blog Post Number - 3347