Post 9: Catching Up Part 4 of 4 Healing, MCAS, and Training for Everest Base Camp
Alright, let’s finish this up and get you all up to speed.
July: Slow Healing and Small Wins
By the end of July I was slowly but surely healing. I went camping with friends, read, painted, and most importantly restarted therapy. Your girl went through something traumatic, physically and emotionally, and I needed help processing it all.
Day to day, things were still complicated: I intermittently needed a catheter, I was taking meds to regulate bowel control, and I had just begun walking a couple miles a day again. I also eased into very controlled strength training with a hefty ankle brace.
Why I Went Back to Therapy
Therapy is helping me sort out who I am after all this, where I’ve been, and how to cope in healthy ways. I am retiring my go to combo of compartmentalizing and overworking and building an actual toolbox of skills I can use when things get hard.
The Rash Mystery: Enter MCAS
With a little bandwidth back, I finally tackled the giant rashes and hives that kept showing up after I ate. They had been getting worse over the past year and by July were happening daily. I tracked patterns, got labs, saw an allergist, and shared photos from the last year. Between the symptoms, lab results, and documentation, I was diagnosed with mast cell activation syndrome, or MCAS.
MCAS often shows up alongside Ehlers Danlos syndrome and POTS, so commonly that people call it the trifecta. It explains a lot about what my body has been doing and gives me a path to manage it better.
August: Building Back
In August I really started moving again, first a couple miles a day and, by the last week, I logged an 8 mile day and a 10 mile day. I added weightlifting three times a week and physical therapy twice a week, plus all that walking.
Despite the rashes and pain, and still being on bowel meds, the ankle is more stable, wounds are healed, and I have not needed a catheter since the second week of August. That is a huge milestone.
What’s Next: Everest Base Camp
So, is it wild to say that after the last few months I am still pushing forward with the plan? We leave the first week of October to attempt the trek to Everest Base Camp. This has been years in the making. Maybe I am delusional, maybe I am stubborn, probably both, but why not try?
Coming Up on the Blog
Stick around for the next posts:
My Everest Base Camp packing list (what I am bringing with MCAS, EDS, and POTS)
Our route and daily plan for the trek
A deeper dive into my MCAS diagnosis and how I am managing it
