Thread by @jenbrea

So #thankful to have spent the last many days wandering a deserted island, doing what I haven’t been able to do in a good decade.

I am #thankful for my body, which is fragile but resilient. This year, I spent six months mostly bedbound following #COVID19. In the aftermath, I found myself almost as weak as I was after my neurosurgeries. COVID also worsened my #MCAS to a terrifying degree.

In September, I began a (second? third?) long climb of physical therapy and strength training so that I could stand and walk again.

Just two weeks ago, I was in the midst of a herpesvirus flare (triggered by stopping my #MCAS meds), accompanied by intense intracranial and intraspinal pressure. I could barely function.

But by this weekend, I was able to spend four days in the Channel Islands with the love of my life. We hiked 32+ miles over the course of four days. Monday, we did a ten mile round trip along the coast and out to some sand dunes.

We’d spotted them from the top of a hill and I said, “I want to go *there*,” so we did.

Tuesday, we did a 14 mile round trip hike through a canyon that ended at the ocean. That is the most I have ever walked in a single day in my entire life.

So I am sitting with the twin realities that a) I may well be fragile for the rest of my life but b) my days of greatest vitality and stamina may well be in front of me. I wish I could say I felt happy. Someday, I hope to be. Mostly, I feel stunned.

We’re putting together an album of our photos to send to our families. We used to do this every time we traveled together. The last album we made?

Lamu, Kenya. 2010-12-29.

When/where I first got sick...

Ten years ago...

We made the best we could of it, but damn, we missed a lot. In an alternate timeline, we’d have an eight year-old.

I am so #thankful, and amazed, and hopeful. But it’s going to take a long time to believe in this.