You may still need more time, and some really gentle, progressive conditioning, before your capacity for everything is back up to what you would term normal. We had a speaker at the first San Diego conference (2005, ironically) who climbed Everest after Graves’. He had done similar activities prior to Graves’, but he told us that the conditioning was significantly more difficult, and not because it was Everest, but because he was recovering from Graves’.
Bobbi tells us that when she was initially recovering, a physical therapist evaluated her strength at 5% of the normal levels for a woman her age. That is an incredible amount of muscle loss, and the process for strengthening (without damaging) those muscles is very different from anything you have done before. If you’ve been pushing yourself to do more and more, you might have been overdoing without knowing it.
You may want to make an appointment with a physical therapist for a similar evaluation. They can tell you where you stand, and also what you can tolerate, as well as helping you know when to push it along the way. Bobbi had to lift small, paperback books to begin conditioning.
It sounds as if you’ve already looked into your heart/lung health, and that’s comforting. Perhaps this is an avenue that can bring you some help.
