Yes Recovery

I get a lot of questions about recovery after my Pulmonary Embolism so here is some information on my personal experience with recovery.  When my blood clots first initially happened I could find little to no information on recovery.  This was frustrating.  I wanted to know when the pain would stop and when I could work out again.  After fully researching what had happened to me I came to grips with the fact that it could be a while.  The thing about recovery is that it really is so specific to each individual.  So this is the story of my recovery...

I am now five months out.  My blood clots happened on May 3rd.  Today I truly can say that I feel great but the first few months I did not feel so great.  I was in really good shape when it happened to me and I do believe that my good health had a lot to do with a fairly quick recovery.  The first three weeks I was in an abundance of pain but I had some great pain medicine to help me out.  The other hard part was that I began taking coumaden in the hospital and it took several months for my body to get used to this.  Now I can hardly tell that I am taking it.  In the beginning coumaden made me very tired, dizzy and it seemed hard to carry on an intelligent conversation but over time these side effects have gone away.  I slept a lot in the beginning and at first this was really hard for me to do.  It took three weeks before I could lay flat again due to the pain.  I sleep on my back so when I could lay flat I slept for days.  My best recommendation is to take all the time you need to rest and recover.  I pushed it a lot and would do to much and then it would take several days for me to recover.  I did start to workout after three weeks but nothing hard core.  I eased my way into it and worked form there.  I ran a 5k six weeks later but I am a half marathon runner so I am trained to do this.  My 5k was not the fastest race I have ever ran but its my best race because I able to do it.

I had very slight asthma prior to the blood clots but after this happened it became severe.  The shortness of breath did not go away until mid August.  I worked out a lot because this was the only time I did not have shortness of breath.  My body was actually doing what it was supposed to by helping me breath when I was working out.  This may not actually work for everybody.  I think working out distracted me from the shortness of breath and made feel strong.

I traveled by plane for the first time in July.  I went to Jamaica on a 4 hour plane ride.  I really do not recommend this as the cabin air and humidity was very irritating to my asthma but I kept my inhaler with me at all times and had a great vacation.  Today I have not used my inhaler since August 1st and I have no shortness of breath.  My energy levels are back but just in the last few weeks.  I still take some naps here and there.  Naps are a good thing.  I work out five to six days a week and I can finally say that I am back to 100%.  If you are reading this and recovering from a Pulmonary Embolism, it does get better so hang in there.