THIS is a personal story about my journey back to full health and the recuperative powers of cycling after suffering a severe bout of Acute Reactive Arthritis.
From the depths of despair and pain that not even the strongest of painkillers could contain, I am now thankfully happy and healthy and about to set out on an exciting adventure to set a new world record for the longest electric bike journey ever completed.
So how did the transformation from a physical pain-wracked wreck to would-be cycling world record holder happen in less than six months?
Clearly it wasn’t through taking the steroids, anti-inflammatory drugs and the stronger and stronger painkillers that I was prescribed. No, it was much simpler than that – I joined a gymnasium and despite constant pain in every joint in my body I started cycling an exercise bike.
Almost immediately I noticed improvements in my condition. Virtually on a daily basis the pain decreased, I started to regain my strength and now six months later I am not only pain free, but well on the way back to full health.
Now, with my life’s priorities having undergone a massive rethink as a result of the illness, my husband Gary and I have hatched an ambitious plan to cycle in excess of 16,047 kilometres to set a new e-bike world long distance record in Europe, the UK and Scandinavia in 2015/16. You can read all about our record attempt on our website at www.ebikecycletourists.com
Our aim is to conclusively prove that cycling is not only the best medicine there is, but that if you put your mind to it anything is possible – even for an ageing Baby Boomer (I am 56) on the road back to full health from a bout of Acute Reactive Arthritis.
And by the way, the drawer full of drugs I was prescribed prior to starting to use the exercise bike (apart from Panadol and Neurofin) which I never used – they have all been put in the bin.
This is my story:
With absolutely no warning one day I woke up and felt like a 100 year old woman. I couldn’t put any weight on my feet, let alone have the strength to dress myself … “what is going on I cried this can’t be happening to me!”
But much to my dismay the pain throughout my body was VERY real. So real in fact, that it felt as though all of my limbs had been amputated and the raw nerves had been left dangling – not something a Baby Boomer who was ready to experience the next phase of life with her semi-retired husband as an empty nesters was ready – or equipped – to deal with.
At this stage what was happening to me was a total mystery, and as I was soon to find out, was just the start of a long and very painful experience.
I am currently living Bangkok with my husband where I teach at an International School. My ordeal started one night following a meal at an up-market restaurant with close Australian friends who were visiting Bangkok.
I woke up suddenly at about 2am and violently vomited for about three hours. I was so weak that I passed out on the bathroom floor. But despite the severity of what was obviously food poisoning, I was back at school a day later and by all indications was over the nasty episode.
But as the next few weeks passed I started to increasingly get pain in different parts of my body. One day it was my back, the next day it moved to my arms, ankles, calves etc. It was difficult to pinpoint what was happening as the pain seemed to move from joint to joint … I started to feel like a hypochondriac given how much I talked about my problems. In the end I just put up with the discomfort and put it down to getting older.
With the pain increasing on a daily basis the time was fast approaching for me to fly back to Australia to surprise my mother for her 80th birthday. I had planned the trip for months and wasn’t going to miss it for anything.
I was booked on a nine hour overnight flight that left Bangkok at midnight destined for Brisbane. My husband, Gary, saw me off at the airport, but by this time I was in a very delicate state, with my pain increasing by the minute. It was without doubt the worse pain than I had been experiencing, but I put on a brave face, checked in my luggage and said goodbye to him at the bottom of the escalator that took me to immigration.
My hands suddenly became so weak that my passport and hand luggage dropped out of my hands but there was no turning back for me. Gary was left looking up at me with a very strange look on his face; I knew he was thinking, “don’t go”. He later told me he was scared that he would never see me again.
Finally on the flight I was lucky to have three vacant seats together in the back of the plane. I literally lay down as soon as the plane took off and told the flight attendant that I couldn’t sit up. They were very concerned and fed me some painkillers and gave me hot water bottles every couple of hours. I literally cried in pain all the way to Australia. It felt like my hands and feet were severed and I was left to die with nerve pain. The painkillers didn’t help. It was an excruciating nine hours.
I don’t know how I even had the strength to get off the plane, but my will power to see my mum kept me going. Still in tears I had to catch a train from Brisbane to the Gold Coast which took another 2 hours with the wait and travel time.
On my arrival my sister was waiting to take me to surprise mum, but what a surprise she had when she greeted me in tears. In shock she drove me to the nearest hospital only to find that they were overcrowded and that unless I was mortally wounded I was to be put at the bottom of the waiting list.
We left and tried some after hour surgeries, but they were all overflowing because all the hospitals were full. In the end we decided to go to see my mother and call an after hour’s doctor. By this stage I had been in a serious condition for about 17 hours!
Mum and I greeted each other in tears both happy and sad at the same time. I was put into her lovely comfortable spare bed and when the doctor came he thankfully gave me an injection that knocked me out until the next day.
From there on for two weeks I lived on painkillers and had many blood tests. Fortunately the doctors were able to eliminate Rheumatoid Arthritis, but I finally found out that I had Acute Reactive Arthritis. This acute autoimmune disease, I discovered, usually develops from a secondary infection of the blood, which is why it took about four weeks to really take hold of me after the bout of food poisoning!
It is now nearly six months later and I am finally on the road to recovery. I had to delay my trip back to Bangkok for a couple weeks and eventually went back to school on a part-time basis until I was strong enough to work full-time. It was a struggle trying to manage young energetic primary children and after a couple of weeks I decided I would resign from my overseas post in order to work on regaining my health.
That is when I discovered the recuperative powers of cycling. Gary, an avid cyclist, told me I should go to our local gym to try to build up my strength on the exercise bike. Like they say, “move it or loose it!” I took his advice and slowly started to build up my strength. I soon discovered that the fitter I became, the more the pain subsided.
Now six months later we are planning our next adventure – up to 12 months of cycling to set a new world e-bike long distance record!!
As a travel writer Gary writes for a number of organized cycle tour companies. We have been lucky enough to complete a number of these tours together so he could write about the tours for the companies and have met many like-minded cyclists.
So what do you do if your job is to write about cycle touring? Go cycle touring of course and as such we have decided this is how we want to spend our life cycle touring and staying fit.
The moral of this story is that life can begin at 56! Don’t let arthritis or injuries get the better of you. For anyone who has arthritis; either chronic or acute, you too can get your life back. The answer as I discovered is to eat well – and start pedaling.
Follow our adventures on www.ebikecycletourists.com and hopefully you will be inspired to set out on your own cycling adventure.