A Vaccine Put Me on My Butt for Weeks...
...but was 100% worth it.
That’s me. And that’s my nephew.
He’s new. I’ll get to him in a second.
For the past 4 weeks, my POTS has been the worst it’s been in about 7 years. Which is amazingly troubling because I’m in the best shape I’ve been in since I was first diagnosed. I finally found the right balance between diet, exercise, and POTS and was convinced I could ride this out for the foreseeable future.
The future had other plans.
I couldn’t stand in the shower. I couldn’t walk over to set for work. I couldn’t cross the street to go to the gym without feeling like I’d pass out mid-crosswalk.
As with every significant POTS episode, I become Detective Joe - hot on the case of the syncope symptoms.
I mentally walked through everything I’ve been doing and haven’t been doing to see what could possibly lead to this downturn.
And I came up with nothing. Nada. Zip. Which is terrifying. Because then you spiral.
Am I just deteriorating? Is this it? Was I only meant to last a decade with this? Is it something more? Heart failure, blood clots, worse?
I wasn’t ER-bad, but I wasn’t great. I faked my way through work, and then came home and crashed. I increased my sodium ten-fold, but the benefits were minimal. This was bad, and the mental toll this turn took on me was challenging.
I’m stubborn. So I pushed through. I surrounded myself with data on my heartrate and blood pressure, trying to find when and where this went wrong. The data soothed me momentarily, but I couldn’t see the whole picture.
Until I randomly Googled “POTS and vaccines” on a whim late one night. A literal whim.
I read testimonials from fellow POTSIES on how vaccines have knocked some down and caused flare-ups, a possibility I hadn’t entertained before. They shared how flu vaccines or other shots sent them into a “POTS hole,” a term I hadn’t heard before but now love. Their stories helped me piece together the missing parts of my last month.
A month that started with a Tdap shot.
My nephew was born 7 weeks ago. 7 weeks ago, I booked a trip home to meet the little man. 4 weeks ago, I got the requisite “you’re about to meet a newborn” Tdap shot (in the glute, but that’s another story). And 4 weeks ago, I started this slow descent into my current POTS hole.
Knowing was half the battle. It gave me peace of mind and allowed me to give 100% to my recovery. And I rebounded enough to fly home and meet the new guy, right on schedule.
Am I back to fighting strength? No. But I’m getting there. I’m going to slowly reintroduce my POTS to the gym tonight, so tomorrow I may be posting that I’m dead or thriving, but more realistically I’ll just be OK. I’ll just be taking this one step at a time, again.
But the little guy was amazing. And if going into a POTS hole was the toll to spend some quality time with him, then it was all worth it.