A Trail of the Unexpected

Admittedly my condition is not nearly as bad as many people with M.E experience, in that I am able to lead a broadly normal life, more so now that I am semi-retired, and it is possible to pace myself in my day-to-day living. That said, my work as a supply teacher commits me to work 2 or 3 afternoons at most, leaving me, usually, fatigued on the other days.

Those occasions when I feel I can exercise I do: if I feel up to it, I enjoy a two or 3 mile walk, but the downside is that I fall asleep afterwards! If I push myself too much, such as, say swimming  a kilometer,  then I suffer post exercise malaise the day afterwards, and I am unable to do anything other than just lie down, doing nothing (not even TV) the following day.

Brain fog is also a part of my condition and it tends to feature when I am fatigued. That fatigue is not a normal post exertion feeling, it is not normal tiredness, it is treacle-brain tiredness.

In the 18 or so years that I have suffered from M.E (triggered by a virus) walking up hills or climbing stairs have been very challenging.

In addition, over the last four years, I have suffered from breathlessness on exertion- this might be as little as doing housework or walking up a slight incline, or even across Tesco’s car park!

Last November or thereabouts, I saw a doctor yet again about the breathlessness. At the end of the consultation, she showed me a book: ‘Breath’ by James Nestor. I ordered it from the library and finally got the copy six weeks later. This book has turned things around completely, regarding the breathlessness. It also led me to Wim Hof, and I started his breathing exercises in January. I began to notice that the breathlessness was much less of an issue for daily activities.

Unfortunately, thanks to my work,  I had four chest infections from October to February, which didn’t help my breathing  much. Over Christmas my son and I drove through  Bannau Brycheiniog National Park and stopped for a 3 mile walk near the visitor centre. This involved a short climb up to the trig point; my breathlessness was debilitating and not aided by a hacking cough! He had to help me up the shorthill, and also up a slope on the way back. 

Whilst he was still enthusiastic about Snowdon, it filled me with me with considerable anxiety. However, my plan was to take the train up to Clogwyn Station and walk the final mile up to the summit. I might add that I don’t much care for heights either!

Having recovered from the fourth chest infection, with a bit of help from some steroids to sort out an asthma flareup, my son and I went on a couple of Cotswold walks at Easter. I noticed that I was not breathless during these walks, although I did have to focus on my breathing from time to time.

We decided that mid-May would be a good time to visit Snowdon. I aimed to carry on walking regularly, but had a two week flare up of ME and struggled to do anything other than the supply teaching.

It was at the end of April that I read some information on Twitter, about the use of low dosage nicotine patches for Long Covid, as a means of opening up metabolic pathways. As M.E has so many crossovers with Long Covid, I read up as much as I could about this as a possible treatment and decided to give it a go. I have long suspected that M.E is a metabolic disorder in that the mitochondria is not able to convert fuel to energy, hence lack of energy and easy weight gain.

I started the first patch on May 1st. I was hoping for a surge of energy on the third day. This didn’t seem to happen. However, I began to notice that I was doing more each day and so for me, the energy gain was incremental, and I resumed regular 2-3 mile walks, which included about a mile of hill.

North Wales Adventure🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Our short break was booked for the 14th -19th of May, in Llanberis itself. I surprised myself by being able to drive three hours fairly comfortably, then my son took over.

We had an exploring day on Monday, having called at Snowdon Mountain Railway Station to see if a single ticket would be available the next day. I was told that there’s always at least one single at 9 am. We had not wanted to book a ticket in advance because the weather forecast kept changing. On Sunday, the forecast had said that it would be snowing at the summit on Tuesday, but that had changed by Monday, and the forecast became favorable for the climb. Our visits that day to Pemnon Point and Rhosneigr were memory lane trips for me.

Onwards and Upwards…

Early Tuesday morning, we set off from our base in Llanberis, 10 minutes from the station. My son set off on the Llanberis Path whilst I waited for the ticket office to open. However, when it did so, half an hour later, I was told there were no tickets until 11.30.

I rang  my son and told him that I was going to try my Plan B (which I had kept quiet about) and try to reach the Halfway House. Fortunately, I was well equipped with food, energy supplements, water, and extra clothing, although I did have a rather heavy camera in my backpack.

He told me that the first half mile was challenging, but that it got a little easier afterwards. He privately thought that I would not get past this first stage. My local practice walks had included a steep road and also walks that we have done previous years in the Malverns gave me the confidence to get past this initial challenge. I had to stop many times before I got to the Halfway House, taking these moments to breathe deeply, but I did not experience the breathlessness that had plagued me for so long (including during those Malvern walks).

My motivation was aided by a printed map with instructions and illustrations of each ‘marker’ on the path and also by a great app that worked off-line and showed where I was on the path, again, motivating me to get to the next stage each time.

On route to the next stage, I met my boy on his way down, and said that I thought I could get to stage seven. He suggested that I try to get to stage eight, just taking it one step at a time. Stage seven to stage eight, Allt Moses, is a serious climb. He supported me emotionally, and physically every step of the way. He also carried my backpack as well as his own. I should also add that I had purchased a walking pole for this adventure, and it was money well-spent, since balance issues have always been part of my condition

We made it to Clogwyn Station, neither of us could quite believe that I had walked 3 and 1/2 miles up Snowdon (4 miles with meandering). After we had more refreshments, I looked wistfully at the path up Altt Goch, and said that it was tempting to continue the last mile.

My son pointed out that that section, Altt Moses, was particularly difficult, the descent of it was very slippery, and also it is the renowned accident blackspot. Further, we knew that I had the long descent, and our joint risk assessment was that I would not continue upwards.

Slowly we made our way down. Again my boy supported me, with infinite patience and kindness, over the tricky bits, and certainly my knees and legs began to ache.

We  reached the base and had the final 3/4 mile to walk back to the flat, which admittedly seemed a very long way.

Once at rest inside, my body went into a bit of a shock,  in that I began to shiver, so I wrapped myself up in a duvet, had a hot drink and stretched regularly.  Eventually, it passed and we had a well-earned chip supper.

I warned my son that quite probably I would be unable to do anything the next day, since, with meandering, my mountain walk was 9.7 miles, more than I have done in many, many years, and never with that kind of ascent/descent.