365 Days, Nearly 36 Pounds and One Hell of a Plot Twist (Part 3)

3 hours ago
7 min read

If you’d told me a year ago, while I was standing in my kitchen having a full-scale emotional breakdown over a tiny injection pen, that twelve months later I’d be writing an anniversary post about losing nearly 36 pounds while also learning how to live with Long Covid, PoTS and Orthostatic Hypotension, I’d have laughed.

Then I’d have asked if you were absolutely sure you had the right person.

Because my plan for this year was beautifully simple.

Lose some weight.

Feel healthier.

Buy smaller jeans.

Stop arguing with biscuits.

The end.

Instead…

life handed me a script that nobody could have predicted.

And somehow…

here we are.

Still standing.

Well…

Mostly sitting, actually.

PoTS prefers sitting.

One thing this year has taught me is that life has absolutely no interest in sticking to your carefully colour-coded plans.

I like plans.

I like lists.

I like spreadsheets.

I like knowing what’s happening next.

Life apparently looked at that personality trait and thought,

“That’ll be fun to mess with.”

There were days when I’d wake up feeling almost normal.

“Brilliant!”

I’d think.

“This is it! Today’s the day!”

Then I’d walk downstairs.

My heart rate would immediately audition for the London Marathon.

My blood pressure would disappear into another dimension.

I’d end up horizontal on the sofa before I’d even finished making breakfast.

Excellent.

Ten out of ten.

No notes.

One of the strangest things about PoTS is how invisible it is.

Someone sees you sitting in a café.

You look absolutely fine.

You’re smiling.

You’re chatting.

You’re dressed.

You’re wearing mascara.

Therefore…

you must be okay.

What they don’t see is the strategic planning that got you there.

The litre of water beforehand.

The electrolytes.

The compression socks hidden underneath your jeans.

The fact you’ve checked where the nearest chair is.

The medication.

The pacing.

The silent calculations running in your head every few minutes.

“Can I manage another half an hour?”

“How far is the car?”

“Is my heart behaving?”

“Can I stand up without looking like Bambi on an ice rink?”

Invisible illnesses are funny like that.

Not funny.

You know what I mean.

Funny in the same way that autocorrect is funny when it changes “kind regards” to “kidnapping.”

Not ideal.

You become an expert at pretending everything is perfectly normal.

Meanwhile your autonomic nervous system has apparently resigned without giving any notice whatsoever.

Honestly…

Mine deserves disciplinary action.

It had one job.

One.

Regulate things.

Heart rate.

Blood pressure.

Temperature.

Easy enough.

Instead it has become that colleague who logs on, attends one Teams meeting, then disappears for the rest of the day.

Completely unreliable.

Would not recommend.

Then came the heat.

Oh…

the heat.

Can we all agree that this summer can absolutely get in the bin?

People kept saying,

“Isn’t it lovely?”

No.

No, Susan.

It is not lovely.

It is 31 degrees.

I have PoTS.

My body currently believes I’m climbing Mount Everest simply by existing.

There is nothing lovely about this.

Those few weeks honestly felt like survival mode.

I’d open the curtains in the morning and immediately judge whether outside looked personally offensive.

I’d fill bottle after bottle with water.

Electrolytes became less of a supplement and more of a food group.

If anyone had invested in electrolyte companies before this year, congratulations.

You’re welcome.

The amount I went through was genuinely ridiculous.

Leaving the house became a military operation.

Hat?

Water?

Electrolytes?

Cooling fan?

Medication?

Phone charged?

Emergency snacks?

Will to live?

Questionable.

There were days I watched my heart rate climb simply walking to the bathroom.

On one particularly memorable occasion, it soared to over 170.

One hundred and seventy.

I’ve had nights out in my twenties that were calmer than that.

I remember looking at my watch thinking,

“Well… that’s not ideal.”

Understatement of the century.

Urgent Care suddenly became part of my vocabulary.

Not somewhere I’d ever imagined becoming familiar with.

Thankfully everything settled.

Eventually.

But it reinforced something I’d been trying very hard not to admit.

This wasn’t a blip.

This wasn’t “just recovering.”

This was my new reality.

For now.

And that’s quite a thing to get your head around.

You don’t mourn your old life all at once.

It happens in tiny moments.

Walking past hiking boots and wondering when you’ll next wear them.

Thinking twice before saying yes to plans.

Needing to check whether a restaurant has air conditioning.

Looking at a staircase like it’s a personal insult.

Missing spontaneous days out.

Missing feeling… effortless.

Those little losses add up.

But so do the little wins.

Because somewhere in the middle of all that…

I also discovered just how resilient human beings can be.

I discovered pacing.

A word I’d previously associated exclusively with impatient people waiting for delayed trains.

Now it became my superpower.

Learning that resting before you’re exhausted isn’t laziness.

It’s strategy.

Stopping before your body forces you to stop.

Listening instead of pushing.

That has probably been one of the hardest lessons of my life.

I’ve always been someone who powers through.

Just keep going.

One more task.

One more meeting.

One more errand.

PoTS looked at that attitude and simply said,

“No.”

The answer is no.

Sit down.

Immediately.

I’ve never met a condition quite so determined to humble me.

Then…

because apparently life wasn’t busy enough…

my shoulder decided to join in.

Frozen shoulder.

Honestly…

I didn’t even know shoulders could freeze.

It’s July.

Read the room.

At first it was just a bit stiff.

Then painful.

Then more painful.

Then I reached that delightful stage where putting on a bra required approximately the same level of planning as a moon landing.

Trying to fasten it behind my back?

Absolutely not.

Who invented that anyway?

Clearly someone with fully functioning shoulders.

Sleeping became an adventure.

Rolling over?

Pain.

Reaching for shampoo?

Pain.

Putting on a coat?

Pain.

Taking off a coat?

Believe it or not…

also pain.

Then came the MRI.

Then the results.

“Severe acute adhesive capsulitis.”

Which sounds much fancier than,

“Your shoulder has completely lost the plot.”

The consultant looked at the images.

I looked at the consultant’s face.

Never a good sign.

Apparently the inflammation was…

how shall we put this…

enthusiastic.

Raging.

Overachieving.

Even my inflammation has an all-or-nothing personality.

Of course it does.

Then came the hydrodilatation.

I was absolutely terrified beforehand.

Naturally I’d convinced myself this procedure would be somewhere between medieval torture and an exorcism.

The reality?

Uncomfortable.

Very weird.

Surprisingly manageable.

Still not something I’d book recreationally.

But nowhere near as awful as I’d imagined.

Isn’t that true of so many things?

We suffer far more in anticipation than reality.

Although…

the clicking afterwards was certainly an unexpected bonus feature.

Apparently that’s normal.

My shoulder now sounds like someone slowly crushing a packet of crisps every time I move it.

Delightful.

Throughout all of this…

the Mounjaro journey quietly carried on.

There were pauses.

Dose changes.

The break.

Wondering whether to restart.

Wondering whether I’d made the right decision.

Then eventually returning to 7.5mg.

By then something had fundamentally changed.

I was no longer taking Mounjaro because I desperately wanted the scales to move.

I was taking it because I’d learned how much freedom it had given me from food noise.

The weight loss was wonderful.

The mental freedom?

Priceless.

Because despite everything else happening…

despite hospital appointments…

specialists…

blood tests…

heatwaves…

heart monitors…

compression socks…

electrolytes…

frozen shoulders…

and enough medical acronyms to fill an alphabet book…

that quiet relationship with food remained.

It stayed.

What an incredible gift.

Then there were the weigh-ins.

Week after week.

Some exciting.

Some frustrating.

Some hilariously anticlimactic.

Sometimes I’d lose two pounds and feel like I’d conquered Everest.

Sometimes I’d gain half a pound and immediately suspect I’d accidentally inhaled a loaf of bread overnight.

The comments never disappointed.

Some of you celebrated every ounce.

Some of you reminded me to trust the process when I forgot.

Some of you had been there from Week 1.

Others joined somewhere around Week 37.

Some of you have never commented once…

but you’ve read every single update.

That honestly blows my mind.

When I started writing these posts, I genuinely thought maybe my mum, my other half and approximately three other people would read them.

Instead…

this little diary somehow found thousands of you.

We’ve laughed together.

Celebrated together.

Moaned about constipation together.

Compared weight loss to Labradors, microwaves, sacks of potatoes and small household appliances together.

Honestly…

what a wonderfully strange community this has become.

You’ve celebrated every milestone as though it was your own.

Because in many ways…

it was.

So here we are.

One year later.

Nearly 36 pounds gone.

More than two and a half stone.

Hundreds of thousands of words written.

Fifty-three weekly weigh-ins.

Countless protein yoghurts.

Enough chicken to personally keep several supermarkets in business.

An unhealthy emotional attachment to electrolytes.

A wardrobe that now bears almost no resemblance to the one I started with.

Belts that have run out of holes.

Jeans that committed public acts of betrayal.

Photos that still occasionally make me stop and think,

“Is that really me?”

But if I’m completely honest…

the biggest transformation isn’t visible in any photograph.

It’s the person standing in it.

A year ago I thought success meant reaching a number.

Now I know success is so much bigger than that.

Success is advocating for yourself when something doesn’t feel right.

Success is learning to rest without guilt.

Success is adapting instead of giving up.

Success is finding joy even when life looks nothing like you expected.

Success is discovering that resilience doesn’t always look like charging forwards.

Sometimes it looks like slowing down.

Sometimes it looks like cancelling plans.

Sometimes it looks like asking for help.

Sometimes it looks like surviving a really difficult week and trying again on Monday.

This year reminded me that health isn’t one destination.

It’s dozens of tiny battles happening all at once.

You can lose weight…

and gain perspective.

You can become physically smaller…

while emotionally becoming much stronger.

You can have your heart broken by your own body…

and still be incredibly proud of what it’s carried you through.

If you’ve followed this journey from the beginning…

thank you.

Thank you for laughing with me.

For crying with me.

For celebrating every ridiculous weight comparison.

For sending messages when I disappeared for a while.

For sharing your own stories.

For reminding me, time and time again, that none of us are doing this alone.

Whether you’ve lost 2 pounds or 200…

Whether you’ve just taken your very first jab…

Whether you’re still staring nervously at that pen like I was…

Whether your journey has taken an unexpected detour through illness, grief, recovery or simply life…