Hiking with Tuberculosis

So is that actually possible?

Guess what?

It totally is. But the only condition here is you do not have to allow the disease to penetrate your head. You have to partially forget that you had a problem and just go with the flow. Changing your surroundings is in fact a very effective way of giving yourself the freedom you deserve. It significantly changes your mindset, your life monotony and gives you your much needed time of solitude. Solitude differs from place to place, it may be depressing at one place and refreshing at the other. As Einstein clearly said and thus I quote here;

The environment is everything that isn’t me.

The story starts with a fine morning when my cousins arrive at our home and my younger sister decides to go on a hike here in Islamabad. I was eldest among all and it was after so many years that all of us met and decided something on mutual grounds so disapproval wasn’t practically a choice. Moreover, I was equally enthusiastic and  since all of us live in different cities so no one knew about my disease. I had always been very reluctant in disclosing my disease to anyone except my immediate family and thus, I did the same there. I had been pretty much stable till then and my family had always been cooperative enough to help me with everything.

I was always helped with everything I did. Having four other siblings I had a lot of help from everyone, even there was a time when I could not get up from my bed and everyone helped me with everything that I had to do. So after all that time, in the excitement of the hiking plan, I almost forgot that I have an issue.

The plan proceeded further and we left with our supplies early in the morning. We crossed rawalpindi and soon entered islamabad and landed over to Trial three park. My little cousins were pretty much eager hence, they gathered all snacks and juices and packed them into a larger bag. I, being the eldest among all had to carry that larger bag although I had volunteers but yeah, courtesy it was. We soon started with the walking trial without even noticing the trial map, although we took a photo of it but that was soon forgotten. The trial consisted of a bumpy path with grooves, depressions and it eventually escalated upwards towards the top of the hill.

Initially when we started walking, the enthusiasm took over and I walked straight away for 10 good minutes. Soon after my male cousins started walking ahead of me and I was left at the end. I tried picking up pace and joining them but soon I realized that I am experiencing breathlessness. The immediate thought that crossed my mind at that point of time was that may be I am tired as the journey had been pretty long and I had a cousin of mine sitting in my lap the whole time. I asked my little cousin to accompany me as I stopped and sat for a few moments.

The resting state

I knew that my male cousins were still moving ahead so I don’t have much time to rest so I had ample amount of water and proceeded forward. Although it is advised not to have too much water in between the hike yet I could not help it so I did what I considered convenient. Thereby, the hike continued but soon came to a haul after 5 minutes. I could walk no more and severe breathlessness took over. I decided to sit for a while again to regain composure and motivated myself to proceed further.

I waited for good five minutes but the breathlessness was still not normalized. I stood up and moved forward anyway, but that was rather a devastating attempt. Not even a minute passed and I realized that it is the bumpy path, the height and most of all;

My Tuberculosis, which was the culprit.

How could I even forget that I can not walk for longer periods of time. How could I forget that I had Partial Left Lung Collapse?

In the attempt to push myself further and to enjoy the way everybody else was, I had completely forsaken my medical condition. And because Tuberculosis could not tolerate me ignoring it, so it showed up with a BANG.

I could not walk after that and no amount of water could fix my breathlessness and pain. I ignored all those moving ahead and sat behind knowing that I am done already. My little cousins accompanied me and we found a beautiful spot to spend rest of our trip. So the hike experience consisted of half an hour of walking and loads of rest. We sat there, ate everything that we had bought.

Angle

The waves of pain continued their course and I continued to hide them in the best possible way. But hell, I knew that the journey down the hill towards our car was still remaining and I am out of stamina to do that. All my cousins soon joined us with our snacks as I tried to prolong the session as much as I could. But well, every journey has to end at some point. Eventually, everyone decided to move down the hill towards our car and I feared that something serious can happen if I continued walking like that.

I buried all my fears, adopted the “IGNORE ALL” policy and started moving. I was ahead of all and started singing and dancing (partially) to ease myself. All others started singing with me and soon my focus shifted from immense pain to “What song should we sing next”.

It didn’t take long for the journey to end but the pain persisted for several days. The cough and general restlessness considerably increased. The following days were marked by immense exhaustion, fatigue, headache, movement limitation, breathing problem, coughing episodes but well. I had my favorite experience and that’s all that matters 😀