At one point this afternoon I realized that what I was feeling might just be fatigue – rather than tiredness. I’ve been struggling with a cold all week and that has had me try to take it easy. But when I realized that what I was feeling might be fatigue, I decided that I’d go for a walk up at Alum Rock park. I was reminded of my chemo mantra – exercise helps fatigue. If you are feeling tired, go for a walk, if it gets better, you know it was fatigue and not true tired. That apparently was the case today.

Walking down to the car, it occurred to me that my knees no longer hurt. I even tried doing some deep squats. Since mid January I have had horrible knee pain … a side effect of too much Cipro post surgery. This was rather comical (and yet sad) when I tried to pee outside the cabin when camping at Big Basin – squatting didn’t work out so well then. One of my deep seated fears has been that the pain in my knees would never get better. Anti-inflammatories would help ease the pain, but it was still present – at least until yesterday or maybe the day before. The knee pain seems to have completely gone away. I can now do a squat or two without pain (going to have to work on strength in that area now). So, I was extra delighted to go for a walk this afternoon.

It didn’t take long for the fatigue to wear off. It felt wonderful to walk in the woods. I even did the hike up to Inspiration Point. In the end I walked 6.1 km in 1h40min – so it was not only one of the furthest walks I’ve done since chemo, it was also one of the fastest ones. I didn’t even stop to sit and rest (which I used to need to). This bodes well for the Avon Walk – which is only a couple of months away (still need a few more dollars to qualify to walk – donations welcome at this link – http://info.avonfoundation.org/site/TR?team_id=141489&fr_id=2404&pg=team).