Days 1–3 of My 99-Day Pericarditis Recovery Plan

I may have already overdone things on day 3

Okay, first the disclaimers. I am not a healthcare provider of any sort, nutritionist, physical therapist, or physical trainer. I am simply a chronic pericarditis patient on the cusp of what I hope is my second remission.

If you started here, you should definitely read the introduction first. It explains in detail where I was in my recovery when I began my 99-day journey. You can read that here.

Day 1

I was so pumped about regaining some of my strength. My horse died in April, and walking to the barn several times a day to care for her had been part of the routine that kept me in shape. Plus, not only have I been battling chronic relapsing pericarditis since 2018 (this go around), I had a vitrectomy in May that was supposed to correct the loss of over half of my eyesight in the left eye caused by a macular hole. It did not, but two things happened because of that surgery: I had to stop all 2400 mg of Advil that I’ve been taking for years and I had to be still.

At any age, every day that you aren’t moving is a day that your muscles are losing strength. It happens at what feels like lightning speed at 61. On top of that, I spent most of July treating sun-damaged and cancerous skin on my face, lips, and arms with topical chemotherapy. The pain was excruciating, some days leaving me curled up in a ball not wanting to eat, drink, or move. Even air movement from walking aggravated the wounds on my face.

It feels good to be up and about if nothing else. As I said in the intro, I have been using the number of the month to guide how many reps I do of everything since the beginning of the year. Since Day 1 of my 99 was still in July, I did 7 of everything. Keep in mind that I use an Apple watch to monitor my heart rate and if it ever exceeds 100 I stop and take deep breaths until it settles back down.

Here’s my list:

Countertop pushups

Standing side leg lifts

Standing forward leg lifts

Standing rear leg lifts

Standing toe risers

Yoga: Tree pose for 7 seconds on each side

Seated bicep curls with 2.5 lb hand weights (one arm at a time)

Seated bow and arrow stretch with 24" rubber tubing, 7 per arm

7-minute slow indoor walk with 2.5 lb ankle weights

7 minutes of stretching and walking around in the shallow end of a pool

I’m a big believer in deep breathing when it’s possible (if you have pericarditis, you know it’s not always even thinkable). At bedtime, I spent five minutes doing deep belly breaths.

Day 2

As much as I am in a hurry to get back in shape, I know from experience that too much too soon is asking for a flare-up of the pericarditis. Because of that, I didn’t do any specific exercises on Day 2, but I did walk up and down a flight of stairs several times carrying things down from an attic room that needs cleaning in order for us to contemplate selling our house. It was more than enough exercise. My HR spiked several times, the highest being 145. Each time I simply sat down on the steps, breathed deeply, and waited for the spike to recede.

I worked on disposing of all the stuff I brought down for several hours. All of that counted as my activity for the day. Other than that, I was either sitting or laying down for the remainder of the day.

I did my 5 minutes of deep breathing at bedtime.

Day 3

My nephew let us know he was coming for an unexpected weekend visit. (It’s what happens when you live at the lake.) Unfortunately, since COVID, we had not even cleaned our guest cottage in over a year. So guess what I spent the morning doing? Dusting, sweeping, mopping, and scrubbing the bathroom definitely counted as my activity for the day.

Where I overdid it was bending over to scrub some rust-stains off of the kitchen floor. You guys know how tough that sort of thing can be.

I took a 2-hour nap in the afternoon — something I had not required since May. The nap did not ward off a mini-flare from the house cleaning, so I went to bed with chest tightness and pain, unable to do my deep breathing.