Just after sending my project 'Super Surfer', my life was thrown upside down. I started feeling ill on wednesday and found myself on the intensive care by saturday. Luckily the days of absolute misery that followed went by in a bit of a blur. One thing was made very clear though: if Michelle hadn't dragged me to the hospital, I would have died. Possibly on the same day. My liver was failing, my kidneys were failing, my brain was failing and my blood values were dropping like a brick in free fall. Not good. Although I was promised at least a month in the hospital, the doctors released me after a week. To this moment they are failing (and still trying) to identify the cause of my relapse, but after five days of intensive treatment and administration of a high dose of prednisone I started recovering rapidly. Two days later I slept in my own bed again. And for a few weeks, that's what I've mostly done: sleeping. Initially, even reading was too much of an effort. I got pulled through by Michelle, who arranged to be at home and take care of me for weeks.
As psychologically provoking and cathartic the experience may have been, I somehow fail to write down anything meaningful about it. I try to remember and to forget simultaneously. Most of all I want to feel healthy and strong again. It's severely testing my patience… After ten days at home, exactly three weeks after climbing 'Super Surfer' I tried climbing on my woody again. It was terrible: I couldn't finish a single boulder. Even the warmups of my previous trainings were too hard. I felt miserably weak. I was miserably weak. Since then, I did some sort of rehabilitation training on almost every single day: yoga, light crossfit, long walks, bouldering, anything to get back into climbing shape again. Gradually the intensity increased and after three weeks of rehabilitation I climbed a 7b route in Teuto again. Although still a long way from 8a, it was a massive confidence booster. I deeply enjoyed the following weeks of holiday, being able to enjoy live, to walk with Michelle and the dogs for days in Luxembourg and even do some more climbing in the lower half of the 7th grade. Higher 7's felt completely impossible though.
I will need one or more full training cycles to get back to my previous shape again. When work started two weeks ago, I kicked off a new cycle and began with strength training. Anticipating disappointment, I started with low loads. I was disappointed nevertheless… Because fingerboard trainings are very quantifiable, the results left little doubt about the fact that my initial performance sucked big time. Perseverance is paying off though and after two demoralizing first trainings I got the hang (pun fully intended) of it again. Now, five trainings in, it seems I'm on track to reach the high points of my previous season again. I'll be back!
As psychologically provoking and cathartic the experience may have been, I somehow fail to write down anything meaningful about it. I try to remember and to forget simultaneously. Most of all I want to feel healthy and strong again. It's severely testing my patience… After ten days at home, exactly three weeks after climbing 'Super Surfer' I tried climbing on my woody again. It was terrible: I couldn't finish a single boulder. Even the warmups of my previous trainings were too hard. I felt miserably weak. I was miserably weak. Since then, I did some sort of rehabilitation training on almost every single day: yoga, light crossfit, long walks, bouldering, anything to get back into climbing shape again. Gradually the intensity increased and after three weeks of rehabilitation I climbed a 7b route in Teuto again. Although still a long way from 8a, it was a massive confidence booster. I deeply enjoyed the following weeks of holiday, being able to enjoy live, to walk with Michelle and the dogs for days in Luxembourg and even do some more climbing in the lower half of the 7th grade. Higher 7's felt completely impossible though.
I will need one or more full training cycles to get back to my previous shape again. When work started two weeks ago, I kicked off a new cycle and began with strength training. Anticipating disappointment, I started with low loads. I was disappointed nevertheless… Because fingerboard trainings are very quantifiable, the results left little doubt about the fact that my initial performance sucked big time. Perseverance is paying off though and after two demoralizing first trainings I got the hang (pun fully intended) of it again. Now, five trainings in, it seems I'm on track to reach the high points of my previous season again. I'll be back!
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