28/05/2026
🧠 Brain dump
Hitting a 4 month wall…
I’ve shared a lot about the physical side of my rehab journey in rebuilding the strength and mobility in the leg…
But that’s not the reason my journey has hit a wall.
When I had the operation, I also picked up a post-operative bone infection and was on some serious antibiotics for 3 months to clear it which I only came off of a couple of weeks ago.
What they didn’t tell me in hospital the toll clearing and infection like that would have on my system. Where the antibiotics wiped out the bacteria, they also stripped my gut microbiome which is the core of your immune defence, and takes a heavy toll on your cellular energy levels.
Because of this systemic drain, any exercise whether it be a light upper body workout on machines, a walk or even rehab, would trigger a physiological crash known as Post-Extertional Malaise. Meaning my body just isn’t dealing with the strain of exercise.
When I try and push through, my immune system folds and I’ll wake up the next day exhausted and my mouth covered
In ulcers and has currently manifested itself as tonsillitis so yay, more antibiotics 😂.
Where the antibiotics did their job with the infection, my gut health has some
Catching up to do.
I’m learning that you must listen to your body and not be in such a hurry. You can’t force muscle strength and exercise stress onto a system that is still depleted.
So right now, pushing my body to do anything is on hold, no rehab, walking more than 10 minutes, and definitely no upper body ☹️ for a few weeks, which sounds completely counter productive, but necessary…
Instead it’s radical, uncompromised rest to let my immune system slowly get back to normal.
It’s going to be hard 😩.
I look forward to the day I’ll be back on the mountains and sharing wins again, but right now, this is where I’m at and I want to always be honest.
Gentle reminder to anyone facing an invisible and exhausting rehab journey, sometimes resting is the hardest but most needed work you’ll need to do.
