You're not a failure. You don't have to prove anything. There are some people who've been able to bounce back and some where it takes longer, and some people who've had more than one PE incident experienced both situations.

Really humid weather and really cold weather STILL bothers my lungs, 4 years after my PE. You may just need to acclimate to the cold, damp spell you guys are having.

I dont' think you're a failure either. Your body is trying to tell you to slow it down. I know it sucks that it's just a trip to the store, or whatever, but your body might take a little longer to adjust to things like that.

I know that for the past two days, I've pushed myself a little, and I've been paying for it in the mornings when I wake up and start moving around. More pain, etc. I stop, take a few minutes, and then I seem to be ok.

I am nine months out and nowhere near normal yet so I understand your feeling like a failure. It helps that I have a colleague who is the picture of athleticism and health now but was completely flattened for more than a year when she had PEs. It helps knowing that (1) even people who were in excellent health before their PEs can require a long recovery and (2) in time, things will get better.

I took a three-month leave from work and, although I'm working full-time again, I still take a two-hour nap every evening after work and sleep most of the weekend away. I've finally come to accept that this is what my body needs and now I sleep and rest as much as I need, no apologies to anyone. Instead of focusing on all the things I don't feel like doing, I try to be more active intellectually. I can lie on the sofa and spend hours reading, writing, and planning for the time when I have lots of energy again. That has made me feel less like I am living at a standstill.

Cold and humidity usually set me back, although I'm not usually dealing with both at the same time!

Don't compare yourself to others ... there are always gonna be folks that bounced back and others of us who hit the bottom and just stayed there for a while. We're all different and we all heal from this in different ways. It is not like breaking an arm, where everybody gets a cast and everybody goes on with life when the cast comes off in eight weeks. This recovery is a totally individual experience and SOB and exhaustion are par for the course for a while.

Hang in there!

I am almost a year out and I feel worse now then I did when I was released. I am being tested for pulmonary hypertension (maybe) after I have my echocardiogram. From what the drs tell me this is normal to feel great for a few weeks and horrible for a few weeks. I am probably having one of the worse times I have read about, but I have a lot of medical conditions going on right now, with a huge team of drs working on me. I think just the stress in that is making me worse. Please do not feel like a wuss...you have been through a lot and it is going to take a lot to get back to where you were, but you can do it.

(I should say not worse than the people on here...just text book definitions of recovery) So please nobody get offended!

You are definately not a failure or wuss for not being able to do all that you used to do before your PE. Your body has been through a major assault. Before my PE I went to the gym several times per week but when I had the PE, I was knocked completely down. I was not able to do much of anything for the first 3-5 months. I could not believe the huge effect the PE had on my body. I even felt like I had to learn to breath normally again as I always felt conscious of my breathing. It was devastating for me.

It is now 16 months since my PE and I am feeling sooo much better then I was this time last year. It was a long and slow process for me too but I just started doing things slowly and only if I felt like it. Like kpp2, I did a lot of reading and knitting in my lazy boy chair.

Please don't get discouraged, if your body is telling you to slow down, then listen to it. You will get better it just takes time.

Hugs