Part 7 of Vicky's Progress

It's 2009 and it has been 6 years now since Vicky was diagnosed with Aquired FactorVIII Inhibitor. Looking over this website, we realized it has been a long time since we updated it. There has been no reason to!

In other words, there have been no recurrences, things are going smoothly, and we have accepted the fact that Vicky now has hearing aids for both ears, she sometimes has pains (mainly in her legs) that we assume are "leftovers" from when she had such bad internal bleeding in her legs due to Aquired Factor VIII Inhibitor.

Over the last few years we've been getting out and walking the local trails, and often remarked to each other how nice it would be to ride these trails on bikes.

Christmas time 2007, and Vicky really wanted a three wheeled bicycle for Christmas. We found what she wanted on the internet, and ordered it. On a very cold snowy December day her bike arrived, and we went to the store to pick it up.

Vicky impatiently waited for our winter weather to end, and practiced a bit on her three wheeler in the basement. Finally the 2008 early spring day came when we decided it was warm enough to get outdoors with our bikes.

We did a bit of bike riding over the summer of 2008, and it turned out was Vicky had use of a better bicycle, and by summertime was riding this Trek 3 wheeler.

We put quite a few miles on our bikes together over the summer of 2008, and Vicky had 66 miles on her Trek Three Wheeler, and 79.6 miles on her Worksman Three Wheeler. That's 145.6 miles Vicky rode last summer!

Yet, in 2009, Vicky has not been used either of her three wheelers on the local bike trails. It turned out that loading both of our bikes on the back of the car was sort of a hassle, so we came up with a solution to this problem.

We bought a tandem bicycle! Perhaps you may refer to it as a bicycle built for two, but whatever you want to call it, it is a lot of fun!

This picture was taken in the spring of 2009, and shows Vicky standing next to our newly purchased bicycle built for two.

We don't get out on tandem bike rides as often as we would like to, so are not getting the bike exercise (and fun) in the proper amount.

Somehow though, we are building up our endurance, and our latest tandem bike ride was 16.8 miles (that was September 5, 2009).

This was much longer than the 10 miles or so we hope to accomplish on our rides, and, yes, we did both have a few aches and pains after this ride. I guess that is to be expected for a couple of great-grandparents like us after a 16 mile bike ride.

If you are researching the long term effects of Aquired Factor VIII Inhibitor, this page may be encouraging. Vicky, though considered to be in remission from her inhibitor, is doing quite well, and we no longer worry nearly so much.

However (there's always a however, isn't there?), later that day after this ride I noticed a fairly good sized bruise on Vicky's leg. This is always scarey to discover, even though everyone with an active life style may sometimes suffer a bruise. Yet it is so much different if memories of internal bleeding are forever in the back of the mind. Fortunately, her bruise is decreasing in size and color, and not acting like they did six years ago.

Vicky continues to do well, and we wish others going through Acquired Factor VIII Inhibitor the same extended health and recovery that Vicky has had.