Hey Annie,
Sorry to hear about the crash. So frustrating and so hard to know exactly why? hard to know if the crash was related to the Equilibrant/Valcyte. In my experience, a lot of things might need to be treated at the same time. In the past, some meds have helped me get on top of things for a while and then when I up my activity level it is as though the pool a resources my body has to draw upon is depleted again. Right now I'm trending strongly in the right direction (thanks in part to both Valcyte and Equilibrant) but I'm under no illusions that the underlying issues have been resolved and too much exertion could put me right back to where I was prior to Valcyte and Equilibrant.
For me, the real challenge is to keep my absolute level of energy expenditure (as opposed to a level perceived as relatively close in terms of my own EFFORT/HR) at (or even close to) my positive response to these meds. There's just too damn much I've been missing out on. However, by increasing my absolute level of energy expenditure, I may be missing an opportunity to really consolidate my gains and to give my immune system to get on top of things rather than to simply keep up with my greatly diminished expectations.
The bottom line is that for all the good they can do, these meds don't fix the underlying immune issues that allow these infections to take hold.
Best wishes,
Shane