Usually I’ll do a race report for the races I do. Last year,
I kind of disappeared and didn’t really blog about my races or training. I had
a lot of distractions in my life last year. More on that later. Maybe. Moving
on.
This year, I’d like to blog more about my races, training,
and what’s going on with me. I’ll try. We’ll see.
So this is supposed to be a race report for the Escape theCape Triathlon. Instead it’s a Non-Race report. I’m also supposed to be doing
the triathlon right at this very minute. Instead I’m writing this Non-Race
report. Let me explain.
I signed up for the Escape the Cape Tri back in January.
Along with an Olympic distance aqua-bike, the Chunky Dunk Duathlon and the
Title 9 Triathlon. Then at the Tri-Mania Expo in March, I signed up for the
Tufts 10K in October. Jesus, what is wrong with me?
Anyway, I created a training plan and started my training.
Things were going well. I was swimming, biking, still trying to run, etc.
Everything was falling into place. Then I got sick. Not the kind of sick that
knocks you out for a week and then you’re back on track. The kind of sick that
sneaks up on you, drains you of all energy, immobilizes you and ultimately
lands you in the hospital for a week. Yeah, that happened.
I’m not a doctor-going, drug-taking, hospital type of
person. I don’t even take anything for a headache. So this was a big deal. BIG
deal.
It started on the day of the Earth Day 5K at Stonyfield. I
was signed up for that 5K, but had been having joint pain the week before and
couldn’t really walk comfortably, so running the 5K was out. Looking back now,
it all really started back in February, but since it was slow going and snuck
up on me, I didn’t see symptoms or feel anything was really wrong until I started getting joint and muscle pain in April. I went
to the race with a friend and watched her race, but I felt crummy and really
exhausted. When I got home, I spent the rest of the day in bed. The next day,
Sunday, I was in bed all day too. On Monday, I wasn’t just tired and staying bed, I was physically unable to get up. I
had joint & muscle pain, a rash, a fever, and severe dizziness when I got
up. Tuesday was ridiculous. I wasn’t getting any better, and was progressively
and obviously getting worse. I couldn’t move from bed, even to go to the bathroom
without help. I couldn’t eat or drink because my throat was so sore and I
couldn’t even sit upright without feeling like I was going to pass out.
I called my primary care physician (who I had never even
met, since I don’t see doctors, and only had her name because I had to put down
someone’s name on my health insurance packet) for an appointment because I knew
I couldn’t even sit up in the emergency room for a wait. After almost passing
out in the exam room, she called an ambulance to take me to the ER.
After 3 hours, they determined that my red blood cell count
levels were dangerously low and transferred me to another hospital that
specialized in hematology. Normal RBC counts are between 40 and 45 for women my
age. Mine were 20 when I first went into the ER. When they tested me again
after transferring me to the second hospital, they had dropped to 13. It’s
probably safe to say, it’s a good thing I didn’t wait any longer.
I was in the ER for 24 hours. They pumped me full of all
sorts of fun stuff and hilarious stories came from that. Apparently I was
seeing things and kept talking about them. Even in my worst moments, I’m still
good for a laugh. Except when they gave me Oxy. That was a disaster. Puke.
They finally moved me up to a room and started blood
transfusions, more IVs – both saline and iron, and an array of meds to try and
combat whatever it was that was going on with me. They tested me for everything
under the sun. Thought maybe I had been bitten by a tick or, worse, had an autoimmune
disease that was causing my Hemolytic Anemia.
Everything came back negative. Which was good, because I
didn’t have whatever it was they thought I had, but also bad because they still
didn’t know what I had. I had an entire army of Doogie Howser doctors, still in
training, searching through every medical journal and website they could find
to figure out what could be going on with me.
The only thing that came back positive was Epstein-Barr. But
not positive as in, I had it. Positive as in I had it in the recent past. Most
people have EBV in their bodies and it is most notably connected to Mono. Back
in February I was really sick for about a week and had most of the same
symptoms. So, I can only assume that’s where that came from. Other than that,
they couldn’t find anything else. I had hematologists, rheumatologists,
infectious disease doctors, auto immune doctors and interns and residents
visiting me multiple times a day to hear my story and try to figure me out.
They never did. I decided that I should have just taped myself telling my story
of how things progressed so I could just press play when someone new came in to
hear it. I probably told my story over 40 times. That’s not an exaggeration.
My blood levels finally raised enough for them to feel comfortable
about me going home, and I felt okay enough. So after a week of searching,
probing, and questions, they finally let me go home with a cocktail of meds to
keep my RBC counts up enough. I’m finally able to wean myself off of them and
get back to normal. But they still don’t know what caused the Hemolytic Anemia.
I’ve always had anemia, but not as severe as this. And they are still driving
themselves crazy trying to figure out what happened.
Since all of this happened from the middle of April until
the middle of May, I wasn’t able to train, or even work out at all. Even taking
a walk was hard for me. My first test walk on the treadmill when I was home
from the hospital was at a speed of 2.0 for 20 minutes. I tried to up it to 2.5
and couldn’t do it. I’m very impatient and I get frustrated very easily when I
can’t do something simple that I used to be able to do. I couldn’t even open a
simple jar, package of crackers, or a gallon of milk without help. I was so
weak and had no strength control at all. I hated it. I felt so helpless and as
a very independent person, it was hard for me to ask for help. Even though it’s
been a little over a month since I’ve been home, a friend just said to me the
other day “Stop trying to lift things!” when I was helping carry a table across
a room and was having difficulty. In my defense, it was a heavy table!
But onto better news, I’m doing much better. My RBC counts
still aren’t what they want them to be. I’m getting blood taken every week for
testing and as of this week my RBCs were at 29.4. Not the 40-45 they want them
to be, but not at 13 either. I’ve come to the conclusion, that this is just my
normal level. I’ve been around 29 for the past 4 weeks and I feel fine. I’ve
been adding in exercising, taken a few runs and bike rides and tomorrow I’m
planning on getting back into my Sunday spin & swim routine.
My next race is the Olympic distance aqua-bike at the Mass State Triathlon on July 14th,
so I have a goal and a new training plan to get on with. I’ve started out slow
and will continue to add to my training slowly. I definitely wasn’t ready
enough for the triathlon today. As much as I wanted to do it and not race it,
but just finish it, everyone was pleading with me not to do it. I am definitely
stubborn enough to not listen to everyone and just do it anyway, but I knew
deep down that I wasn’t ready and I really needed to skip it. But you can bet
your ass I went and picked up my race packet for the “free” t-shirt and swim
cap!!
Maybe next year.
