I’m Dumb

So last week, it was saying that. I was dizzy, nauseous, had my head down half the time on my desk for Thursday and Friday, felt absolutely awful on Saturday, and then went into adrenaline mode on Sunday morning and raced. Had a very, very mediocre race, felt ok though since I was jacked up on caffeine, and Monday/Tuesday was sort of ok; just felt a little tired. But then Wednesday…I woke up with pain in my chest every time I breathed, and I felt positively rundown and shitty.

So I did what I of course should not have done – raced on Wednesday night anyway. I barely finished. In fact, I was exhausted after warming up. Several times I wanted to just fall over and stop, and I knew – I could feel – that I was doing something bad to myself. Now I will understand if that thought is in your head, it means stop.

Thursday morning was really bad. My chest was positively killing me every time I took a breath. I felt feverish and had almost zero energy. I was getting scared. In the afternoon, I had an appointment with my doctor, but not before going through a whole spectrum of different thoughts. What if this was really serious. What if this was it. What if this was somehow a cruel but inevitable culmination of the years of not taking care of myself. What if what if what if. I had labs done, chest X-ray, EKG, the whole bit. Everything came back perfect, but not before we were talking about possibly having to go to the ER depending on how they came back. This was not a fun situation to be in.

I’m on some kind of long acting NSAID, which took a really long time (overnight) to work. Last night the chest pain was almost unbearable, and I felt feverish before I turned in. This morning I think the NSAID is kicking in, because I feel considerably different. Still wiped out, but my chest has improved, as does my head. I really don’t know what I have, and neither do they. There is no sign of infection in my labs. I couldn’t find a Wendy’s spoon in my X-rays. It kind of doesn’t make sense. Whatever it is, it’s uniquely mine. Congratulations.

So I’ll be pretty low key for at least a week while I get over this. This I definitely need. I just checked – I haven’t had an honest week off since the first week of January. That’s nuts.

The parting advice, I think, is this: listen to yourself, respect the way you feel, and don’t be dumb. I was dumb. In fact, I watched (of course) Dumb and Dumber yesterday just to drive the point home. Plus it makes me feel better. Pull over. No it’s a cardigan but thanks for noticing.

I’d say no UNH race next week for me. As for Gloucester on Oct 3rd, we’ll see.