Recovering from a major illness has been really tough on my psyche. Im not used to sitting around all day, I need to vent and try to get it out of my system, so here goes! 2014 was not a good year for me. In January I got the news that my running days were over.(see my Jan.15 post), I enjoyed a great season of x-c ski racing and a wonderful summer of Cycling and golf, putting almost 3000 kilometers on my bike and doing my first 100K rides since my Ironman days (1991). Then, in October my life changed. At first it was just the flu, achy muscles, sore joints, no big deal. But just as that cleared up I awoke the next morning, at 5:30, with terrible chest pains. Down to emergency, where, after 6 hours, the Doc told me I had some minor inflammation in my right lung, but it was nothing to worry about, so go on home! I was feeling pretty good, so I figured he knew what he was doing. Boy was I mistaken! That evening, as I went to bed the pains began again, much worse than in the morning. Judy drove me back to emerg at 10:30 and the same doctor again said it was just an inflammation and he would treat me with Prednasone. As this is a steroid drug with bad side effects I was not happy. However not long after in came Dr. Victor who told me that I had an infection in my lung. I told him about the Prednisone and he said, very forcefully No on in this hospital is going to give you Prednisone! I was glad to hear that. He also said that I had Pneumonia, and would be in the hospital for a few days. After a couple of days in emerg Dr Victor had me moved to the new wing of KGH, where I had a lovely room all to myself. However the first night there the chest pains came back at about 9pm, and this time they were incredible. I was screaming in pain before the nurses came in. It took 4 shots of morphine to bring the pain under control. My worst cycling accident when I broke 3 ribs, collarbone and punctured a lung was like a slap on the wrist compared to this pain! Anyhow, it turned out to be a very virulent and unusual type of streptococcus pneumonia. They had a hard time finding an antibiotic that affected it. I was two weeks in the hospital, lost 15 pounds that I didnt have to lose, and came home looking like a scarecrow at 128 pounds! It been just over two months since I left the hospital, and recovery has been steady, but extremely slow, my Doctor says it could take 6 months! Instead of a 2-3 hour cross country ski, my usual winter workout, Im up to 20 minutes on my bike on a trainer, and if I do too much in a day Im wiped out for at least one or two days. Im hoping to be able to do some short and easy skiing by late January. In the meantime Im trying not to get too depressed, I realize that a lot of people have it much worse, but its still hard.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 19:42:51 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015