[foot+] Running on Empty
I wanted to write about my foot today. About how I was getting around without crutches (albeit, a wee bit early bc I’m just so tired of being on crutches! I want to be ACTIVE! I need to get out and start PT so I can get back to hiking!) and how maybe, just maybe, I’m progressing towards a good outcome from the past 2 years.
But instead this is about suddenly realizing that running again one day might not be an option. And that it won’t be because of my foot. I spent this past week in the hospital after suddenly, severely falling ill on Monday afternoon. Out of nowhere chest pains hit me, my arms went numb, my blood oxygen levels plummeted, I got close to passing out and I felt so bad that my husband, a volunteer EMT for the last 30 years, insisted on calling 911 after granting me 10 minutes to “just lie down, just for a minute, please, I’m sure I’ll feel better…” I had had a bad cough for the past 10 days or so, a cough I chalked up to the Canadian wildfires, seasonal allergies and years of asthma and I just couldn’t shake it. Then everything else fell apart within the span of minutes.
After spending 27 hours in the George Washington University Hospital (GWUH) ER, I was admitted for what’s known as bilateral infectious pneumonia. Basically fluids in both lungs that I picked up from lord knows where. And because GWUH is a teaching hospital, they have a lot of residents who want to really figure stuff out. I learned that was both a blessing and a curse.
After 3 days on the 5th floor, I was released Friday afternoon, in “fair condition” according to my discharge summary. The staff, wanting to understand everything going on did so many tests. And drew so much blood. And in those tests and in that blood, they found so much more lurking below the surface. Not only do I have pneumonia, which thankfully, is treatable (and ohhhhh am I enjoying one hell of a home cocktail of several antibiotics, steroids and opioids) but I also have “coronary artery disease” denoted by “dense calcification of my coronaries”, a “liver nodule with dilated bile ducts”, “high A1C within the diabetic range” and “mixed connective tissue disease”, which my pulmonologist said can be consistent with scleroderma, a progressive auto-immune disease that causes tissue to harden in places like the lungs, the arteries, etc. It’s a nasty one and could explain these severe and potentially connected issues.
According to these tests, I am more unhealthy than my 97 year old grandmother, currently living in a nursing home. And let me tell you, I am SHOOK.
Part of me isn’t willing to accept this yet. I have a ton of followup work that must be done now with rheumatologists, cardiologists, my primary care doctor and my actual pulmonary team. How did this happen?
I exercise. A lot.
I eat healthy. I mean, suuuuuper healthy.
I weight-train and have been 112–114 lbs. for decades.
I drink in super moderation, abstaining from hard alcohol.
I don’t smoke or do drugs.
I have no family history of any of this shit.
I feel empty right now and I’d give anything to throw on my HOKAs and head out the door. But I guess it’s time to face these issues and not run from them. It’s just too bad that I never knew they were chasing me in the first place.
Back: Two years ago today.
Next: Walking on a thin line
