2016 has gotten off to a horrible start. I've run one day. On January 1st I went for a 4 mile run before stopping at 2.5 because I could tell my left calf was about to blow up. About half way through the walk home the pain got worse but it was just the tip of the iceberg.
The problem really started on December 13th, the day after my 60th birthday, spent aboard a cruise ship. The cruise was fine accept for the fact that I slept under an air conditioning vent that blasted air on me all night. The morning of the 13th I woke up with a slight sore throat. Now hand sanitizing is rampant on cruise ships. Yet who knows if it was the AC or a utensil I touched at one of the feeding troughs that gave me what was to become an epic upper respiratory infection.
Even with the sore throat on that Sunday I managed an easy 3.5 miles around the ship. It would be my last run until New Year's Eve much to my chagrin. By the time I returned to work Monday afternoon I could tell my health was failing. I closed the store early knowing I had a fever and went to Urgent Care where the doctor did half-assed job and gave me what turned out to be the wrong antibiotic to fight what I had.
By Wednesday I didn't feel that bad but I was plugged up and had a dry, nasty cough. It really wasn't until Friday that I conquered the sore throat. The cough, flem, snot, and general upper respiratory yuk wouldn't let go. It held on and on and on and finally by the morning of Christmas Eve, I made a desperate trip to my doctor's office. A physician's assistant loaded me up with more prescription drugs than I could imagine and I headed straight to the pharmacy.
By that evening I felt 100% better but it wasn't until Saturday that I felt in the clear. I knew the antibiotic I was taking, Levaquin, would wreck havoc on my muscles if I tried to run so I stuck to the elliptical until New Year's Eve, the day after my last dose, when I indulged in an easy 4 mile run. I'm guessing I was just dehydrated enough (it was hot) the following day, to damage my left calf.
But the best was yet to come. The Czarina was now complaining of a cold on New Year's Day and was sick on Saturday as well. It didn't take long for her cold to come back at me. By Sunday I could tell something wasn't right. Monday came and I started sniffling and wheezing. Tuesday came with a fever and I stayed home where I sweated it out through the night and started to rebound on Wednesday. Worse still I couldn't get into see my doctor, or any doctor to save myself.
Now it's Thursday night and the upper respiratory infection is beginning to ease its grip. I feel okay except for the sinus pressure and the post nasal drip. I haven't had an infection like this since 1973. This is almost identical to the illness that wrecked my senior year of cross country and lingered well through the winter.
I don't know when I will try and run again. It makes me appreciate the fact that I can run at all but it also means that I won't be up for much racing this winter. Too bad, I was looking forward to racing in my new age group.
