A Hospital Visit & Parvin Tri Report

(FYI- I am all about TMI’s and hold little back.  If you aren’t interested in my hospital stay, move on and down to the race report.  That is your warning!)

On the day before the last day of school, I found myself in a serious amount of pain that presented like a kidney stone.  I hadn’t felt myself all day and had some cramps, but just figured maybe my period was coming early.  I am not the most regular when it comes to my period (try as I might to regulate, it never seems to work for me) so I brushed it off.  Additionally, I hadn’t really slept much and I have been under enormous stress at work.  I just figured it would go away.  Until about 2:30 when the pain intensified.  Big time.  And within the hour, I was in the nurse’s bathroom hardly able to move.  I called my mom and we decided I would go to the hospital.  My co-worker drove me home and my mom met us there.  The hospital we went to is brand new.  Advice- NEVER go to a brand new hospital.  Best analogy I heard in reference to being at a new facility: its like a new car.  You have to learn where everything is and how it works.  It all added up to a lot of waiting.  Pretty much right away they were talking about bladder infections, UTI’s and had pretty much ruled out a kidney stone.  Here’s the thing, I got the impression they didn’t believe how much pain I was in because when I am in pain I am quiet.  I internalize and I am not one of those screaming annoying patients.  This worked to my disadvantage because they quickly assumed it was nothing.  I waited on a bed in a hallway- peed in a cup…and later a hat looking thing.  I’ll tell you what it wasn’t…a bladder infection or a UTI.  At least I could go back to just peeing in the damn toilet!  So then there was an Ultrasound.  Good news- not pregnant!  Although, my mom did mention that if I was, we were totally calling that “I didn’t know I was pregnant show” and getting me some 15 minutes of fame.  Anyway…ultrasound turned up nothing.  So it was more waiting.  And waiting.  And waiting.  And finally…THREE HOURS into my wait, they gave me pain meds.  Heavy dose of Motrin.  Basically, it did not take the pain away but it subsided a great deal.  I was having so much pressure within my belly and as the night progressed my stomach was becoming more and more distended.  To the point where my mom was really concerned.  Her and R2 both confirmed to the nurses that I have a normal flat stomach and abs and this is not normal.  Still, they pretty much just kept me waiting.  I had an X-ray and FINALLY the doctor came in.  His name was Nick Nolte.  This Nick Nolte was much better looking!  He determined we would do a CAT scan.  Talked about a blockage…tubes in my nose…possible surgery.  Now the meds were wearing off, I was in pain and had all kinds of crazy anxiety!  And the CAT scan was a slow process- I had to drink some stuff that would require a TWO HOUR wait before the test.  More friggen waiting.  And then I had a meltdown. Well, for me it was…and I got me some reallllly good pain meds.   My mom was right, I should have had that meltdown a lot earlier.  Note this folks- freaking out is a one way ticket to medication land. And medication land is a nice, nice place!!  And according to my mom and R2, I was also hysterically funny.  I barely remember, unfortunately, what was the only nice part of the night.  Being drugged that is!  After what seemed like a million more hours they finally came and got me for my CAT scan.  It wasn’t long after that, that the doctor came back in with the results.  I had a viral infection in my intestines.  Awesome.  And the best part of all…it’s viral, so it just had to run its course.  There was basically nothing that could be done about it.  But in the end, that was WAY better than having to have surgery for what they thought might have been a blockage.  It was a long  night and the next day wasn’t all that pleasant for me either.  In fact, it took about 3 full days before I felt remotely back to normal and a good week before I felt like myself again.

So given all that above, what does a girl do?  She tri’s of course!

Only four days after my hospital stay, still feeling on the mend, I did the Parvin Sprint Tri.  I had no desire to bike, so I did it as a two-person relay with my teammate Kurt.  I swam and ran and he biked.  The swim was not fun- one of my worst; even though my time was still a respectable 9 minutes and I still placed 101 out of 253, I wasn’t happy with the performance.  I should have been in the low 8-minutes.  But I reminded myself that only a few nights before I could barely walk with all my stomach pain, so I sucked it up and got over myself.  Kurt had a great bike- really good, placing 76 out of the 253.  He tagged me and off I went on the run.  My legs felt great and I loved the trail.  My Garmin punked out on me as soon as I hit the woods so I had no idea how I was doing the entire run, but that is a good thing because I need to work on my pacing.  My goal was to run it just a bit faster than my training runs have been but not run at race pace.  Not running at race pace is very hard for me; I want to push myself but at the same time this was meant as a training run.  And I wanted to focus on running smooth and ending feeling good.  The end result was perfect- I ran a very solid 31:20 for the 5K and finished feeling great!   Kurt was right at the finish line waiting and cheering, as were many of my teammates and R2.  I quickly got some water and joined my friends to cheer on the rest of our teammates.  Overall, we placed 139 out of 253 and we were 4th relay.  I felt really good all things considered. 

And of course…what would a race report be without photos:

Getting ready to swim

Happy that’s over!!!

Coming in from the run feeling great!

With Kurt, post-race!

TT kids ♥