2012-366 Day 37 – The Lost Year

I’m sure most of you reading this are aware that I had some health issues involving my neck and shoulders that knocked me out of action for a long period of time (hence my naming it “The Lost Year”), but I’ve never told the whole story (mainly because I’m not even sure how much of the whole story I know myself). I will attempt to catalog the experience here.

It all started late August 2010, out for dinner with our good friends, we walked into a store in the mall and a sense of vertigo staggered me. It was unlike anything I experienced before and, after a steadying trip to the restroom, when it recurred, I was concerned something was significantly wrong. Walking back to the car, the nausea associated with the vertigo peaked, and I wound up throwing up (although I had overeaten at the restaurant). Our friends drove me to the emergency room, and I spent the next several hours having tests runs and slowly returning to normal (as long as the bed wasn’t raised). It was chalked up to a case of food poisoning, and I was released in relatively short order (for an E.R).

I wish the story had just ended there, but at the time I was teaching in Santa Clarita and experienced a recurrence of the vertigo coupled with a rapid heart beat and what felt like a drop in blood pressure (the later two symptoms probably a minor panic attack). Thankfully it was a lab class so I was able to mostly camouflage the symptoms by wheeling a chair around and using it as a support. Needless to say, the next day I visited the doctor. After explaining the symptoms and getting checked out, it was determined that one of my eardrums was (embarrassingly) impacted with wax, so much so that it took several visits, as well as intervening home treatments, to finally get it cleared out. The vertigo symptoms persisted to a lesser degree during my teaching of class (in retrospect probably due to the change in pressure of my head travelling over the pass, it always seemed to be worst then), eventually reducing to near zero over the semester.

Unfortunately in reaction to all of this, my neck and shoulder muscles had become unusually tight and were causing some pressure and tension in my skull. This greatly worried me and made me wonder if there wasn’t some more overarching cause than just the food poisoning (which I never really bought) or the ear problems. Suffering through an intense headache with tension at a softball game, I asked a Physical Therapist there if they knew anything that might help. Before I knew it, my head was by my ankles and my neck felt very rubbery. I thought maybe it had loosened up, so went home and tried to get some rest. Unfortunately it seemed the adjustment had done more harm than good, as it took a week for me to even be able to support my head when I got out of bed. I had my neck and shoulders checked out again and was prescribed some muscle relaxants, which helped a little bit but, due to my control issues, I was hesitant to take anymore than a couple times.

Strength and stability in my neck were a long time coming, and the shoulder issues persisted. An x-ray of the area came back clean, and I was put into physical therapy (actually my second trip, my first round came early in the process after an MRI was suggested but ultimately nixed by the insurance company). Whereas the first time through I had the same doctor, this time I was rotated among whoever was available, and I was slowly improving on my own so I stopped going after a month or so.

Eight months in and I was well enough to do the Ragnar Relay for the second time, which definitely helped my confidence. I was still experiencing discomfort in the neck and shoulders, but now it seemed to be largely due to inflammation which could be knocked down a bit with ibuprofen and the like. With the improvements came a realization about how much my attitude was affecting me and how I was acting. It mostly came from an area of fear, as I had never had anything this prolonged happen to me before, and I hate when anything happens with my head. I had convinced myself something was very wrong, and the lack of a clear diagnosis just fed into that fear. Over the next few months, however, I came to realize that even if the inflammation did not subside, that was not going to prevent me from being active, as I didn’t want to live my life that way.

I played volleyball as usual that summer, and definitely could feel an improvement over the softball season of the previous fall (very little of which I remember, which is either good or bad considering my team came within one strike of winning the championship and blew it). As I came up on the anniversary of the initial vertigo incident, my neck was feeling largely better, I had not had any recurrences of the vertigo since those classes I taught, and the remaining inflammation was eminently treatable. I thought that maybe my neck and shoulders just needed a little more building up, so I joined a gym and started working on those areas. I was able perform all the exercises with minimal problems, so the structure seemed fine, it looked to be a case of working the muscle.

So at the end of this month it will have been a year and a half since the initial problem. Looking back, I realize that I could have saved myself a lot of pain and grief had I not overreacted and assumed the worst. My shell of invulnerability had been cracked, and I was undergoing a trial of faith (a story for another time) which did not allow me to fully trust in God. Outside of some distance running conditioning and weight gain, I’m actually more active now than I was before this whole story occurred (adding Karate and Soccer). There still seems to be some inflammation and shoulder stiffness, but I’m largely able to look past it (only really feel the stiffness when stretching). In all, had I known then what I know now, the experience would have been completely different and I may not have dropped off the face of the earth for the better part of a year. Sadly the saying about hindsight being 20/20 is all too true, and, while there is no way to recoup that time, all I can do is make sure I make the most out of my time going forward.

I learned several valuable lessons from this experience (of course, why else would I have to go through it) and, while I am a little ashamed of my initial response/handling of the situation and my subsequent withdrawal into myslef, do feel as though I am a stronger person now because of it. I still have a few more things to fix (apparently I can still be a little dour at times, as I seem to still be sometims defaulting to the quiet, dealing with it, persona I had for a while there rather than my previous more engaged self), but isn’t that what life is for, fixing things?

Weight: 233.4 Max: 240 Min: 233.4 Body Fat %: 24.7
Yearly Mileage: 13.5 miles
Current Belt: Purple – Next Belt: Orange – Next Test Date: 3/3/12
Fitocracy Level: 12 (14486 points, 636/2750 to next level) – ID: disciplev1