I’m home sick today.  Apparently, the little sore throat I picked up in Vegas, bloomed into a full blown cold this week.  I tried to tough it out Monday and Tuesday.  But today was just too much.  I sent the boss a note and went back to bed.

I had fever and chills earlier in the week, but that all seemed to pass.  I got the usual stuffy sinuses (my eternal reward for years of scuba diving), and was incredibly tired.  It was so hard to concentrate at work.  I thought I was putting up a good show, but I was at work only a few minutes when someone told me I looked horrible.

This morning I felt like total crap and had a horrendous headache.  I took tylenol for the first time in quite a while.  I’ve got one nostril working, which allows me to still taste my food a little.  That sounds kinda odd, but its how your sense of taste works.

My right ear is plugged.  No real pain, maybe an occasional dull ache.   I’m hoping that it will clear out by tomorrow.  I don’t need another ear infection.  It will cost me $35 to get a scrip for that, plus whatever the scrip costs.  Gah.

Obviously, no running this week except for Sunday.  I’m supposed to run tomorrow.  I think I can, but I’m not sure if I am up to hill repeats.  We’ll see.

I ate cookies for lunch yesterday, was poisoned by a beautiful Israeli woman, and the brakes on my car disintegrated on the way home.

Feel like I was run through an oatmeal machine.

Details to follow.

Sorry for not responding to comments.  I’m just kinda busy and not so sociable.  Today was the first time I actually felt talking to others in a while, despite spending another 12 hours at work.

My stomach is still having issues but it has calmed down a bit.  Although, tonight I had to clear two driveways and now my throat and stomach are burning like crazy.  I’m not sure why its affected by physical activity.

I’m not eating very much lately.  For me anyway (most would say I eat alot).  I found that if I let myself get really hungry (delay lunch by a couple hours), my stomach ends of feeling better that day.  Its a little distracting to be hungry but I think about how hard it is running a marathon, and then it doesn’t seem so bad.

Some interesting things I found out with all this.

1.  Initially, when I delayed lunch, I got the rumbling stomach syndrome as it got later in the day.

2. Lately, it has switched to more of a generally tired feeling, like the low blood sugar feeling.

3.  I haven’t been eating any sweets or cake or junk food and I found its easier to eat less when I don’t eat that stuff.

4.  My energy is actually picking up.  I find myself almost hyper during the day now.  Even when I’m hungry.  I used to get really sluggish when I was feeling hungry (back when I ate more).

5.  One time, I did try a small taste of the raspberry ganache I was making for someone at work, just to see that the experimental recipe wasn’t a nightmare.  It may have been about half a teaspoon or so.   Oddly, for hours afterwards I was just a total slug.  I wonder if sugar does dreadful things to me.  Maybe just some sugars.  Maybe its not the sugar.  Allergy?

6.  I’ve lost just a little weight, so I don’t think its doing anything bad to me.  Trust me.  The 30 pounds I gained this year (no joke! 30 f-ing pounds!) is my personal protection against starvation.  I eat a spinach salad with lots of veggies with my lunch every day.  50 grams of fiber from real food sources spread through out the day.  Protein.  Water.  I’m pretty much covered.  And if my stomach would just calm down, I’ll be golden.

I am not well.

For about four days now I have had this funny burning/cold feeling down inside. Its hard to describe where it is coming from. I can feel it in my chest, or more like behind my sternum, but deeper inside. Almost like its waaaaay down my throat, near my stomach. Its like a burning itch, but feels cold. I know, that’s odd.

I Googled it ofcourse, and found other people with similar symptoms and possible diagnoses, like heart attack, GERD, and ulcers. But the symptoms don’t seem to fit any one of those in particular.

Antacids don’t help at all.
It isn’t irritated by any foods in particular.
Hurts when I’m empty, but gets worse when I’m full, but only sometimes. Right now its really killing me after eating some cereal and a banana.
The irritation (can’t really describe it as pain) doesn’t radiate outward to my back or arms.
Exercise doesn’t make it worse or better.
Here’s an odd one, if I cough deeply, it stops momentarily, maybe for 5 seconds and then starts again.
No other symptoms like nasty burping or other grosser bathroom-related things.

Its kinda like what I had once before when I was working in Canuckdia. I would wake up about 2 am with a horrible burning sensation just like this only 10 times worse. One time I drove around town in the middle of the night looking for Tums, which ofcourse didn’t help in the end. When I stopped eating a giant fat-filled meal at 9 o’clock at night, that seemed to fix things there. But I’m not doing that now. And this isn’t just at night, its all day long, from the moment I get up to the moment I fall asleep.

I guess I need to go see the MD. Naturally, deadlines are all hanging over me right now and missing 2 hours of work can mean the difference between making my deadlines and forfeiting a client’s intellectual property rights. Which leads to immediate firing. :(

I’m up at 3 am because my teeth hurt from my sinuses being full.  I caught a cold from someone at work.  Why do people come to work sick when they get paid for sick days?  I  lose money when I can’t work, they get paid.

I missed alot of mid-week runs last week.  My Dad was in the hospital and I spent evenings there.  He’s out now and ok.  But now I’m sick and skipped last night’s run, hoping it would help me get well faster.  It hasn’t.  I feel like crap.  The Tylenol I took 2 hours ago is not easing the pain.   I may take ibuprofin now too.  And vicodin.

I had an EKG test done at the doctor’s office during my physical. Here’s what she said.

Accompanied by the offending reading. If you look at the set of peaks on the right, see that sharp tall one? It should come down to baseline before starting up again for the lower rounder peak.  Now take a look at this page that talks about early repolarization. Does it look familiar? This is what a normal ECG looks like (look at the spot marked “V6″ to compare).

As I drove back to work, my first thought was total panic, even though she said it might be nothing and I might always have had that. But she said still wanted to be certain. I kept thinking about the editor from Men’s Health who found out he had heart disease. The whole thought process changed how I felt about running and exercise and everything. If I couldn’t run because there was a problem, what would I do then? It really panicked me. I mean, what would you do to stay in shape? It was hard to imagine going for a run and not worrying about dropping dead while I ran.

I looked up “early repolarization” on the web when I got to work and found pages like this that talked about heart disease and stuff that I know nothing about. Yikes.

Then I found this. Apparently, “Athlete’s Heart” is a known condition, where people who do endurance training develop different heart muscle behavior which is visible in your ECG, and apparently, early repolarization is one of the visible signs.

When you search Google under “Athlete’s heart” you will pull up a million articles on it. Its not a bad thing, it just may make the ECG look funny. My hope is that this is what I have going on in my heart.

So in a few weeks I go for a stress test and they will check it all out to make sure its nothing bad. Sure makes for an exciting morning.

I feel dizzy today. When I walk down the hall, it feels all swimmy. And my eyes hurt like someone punched me in them.

I ran this week. On the dreadmill. Not much else to say about that.

And I’m hungry. What else is new?