Tuesday, March 3, 2009

A HA! It all makes sense now...

For a few weeks, I've been trying to figure out why I've been so loooooowwww energy. Why my runs have been sooooooo hard. Why sleeping more hours every day than a cat sounded soooooo appealing.

I've been sick!

This may sound gross (at least it sounds gross to me), but I have shingles. It is an aftereffect of chicken pox, which can lie dormant in your nerves.

(Sidenote: The chicken pox thing was also a surprise, as the only childhood disease I thought I had was the mumps (were the mumps??? Is "Mumps" as a disease singular or plural?))

Apparently, once you have chicken pox, the virus stays lurking in your nerves. Some people go the rest of their life with no sign of the virus.

Others, like me, get shingles. The virus decides to pop its little head out of sleep and runs wild through your nervous system.

Symptoms are rash (my rash is on my neck) and swollen lymph glands, bumps, etc. which tend to congregate on one side of the body (my left side of my head is where it is showing up: my head, ear and neck are all swollen and very, very tender).

Bummer -- BUT may explain why expending energy was a big issue. Why I've been so achy for the last few weeks.

Stress is a factor that can help wake up the virus, and heaven knows I've been a bit stressed lately, so that must have been the trigger.

The doc gave me a Rx to help fight this thing faster and I've been asked to "take it easy". (What does that mean again?)

Training? I'll do what I can, when I can.

Fargo 1/2 is really only a placemark race for me this year. I won't start tri training in earnest until the end of April, so I have some time.

I'm kind of mad this happened, though, because I really don't get sick much.

Perfect timing!

(Similar to the "perfect timing" of the delivery of the Girl Scout cookies I ordered in January coinciding with my re dedication to Weight Watchers.....")

Starve a cold, give a cookie to a shingle...

4 comments:

Dori said...

Oh, I've had shingles and they are not fun! If you catch it early enough, the doctor can give you something to make it go away sooner. Bring the GS cookies to work and watch them disappear.

Sunshine said...

So so sorry about shingles.
Hoping Dori is right that treating it early helps.
Best get well wishes.

Anonymous said...

I don't know anything about that "take it easy" recommendation! Good luck with that! I hope you're feeling better real soon!

TRI TO BE FUNNY said...

Glad you are finally feeling better!!