Origin Story Part II

After my experience in July of 2015 (see part I of my origin story), it took about a month before I felt normal again. I couldn't run and sometimes I could only walk gingerly. I lost about 15 pounds from a lack of appetite. However, by the end of August I felt normal and the episode was becoming a distant memory. I was running again and continued to lose weight but was doing so because of exercise and diet. I ran my first race on Thanksgiving and by the following spring (2016) was running a couple of half marathons. I was having no lingering gut issues and was perhaps in the best shape of my life.

In the summer of 2016 we decided to sell our 50+ year old house and buy a new construction home. It was busy period of organizing, fixing random issues, yard sales, showings, and moving a lot of our stuff into a storage unit. I was in the process of training for my first trail half in September and my first full marathon in November. We sold our house quickly with relatively few issues. Our new home would not be ready until January of 2017 so we moved in with the in laws. We also took a family trip to Walt Disney World. While there I probably did the hardest training run of my life. I thought running a 20 miler at sea level in flat Florida would be easy but the humidity and heat really drained me. Even with all the stress, moving, travelling and running I felt good and healthy. In November I ran my first marathon. It was painful but an absolutely amazing and worthwhile experience.

January came and we moved into our new house. I was still running and signed up to run the Colfax Marathon in May. The move itself was exhausting and a lot of work. About 5 days after we moved in I went for a 6 mile run and felt fatigued. This wasn't normal running fatigue. This wasn't the fatigue I felt running through the swampy Florida heat. This wasn't the fatigue I felt as I slowly made my way through the final 6 miles of the marathon. This was different.

At first I chalked it up to exhaustion from the move plus all the accumulated impact running was having on me. In February I had a couple good weeks but never really felt normal. At the end of the month I was on another mid distance run on a very cold day. It was a struggle and the extreme fatigue was setting in again. When I got home I just lied on the floor in front of the fire but could not get warm. The next day I called out from work and missed a few more days over the next week. I was starting to have some gut pain similar to the summer of 2015. I was having chills and fevers By the end of March I was going to sleep at 7 pm every night and the stomach pain was getting worse. I developed pain in my testicles. Finally one day Carrie forced me to go see a doctor.

The doctor I saw seemed to know immediately that this wasn't a flu bug. She suggested diverticulitis. She examined about everywhere that you could exam and ruled out any testicular or prostate issues. She was uncertain but seemed concerned about me. Before I left I had blood drawn.

Later in the day when I was picking kids up from school I was surprised by a phone call from the doctor. "Jason I'm worried about you and want you to emergency room as soon as you can," she greeted me. Apparently I was anemic and had indications of internal bleeding. I dropped my kids off at home and told my wife I would be back in a couple hours. I then drove myself to the emergency room where the real adventure began.