health

Bummed :(

Tomorrow (Saturday) was supposed to be awesome. I was going to run my first full marathon. I didn’t say anything about the race in the blog world because last time I did, I didn’t end up running the marathon. I wanted to surprise everyone.

Anyways, let me retrace my steps back to Thursday. I began packing for the marathon on Thursday afternoon because it was supposed to be in West Virginia. The plan was that my family was leaving Friday afternoon and staying in a hotel and then I was running the marathon on Saturday.

Random running picture…

On Thursday afternoon, Hannah came home from school complaining that she was nauseous. I didn’t think anything of it and left that evening to teach Spinning. I came home around 7:30 and found out that Hannah had thrown up and wasn’t feeling well.

Random picture of Hannah and me..

By 9:00 p.m., I threw up and was feeling awful. All night Hannah, my mom, and I got sick. I threw up 5 times–until I didn’t have anything left in my stomach and I was heaving and unable to breathe. We had to throw away four garbage cans and Hannah decided to just get sick outside since it was easier. Bleh.

So, I was supposed to be leaving in a few hours to travel to West Virginia to run my first marathon. I began training in August and I have been tapering the past two weeks. Now I can hardly walk around my house because I’m so tired from getting sick.

Training..

After the first time I threw up, I thought that maybe that would be it and I’d be okay to run. Now I’m having trouble thinking about food/water, so I know their is no way I’d be able to re-fuel enough before the race and I just have no energy.

I feel as if I keep getting “blocked” from running a marathon. I was signed up for the Steamtown Marathon in October 2010 and injured my knee a month before. I was going to run God’s Country Marathon in June, but I didn’t want to miss Hannah’s dance recital. In August, I wanted to sign up for the Akron Marathon but it sold out. I signed up for Freedom’s Run Marathon that is tomorrow and became ill 48 hours before.

This is a bummer. It’s not the end of the world. Its just running and races are held every weekend. I look at it this way–maybe God is preventing me from going because something bad would have happened before/during/after the race.

For now, I’m just working on regaining my strength and feeling better. Thanks for reading this Debbie Downer post! I hope everyone has a great weekend ❤

Bible verse of the day: Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails. Proverbs 19:21

Endoscopy Results

Sorry I have taken forever to post about my endoscopy! For a quick review, I was diagnosed with a H. pylori infection in July, was given strong antibiotics for two weeks and had to have an endoscopy on August 16th.

About the endoscopy:

Basically, an endoscopy is a medical procedure to look inside your body. Mine was performed to look at my esophagus, stomach and duodenum to see if I still had a stomach infection.

The doctor put me under anesthesia, inserted a tube with a camera on it into my mouth, down my throat, & into my stomach and took a lot of scrapes (or biopsies) of my stomach and esophagus. I scheduled my appointment bright and early so I wouldn’t have to fast all day for the procedure. What can I say, I hate being hungry ;).

I arrived at the office, checked in, got my id band, and was ushered into a recovery/prep room where I had to change into a hospital gown.

A nurse inserted an IV with fluids into my arm and my bed was rolled into the room where the endoscopy was performed. I chatted about Spinning (LOL!) a little with the doctor and nurses before the anesthesiologist  randomly “put me to sleep” in the middle of my discussion of Spin bikes with one of the nurses. Oh well!

I woke up about an hour or so later back in my recovery/prep room. My mom was waiting for me in there and I made her take a picture (or two..) of me so I could make fun of myself later. I was a little loopy ;).  A nurse gave me some water in a Styrofoam cup. After I finished the cup my mom offered to throw it away for me but I just whipped it on the ground and started cracking up for no reason. Good times! LOLZ.

My mom and I headed home and I made her take me to Red Lobster (because we had a gift card .. yaaaay) when I wasn’t “under the influence” anymore. My throat was sore for a few days, but other than that I was fine.

The only thing the doctor said the day of the endoscopy was that I have esophagitis, which is when the esophagus is irritated due to stomach acid back flowing into it. It can be chronic or acute (chronic in my case) and causes symptoms like heart burn and ulcers. It’s pretty manageable with some diet/lifestyle changes, so I’m not worried about it too much.

I got the results about the infection about a week after the test. The biopsies of my stomach were negative for the infection!! I’m in the clear :).

I am so thankful and really learned a lot from this experience. I have a lot of compassion for others who are sick or taking medications, I became a lot closer to God, my family, & Jimmy and I really appreciate my health. I’m so glad that I don’t have the start the school year on the insane medication I had to take in July-August!

Thank you to everyone who commented, tweeted, emailed, and text messaged me during this tough time in my life. It meant more than you will ever know ❤

*

Bible verse of the day: Lord my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me. Psalm 30:2

Edited to add: If you want to talk to me about my experience with H. Pylori and the medicine I took, please feel free to email me at allie(at)southboundenterprises(dot)com. Thanks!