Well, not exactly seen a man but seen the results on man from streptococcus pneumoniae? Its not a pretty sight albeit a common one (see mugshot to the left). Generally speaking streptococcus pneumonia is the walking pneumonia. 9 times out of 10 it causes pneumonia. In some worse cases it causes meningitis after that it gets really hairy and can give you osteomyelitis, septic arthritis, endocarditis, peritonitis, cellulitis and brain abscesses. I have been relatively healthy my entire life. Not only healthy but in pretty good shape if I might say. I take care of myself or at least I thought I did. 30 plus miles a week running about 50 miles on the bike, yoga and an exquisite vegetarian lifestyle.
Almost eight months ago though my life got flipped upside down. I was training for the Philadelphia marathon while my wife trained for the Philly half. Things were going well and then during a training run in the early morning along the Hudson River BLAMO!!! I stepped on some sort of nut. Not your average acorn but some monstrous handball size nut. Instant high ankle sprain and sprained knee. This was in early to mid September 2008. I was quite pissed but at least my wife was training and I decided I would concentrate on building a much needed retaining wall in our backyard while being her cheerleader. It was a "manly" project. You know the kind that you are proud to work on and even prouder when its done because you have fought mother nature, on a meager scale, and won. So, on one good leg with the help of my father Lou, my friends Moe, Matthew and Dave and of course my brother Michael (who worked liked a Spartan) we built a 47 foot long 4 feet high cast concrete block wall (Versa-lok...handy stuff). All the while I was going to orthopedists and physical therapists. Oh the joy and pain of it all.
So for the next two and half months I worked and suffered through PT biding my time for December or so when I could once again start training. The wall was completed (almost-a story for another blog). And winter set in. My knee and ankle were not healing. Probably the wall, I was told over and over again. OK it got cold and we couldn't finish now I could get back to training. The fates had other plans.
My wife and I had decided we would start trying to make a family. No offense to the cats but they aren't kids...no thumbs and they rarely answer us back. It was an exciting time after a minor setback. A new family on the horizon, I would be able to get back to one of my passions, and a major project under my belt as a homeowner. Then my not so nice friend made an appearance. I somehow contracted streptococcus pneumoniae. Being "special" I couldn't just get pneumonia like most people. No, my immune system had to fight and fight and the infection went from my lungs to my heart then through the bloodstream. Now if it would have been caught here in time it would have been fine but of course that wouldn't be dramatic enough. No, the infection settled into the bones of my neck and needless to say all hell broke loose. I won't go into all the details now (there's plenty of posts for that) but instead of me training in December I for the first time since September of 2008 ran today, April 20th, 2009. It was a hellish two miles of lung burning lactic acid muscle thrashing fun. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I have a 50 mile race that I am committed to five months from now.
Stick with me this will be a very fun ride.
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