Tuesday, January 21, 2014

This Week Flu By

As I sit here recovering from my  bout with the flu, I thought I'd give a timeline of what happened and when.

Wednesday
Training Plan - 1:20 run with surges
Training Completed - 1:07 with surges

After a normal day of work and school, we continued on with our normal routine at night. Dinner, showers, homework, and bedtime. We had one minor outlier with my son William who suddenly had a fever. I say suddenly because we (my wife and I) didn't notice anything out of the ordinary earlier in the day. It wasn't until getting him ready for bed that we knew something was up.

So we took his temp and sure enough, a fever. With that in mind, I planned on taking him to the doctor in the morning. It wouldn't be that big of a deal since I was working late for the week and had already gotten my run in and was feeling okay if I missed my upper body workout the next day.

Thursday
Training Plan - Upper body workout
Training Completed - Nothing

With an even higher fever, it was a trip to the doctor for sure. After dosing him up with meds to bring the fever down some, my son and I headed to the local urgent care center in the morning. We stopped for some breakfast and coffee (for me) and then got checked out (for him). His strep and flu tests came back negative but we got an anti-biotic since one ear looked slightly inflamed. We came home and chilled out. I got some work done but nothing terribly major since I was constantly checking on him.

After having kids for a bit, you start to know them better than they know themselves. So when William didn't want to eat much, still had a fever through the day, and wanted to take naps instead of watching cartoons, I knew things weren't getting better. So it wasn't too much of a surprise that my wife took him to the pediatrician that night to get him checked out again. His flu test came back positive almost immediately so we stopped the anti-biotic and started the Tamiflu.

Friday
Training Plan - 2:15 run
Training Completed - Nothing

Friday was pretty much a repeat of Thursday but with fewer naps, a little more food, and a lower temperature. These were all good signs but he still wasn't fever free so that meant no school. Which meant I was again on nurse duty instead of getting a lot of work done. I was happy to see his fever come down and that he was eating a little more. I wasn't so happy to miss my workout but knew it the right thing to do. Not like I can just leave him home alone watching cartoons.

Another casualty of William getting sick was our planned couple's massage on Saturday. We knew he needed to be fever free for a day before being non-contagious so we knew that would likely come on Saturday. Which meant that my dad didn't really want to expose himself to the flu and we didn't blame him. So with us being out a sitter and still having a sick kid, we rescheduled the massage to a later date.

Saturday
Training Plan - 3:00 run
Training Completed - Nothing

With Friday's run in the toilet, I knew Saturday's would be too. So I asked my coach if I could shift some of the missed running time to Sunday to make up for it. I don't like to "make up" for missed runs because things usually go wrong and it sets the wrong mentality that I can make up for it. Thankfully he's on board with that too but agreed that I could change my Sunday run to 5:00 hours. With that being the plan and with getting approval from my wife, I was good to go with that.

The rest of the day was spent doing our usual errands and chores like getting groceries. William was feeling better and I had no symptoms other than I woke up with a tiny tickle in the back of my throat. That tickle would turn out to be more but I just thought I slept funny and my sinuses drained awkwardly enough to make me cough a bit more than normal. I went to bed Saturday night feeling just fine. Things were going great until about 2200. I took a pill that has a side-effect of giving you a mild headache unless you hydrate a little more than normal. I didn't so I thought the headache was normal.

It wasn't. The headache went away but came back at 2200 ten times worse. I tossed and turned until about 0100 and took my temperature. Yep, I had a fever. So I tossed and turned the rest of the night worrying about missing my run in the morning but feeling pretty certain that I had the flu.

Sunday
Training Plan - 1:30 run 5:00 run
Training Completed - Nothing

Sunday morning I woke up feeling much worse than the night before. I checked again and sure enough, I still had a fever. This along with a massive headache led me to believe I had the flu. I've learned to listen to my body and understand it enough to know when something is wrong and I'm generally right in diagnosing myself. So after suffering through a long morning trying to get my fever down I finally relented and let my wife take me to the same urgent care center I was at Thursday.

My flu test came back negative but I saw the same doctor and when he heard my son tested positive for the flu later in the day he decided I needed to be on Tamiflu too. So instead of aiming for 5 hours of running and about 20 miles on the trail, I ended up spending an extra 5 hours in bed and having somebody drive me 20+ miles to the doctor because I was too woozy to drive myself. I spent the rest of the day and night trying to rest and watch the playoff games.

Monday
Training Plan - Recovery
Training Completed - Sort of recovered

I was happy to see Denver going to the SuperBowl but not so happy to see the 49ers lose. Since the Steelers didn't make I had to pick somebody, right? Anyway, I felt a little better but got almost no sleep. I stayed up late watching a movie and trying to read but ended up with only a few hours of sleep sitting up in the recliner in the living room. Better than nothing but not as good as I needed. The day was spent resting more and making a trip for coffee. I was well enough to drive but still wasn't feeling too wonderful. My fever was down a bit but not where it needed to be.

Tuesday
Training Plan - 1:30 run
Training Completed - Nothing

I slept fairly well last night but woke up feeling exhausted. So even though I have a ton of work to do at work, I knew I needed another day to recover well enough to actually work coherently. So I called in sick with the intent to go back to work Wednesday. The kids have a snow day so it'll be a loud and busy house but I'm sure I can at least squeeze in a nap at some point.

With my son feeling better and on his last day of Tamiflu and with me feeling a little better and halfway through my Tamiflu, I'm hoping, really really hoping, that nobody else in the house gets sick. It sucks. It always sucks but this is worse than my usual man-cold that I get once a year or so. What really sealed the deal for me was the larger than normal headache and the fever. Usually I get more of a sinus headache when I get sinus infections or some bronchitis. This headache was much worse. And I never get a fever. So yes doctor, I'm pretty sure your test was wrong and I do/did have the flu.

Conclusion
I missed nearly eight hours of training and I'm okay with that. Even though I was really looking forward to a long run on Sunday I knew I had a valid reason to miss it. And I must be making progress in my training because I don't even feel bad about it. Maybe it was because I knew I was really sick and maybe it was because I knew I shouldn't feel guilty about it. And even though I had a brief moment of panic that my next race is a short two weeks away and that I probably wouldn't meet my goal, I'm okay with that too. Okay, not entirely okay, but at least 80% to 90% okay with it. Much more okay with it than I would under different circumstances.

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