Tag: bicuspid aortic valve disease

Because I obviously needed a Running Tutu

  • I got my running tutu for the Lincoln Marathon in the mail on Monday. I’m pretty excited. It’s not a running skirt so trivialbob can’t be mad about it. 🙂
  • The forecast for the race is now saying 79 and partly sunny. But we must all remember this: this is Nebraska. And if you don’t like the weather, just wait 5 minutes, it will change.
  • I had my annual Heart Echo this morning. I have Bicuspid Aortic Valve and I have to have an Echo every year to make sure I’m fine. I am good to go. HOWEVER! They did forget about me so I was in the waiting room for 45 minutes!! My 9:30am appointment ended up finally getting over at 11:30. Not how I wanted to spend 2 hours of my morning.
  • The Sonographer told me that running was great for me to do, but I really shouldn’t do any isometric chest exercises. To which I replied, “Wait, you mean I shouldn’t lift weights? I HATE doing that!” She told me no, that was not the case. I was bummed. I thought I had a medical reason not to lift weights! 😉
  • I cancelled my date with Bachelor #3 tonight. He’s kind of creepy and I just don’t want to go. I’m relieved I don’t have to. That says something, I think.

Happy Hump Day friends!

Humid Running & My heart

So I told you earlier that I have a heart issue that causes problems when I run sometimes. Here’s the deal: I have Bicuspid Aortic Valve Disease. Basically, instead of 3 leaflets on my aortic valve, I was born with only 2. What this means is that someday I will have to have my heart valve replaced. Hopefully in 30 years or so. But my cardiologist says I may have to have it done when I’m 45-50 years old.

That sucks.

The funny this is, is that it was found because I was hospitalized back in November with this weird stomach issue. I was so sick. I spent 8 days in the hospital. 2 in a smaller hospital, where I was diagnosed with C Diff Colitis. They began treating me for that, but I wasn’t getting better. I even told my parents I felt like I was “circling the drain.” It was that bad.

So after 2 days I was transferred to a bigger hospital in a bigger town and stayed there for 6 days. They did chest x-rays, stomach x-rays, a colonoscopy, and I had a heart echo.  That’s because I have a murmur, so they were just trying to figure out what was wrong. That’s when they discovered the BAVD.

I wasn’t getting any better, so they don’t think I had the C Diff Colitis, but they still had no idea what I had. After about 7 days in the hospital I finally started getting better, in spite, the doctors said, of what they did.

I have no clue what happened to me. While I was still sick they were talking about taking out part of my colon. That’s how sick I was. I had 2 hospitalists, 1 Hematologist/Oncologist, 1-Nephrologist (Kidney Doc), and 1-Gastroenterologist taking care of me.

The Hematologist was because there were issues with my blood and levels there. The Kidney doc was because I have a kidney disease that was found about a year before I got sick, so he was there because in the early stages of my illness I was in acute renal failure! I couldn’t eat…lost 6lbs in 2 days, had stomach issues (I’m sure you can figure out what I mean by that!) and was severely dehydrated! It was terrible!

I didn’t even want to eat in the hospital. The thought of food made me ill.  However, my main Doc was a marathon runner and understood how I felt when I told him that I wanted to run a half-marathon on May 1st. He told me he would see me there! That I would get better and be able to run!

And I did. But now I have a Kidney doc and a cardiologist, like I’m some 80 year old woman!

I gained 35lbs of water weight…I was freaking out about that. I felt sooo uncomfortable, the pain of the water hurt. They gave me Lasix (water pills) and I was able to get rid of it.

About a week after I got out of the hospital I started running again, and I haven’t looked back since.  3 weeks after my hospital stay you would never have even known that I was sick! It was the strangest thing. Makes you very grateful for good health.

Also, the guy I was dating at the time came to see me once while I was in the hospital, and then he was MIA. He visited Sunday, I texted him Wednesday and never heard from him, and then when I went home Friday I texted him again and he finally got back to me. Said he’d been busy! We had been dating for 2 months at this point.

The week I went back to work was Thanksgiving week and I texted him again and asked if he wanted to get together. He said he was crazy busy (he was a teacher) and that was the last time we talked.

I’ve learned a valuable lesson: the right guy for me will not run when the chips are down and I am lying in a hospital bed. The right guy will have to be forced to leave my side when I’m sick. I deserve at least that much!

So, in summation…this BAVD makes it hard for my heart to get oxygen sometimes, in humidity, when running up hills, etc. So this morning, I had a sucky run because of the humidity. My heart rate monitor said my heart rate was at 89 sometimes when I was running…and at 120. Usually its at 164ish when I’m running. That’s my MHR and its fine, but I don’t want to hurt myself so I think I need to be careful when the humidity is high!

Anywho, sorry for the long post! It’s going to be a hot one here…triple digits expected tomorrow! Upper 90’s today and the rest of the week! Have a great day!