Scenes from this morning’s run:

Holy humidity! It was soupy out there this morning. That made me a little slower due to my heart issue, but it wasn’t too bad.

The next picture is one of the lakes in Lincoln, its not too far from my house and this morning I ran around part of the shoreline. I think around the lake is something like 5 miles so that may become a new route.

Me, after the run. So much sweat.

This silly cat thinks it lives at our house. Sorry Buddy, I can barely afford to feed myself, let alone a stray animal that seems well fed. Sorry ‘bout that. Also, I’m allergic to cats, so there’s that.

And finally, I believe those are hibiscus flowers. I saw them in someone’s yard along the way.

4.5 miles in 50ish minutes.
Good morning friends! That’s how I like to start my day!

Well, that was an awful run.

Clearly I can’t wait until after work to run. It felt like a sauna out there. Steamy is the best way to describe it.

1 mile in 13:47. That is a terrible time for me. Lots of walking cuz my legs felt dead…and breathing is hard when its so humid.

I WILL get up and run in the morning! Its supposed to be 97° tomorrow and I’m going in to my PT job for a bit after work so I can’t do it then! Accountability.

Scenes from this mornings run:

I found this Owl carved from a tree stump near the eagle I found a few weeks ago. Pretty cool.

This palm tree is in our neighbor down the street’s backyard. I had to take the picture thru their fence. The tree is real. This is Nebraska. I’m confused.

The humidity was bad today. I managed to soak completely through my shirt with my 4.5 mile run. But it was a great run. One of those where you just feel happy to be alive and love being awake and running before the rest of the world is even out of bed. This makes me very happy.

Have a great 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!