The Stadium As A Near Death Experience

If you are wondering where I've been and you don't follow Facebook or talk to me regularly, I've had a HORRID case of bronchitis. As always, Readers, there is a story...

On Sunday April 17th, Trainer texted me shortly before our workout and told me to meet him at the high school track instead of the gym. I immediately replied back "NO!!!" I expected him to not respond, but he told me he could meet me at the gym. As scared as I was I knew this day was coming and I had just better get it over. Having talked to a high school friend earlier that day and telling her that Mike had been threatening me with running the stadium stairs she said, "He better wrap you in bubble wrap first." My mom was terrified at the thought. She is scarred from past emergency room visits. Anyway, to the stadium I went with my husband stopping by on duty. I don't know if it was support or to laugh. I had called him on my way and told him where my life insurance information was just in case. Onto the track with a lesson on only running in the outside lane I was off. Didn't take long at all for my lungs to feel like they were ON FIRE! Having not felt well the whole week before I had avoided the gym and thought the burning in my lungs was a result of the allergies which had been plaguing me and a lack of working out. I finished my laps around the track and my pushups. Mike tried to get me to do some chin ups off the side of the bleachers. That didn't work out so well. We were both frustrated. We moved to the stairs.

Ever the encourager, Mike told me he was going to do these with me. He also told me he had done them earlier in the week and could barely move for two days after. "This is really good cardio." With Mike running much faster than me up his side, I ran up the stairs. Having his own experience with my clutziness, Mike had cautioned me to come down the stairs slowly. No worries. By the time I arrived at the bottom after my first trip, I was sure I was a loser. I was breathing so hard, my lungs were on fire, my legs were burning, and I was light headed. I grabbed onto the rail to catch my breath before going back up. So for every three trips Mike made...I went one. My final number was ten. Mike kept telling me what a great job I had done. I was ready to cry. How could I have been working out for almost a year and be so weak? I got in the car and my legs were shaking so hard I could barely drive. I had to reposition myself in the car to push on the accelerator. My muscles weren't working right. Ten minutes later I arrived home and puked. If I had said in the past that I had almost died from a workout, I was totally mistaken because this workout was kicking my butt. The only way I could get my legs to quit shaking was after sitting in a hot bath for an hour. Then the coughing began. I was coughing so hard I was crying.

Monday morning I woke up and felt like I had been hit by a truck. I left work early to go to the doctor who listened to my lungs and said, "CRAP TAMMY!" He was in disbelief that I had worked out the night before and not ended up in the ER. Now part of me was relieved. This explained why I felt so awful during the workout and after, but then reality pulled up and I started to cry. "But I only have two weeks left in my doctorate course work and I have this, this, and this due! I have to feel better QUICK!" Doctor agreed to treat aggressively. I spent the next day and a half in bed. Barely made it through work on Wednesday...stayed home on Thursday and then there was Friday at the end of which I ended up with the ER doctor. He was arrogant, but very compassionate and said that in addition to bronchitis I had a sinus infection and they weren't responding to my Z Pack and inhalers. A new antibiotic, two new inhalers, and another round of steroids and I was out the door. During this time, my dear friend dropped off an herbal product at the house. She's in the doctorate program with me and realized the situation I was in.

It's hard to say if it has been the new prescription drugs or the herbal stuff, but I do feel better. Now the toughest part is that the doctor says I can't go back to the gym before Thursday. I'm feeling better and VERY fat. Steroids for two weeks? Really? Do you know what that does to the scales? They don't go down that's for sure. Even when I didn't eat for five days...they went UP!!! And even when I was sooo sick and insisted to my husband that the only thing which would make me feel better was ice cream and he wouldn't go get it, the scales still went UP!!!

That, Dear Readers...is how the stadium was a near death experience for Bunchy...I feel like I'm back to square 1, but I really can't wait to start working out again. I feel like a slug!