Last blog for awhile

I don't know how many people actually read this thing but in case anyone does (clearly you don't have enough things to do) I thought I should give a quick update since I haven't written for awhile.

It looks like I'm done with running for awhile; perhaps for the rest of 2008. After suffering from bronchitis for about 6 weeks I have now been diagnosed with an enlarged heart. It appeared on an X-Ray done while checking on my lungs. I met with my cardiologist yesterday and described how I've been feeling for the last few months (excessive sweating, shortness of breath, fatigue) and he is concerned that I may have a blockage in an artery. I totally nailed a stress test just 10 months ago and he said such a change in such a short period of time is "significant". So I'll be having a nuclear stress test performed in a couple of weeks. If a blockage is found I'll have the old baloon an stent thing done. If thats not it, and we hope it isn't, then the likely other culprit is my high blood pressure. It was 150/90 yesterday and I have been really good about taking my blood pressure medicine. So, I went a new drug yesterday and we'll see how I do with that.

So this has been a particularly trying 52 weeks or so. It was around this time last year that I fell and broke my foot during the DCRRC Predicted time 5 Miler. I limped through another 10 races to get over 100 for the year which didnt help the healing process. Then I has shoulder surgery in April preceeded and followed by rather intense physical therapy. Add in not 1 but 2 bouts of bronchitis and its been quite a difficult year. And that doesn't even include the stress of working at Freddie Mac, knowing I'll be out of work starting in November, and dealing with the challenges of trying to get my parents into an assisted living facility. Man, no wonder I'm tired all the time! At least I can be pretty certain that things can't get a whole lot worse.

Until next time, happy running!