Subject: My health scare, on the mend now Hi fellow Georgians,
Wanted to let you know I am still alive, and grateful to be.
On January 11th, I ran the Rails to Trails 50k near Tybee Island. I had a great time and ran it in 5:09:10, placed second female.
On January 17th in the early morning I underwent emergency surgery to fix a perforated ulcer and to clear my body cavity of lots of infection. Apparently, during the 50k I was behind on my hydration (I felt it too ) and at some point during the race I lost blood flow to that part of my intestine and it essentially "died" and the preexisting ulcer I had there perforated and became a hole. For 5-6 days air, food, gastric fluids, fluids, blood, etc was seeping from the hole into my body cavity, causing a lot of infection. I had no idea this was going on for a week. I woke up early a.m. on the 17th in excruciating pain and went into surgery immediately after I was given a CT scan.
I'm now back home on the med, and have about 6 weeks until I can get back to light activity. I won't be able to do my marathon, 6 hour ultra, or my 50 miler. There is a chance I might be able to do Beach 2 Battleship half in late October if my doctor gives me the green light. I am a little bummed that I will be missing out on so much this year, but I could have died and I am still alive so I am truly grateful for that. |