I'd planned to be--driving up to Grayling yesterday morning, fishing through Monday--but my body had other ideas. In the middle of a 4 1/2 mile jog on Thursday morning, I felt a tightness forming in my chest. As I ran on, the tightness intensified and crept down my left arm. Shortly it felt like someone was shoving the end of a 2x4 into my chest, so I stopped to rest. Scared shitless. The pain subsided a little so I moved on, but walking this time. Kristine caught up with me and asked if everything was all right.
"Just a little tired," I said, not wanting to scare her when there really wasn't anything we could do about the problem. "Go on ahead, I'll catch up."
She did, and I kept walking. My chest still hurt, I felt nauseous and disoriented, and my left arm had gone semi-numb. A mile from home, I tried running one more time, hoping to get home as fast as possible (obviously I wasn't thinking straight), but the chest pain flared and I lapsed again into a walk. As I neared home, Kristine came running out to see why I was so far behind. This time I told her the truth, and in minutes she was trundling me off the the ER.
I'll spare you the hospital drama except to say that the doctors poked, prodded, doped, and zapped me for a day and a half but found nothing wrong. There must have been a problem--the pains in my chest lingered and I felt beaten and drained for the rest of Thursday--but, as the docs reassured me, nothing that appeared to be life threatening. Nonetheless, it would be a good idea, they told me, to "take it easy" until I could follow up with my regular doctor. Prudently translated, that means "no fishing."
Honestly, I don't feel like it at the moment. I don't feel ill at all, just a little dazed. Resting sounds good. Besides, the weather has turned nasty up north this weekend, and I suppose it's better to get out when it's nicer and the fish perhaps more cooperative.
But when I do go, and maybe whenever I go away now, Kristine will be worrying about me, half-expecting to hear I've been found stone-cold in my tent, clutching my chest, or at least that I'm clinging to life in a small town hospital. She worries about me anyway, though now I've given her a more substantive reason to do so. And I'll worry too. What if I feel a little clutch in my chest while carrying my pontoon down to the river? That could be a little muscular strain, but what if it isn't? What if that tightness returns when I'm a mile's wading from where I parked, and far from any cell phone reception?
I'm not going to worry too much about these things, but I suppose they will be parts of the mental equipment I take on most of my future trips.
At least now I've got a good excuse to return to blogging.
1 comment:
I hope you get well soon dude, try to tap a little more lightly on the keyboard. Change your routine and all that.
- Ed
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