Thursday, January 27, 2011

An Unexpected Pause

For the past week I have fought (quite valiantly, I think) a sinus infection plague with every intention of avoiding the doctor.  Last night, as part of that avoidance, I took some NyQuil in hopes that it would knock me out and, by proxy, suckerpunch this bug.  Instead, it suckerpunched me.

I passed out around 1 am, grew faint on a walk back from the restroom, blacked out and woke up when my face smashed the carpet, jerking my neck backwards in a ridiculously painful arc.  I stayed on the floor for at least 5 minutes, willing the room to stop spinning.  I crawled back to bed, debated the likelihood of dying from a snapped neck this way, fell asleep before I cared enough to google those odds.

So it was the neck injury, which vibrates with pain every time I glance up or down, that made me finally schedule an appointment, by which time I had a doozy of a fever. So I'm now fevered, drugged, and largely immobile, in enough pain to actually watch Nancy Grace for ten whole minutes before digging deep and mustering the strength to grab the remote.

The doc said this sort of injury can take up to six weeks to heal.  SIX.  WEEKS.  I cannot fathom that, or what it means for my training for my first half-marathon of the season this coming March. For now, I'm just doing everything I can to get healthy again (hello, antibiotics), drinking a lot of water, and hoping that six weeks is a scare tactic to make me take the injury seriously.  This is an unexpected pause, and I pray a brief one.

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