Basketball Saved my Life...

A couple of Thursdays ago, I was playing in a basketball game at our church. It's a rec league of old guys trying to "relive the glory days" as my wife puts it. The game was going on and I really wasn't "reliving" anything, except that I felt off. In the 2nd half of the game, I was really feeling winded, so I took myself out of the game and sat on the bench. The dizziness then hit me and the next thing I know I am waking up staring up at my team. I had passed out on the bench.

I was convinced to go to the ER by a guy on our team who is a paramedic and had a teammate drive me home so my wife could take me to the ER. Once there, I was run through a ton of tests, was told I was in AFIB and had a heart rate of 170! After a few hours and some medication, my heart rate converted back to a normal rhythm at just the right time before they admitted me. An Appointment was made with a cardiologist for Tuesday.

At the cardio doc, I was again run through a bunch of tests and it was decided I should do a stress test. So that wasn't as hard or as scary as I had thought in my mind and really did not think much of it. So after that, was the ultrasound of the heart. I left feeling pretty good.

Wednesday, while at work I receive a call asking me to come back tot he doctor's office because there were some "abnormalities" in my stress test results. They lady on the phone could not go further in the explanation, which is not good for a guys heart!

So the doctor states that there may be a blockage in my heart somewhere and suggested we do a heart cath procedure, where they run a catheter up my groin to my heart and poke around or something. The Dr. did say there was a chance that the test produce a "false-positive" but they would not know until they got in there. So we scheduled it form 5/25/17.

***First of all, I thought this was truly a false/positive. There was no way I could have blocked arteries! I am active, I eat fairly good, I am not overweight...this has to be a mistake.***

Fast forward to 5/25. I will not go into the prep of the procedure (but there is a story about a turkey sammich I will share at some point). I am on the table, awake and talking to the doctor as he is looking around my heart. He stops and states that I have two blockages! one is 90% blocked and the other is 70% blocked.

Unbelievable!

I had a stent placed in the 90% blocked artery and will have another one in a couple of weeks. The procedure was painless and seems to be working. I do feel better and I am actually looking forward to getting the second one done.

I am just stunned though. As active as I am, or thought I was, and as whatever I though I was, blocked arteries was the last thing on my mind. The DR did say my cholesterol is out of whack and I will work on it, but if I had not passed out in that basketball game, then I would have never known about my issues. In a weird way, basketball saved my life!

Torn Meniscus

So as you know I have been training for a 70.3 in October and also been in a basketball league on Thursday nights. Well, they are both on hold as of now. I did not have a good week 2 of training and let me tell you why:

Monday night I go to hop on Stella for my ride and as soon as I get on, I notice my chain is in the small ring up front, so I hit my lever to adjust the derailleur and pop!  My cable blows out and my lever does absolutely nothing.  I have never seen a cable blow out before, and I did not want to do anything more to my bike, so I called the ride and figured I could just miss the 9 miler. I took Stella to the bike shop and ordered the repairs which will take about a week, so I figure I always need to work on my run, so I can change it up and still not lose to much right?

So come Thursday night, game night! We play ball (and lost) but had a great time, but towards the end of the game, my right knee was hurting. Hurting me enough to pull myself out and sit down, and then have trouble getting to my car. I did not remember hearing or feeling it pop or anything that would alert me to an injury, but it felt off, and was a little swollen that night. Friday morning I got up and went to work and my knee was still feeling tight and sore. So when I got home, I went to put on some shorts and saw my knee and it wasn't good. I snapped a picture for you to see.

 

 

 Look at the size of that right knee!  I know something wasn't right, so I told my wife that I think I needed to go get it checked out. So Saturday morning, we left for our running group that we lead (No, I did not run on that knee) and then we went to Campbell Clinic to figure this out.

After a decent wait, I got to see the doctor and they took x-rays and did his evaluation on my knee and the diagnosis is that I have an old man's knee (his words). basically I have a degenerative tear of the meniscus in my right knee. It is most likely aggravated form the start and stopping of playing basketball. I was given a knee brace, some steroids and direction to stay off of it for about 2 weeks.

 

This really puts me behind on training for a half in October, so I am unsure if this will happen or not. It would mean that my training would be cut down to 10 weeks for a 70.3 and I am not sure how I feel about that, and that is assuming I am cleared and ready to go on my next visit. So I have time to decide and I hope I can get going again in July and see how things progress in July and August.