Sick Chick to Pro Runner
I was sick chick for a bit in high school and then ended up dabbling in professional running in college. I feel like such a lucky lady because of it.
To think there was a time where every time I stood up or turned my head a certain way, my vision would go black and I would need to sit down. Or on my way to class, I would become weak, collapse to the ground and be stuck there until regaining feeling in my legs and my vision back. Sometimes, I had a completely weak body, blacked out vision, and could only hear everything going on around me. My heart rate would become bradycardic, or my blood pressure would drop and my heartrate would speed up whilst my blood pressure was dropping, Something was wrong with a my vasovagal nerve after having a mono like virus. My skin was always very pale white, grey or purple/blue, my circulation suffered a lot while I was sick chick. Midodrine helped me a lot, because it kept my blood pressure up so I would not black out upon moving.
Thankfully, my struggle to move around eventually went away with the help of my highly respected cardiologists here in New York, with Strong Hospital and Upstate depending on the reason behind an appointment. I liked going to one cardiologist more because they never had med students with them, but after a while I didn’t really care either way, and both of them worked with Upstate and String so it was like the same thing wherever I went in terms of an intelligent doctor caring for me. My professional cardiologists who would have to take the stand and explain all those medications and EKG readings, would always let me have their password to look at a database with studies that explained what was wrong with me because I appreciate having the scientific background of things going on with my body. It takes ten years to specialize in cardiology after medical school, so they must be pretty intelligent, thank god they could pencil me in while I was sick. Dr. Berkery and Dr. Burr Hall were great with me in highschool, I also went to Byrum and Kevesilis for cardiology, it’s like I met the entire cardiology departments in Syracuse and Rochester. Dr. Cavenaugh and Dr. Cohen were awesome rehabbing me into being a runner again post being sick. My math doctorate I am working on looks like nothing compared to my cardiologist’s degrees, hopefully I finish it by the age my cardiologists are presently as they are all on the verge of retirement nowadays. Those very real significant health obstacles made me tough enough to run the marathon distance well in later years. There are so many marathon runners who have overcome significant health problems too. The heart is a muscle that can be conditioned, which is very cool. A virus can internally decondition your body, and sometimes people need extra time to recover from that kind of damage. One of my friends has diabetes caused by a virus that attacked their pancreas, and it was not mono. My cardiologist’s daughter had mono in college and had to take an entire semester off, which I heard a lot about during my appointments with them. During those appointments, I also heard a lot about med student’s who could not spell ‘syncope’ which is really funny, at least they gave me stickers and snap bracelets. Virus’s can do more damage than a two week prescription can fix, unfortunately for a lot of people. I look back at my darkest time, and I’m just grateful to be having a happy day in and day out life now! It’s sad to think about how little and sick I was was back then, but it all worked out eventually. Down time while I was sick, gave me a lot of time to get to know myself, and I knew exactly what I wanted upon coming back to life on fresh legs. All of that time to think, makes it so you know exactly what you want for sure later, and all my friends still liked me when I was healthy enough to hang out with them again too.
The important thing that I learned is take one step at a time and set small obtainable goals. It is nice reflecting on this time whilst writing my run book, I am getting a lot off my chest.
Doing the stationary bike, strengthening my calf muscles and wearing compression socks helped me from blood pooling in my legs and becoming dizzy or ‘blacking out’. Conditioning the heart muscle and all your muscles, being healthy with exercise is my best advice.
