Probably going to be a long post, but a lot has gone on in the last month since I got suspended.
The end of last year I was far less active and a lot less consistent in my bike riding, partly due to issues beyond my control, but ultimately I could have done more. I put back on a lot of the weight that I had lost when I started making lifestyle changes at the start of Covid because I didn't really adjust my diet for the lack of activity.
Had my second vasectomy procedure in the middle of December, and the recovery was even longer than the first one, so I basically was unable to do any real exercise through the end of December.
Last Sunday I was feeling pretty good about things down there and was going to get out on a nice long ride. I sat down to eat some lunch to fuel up (hatch chili braised shredded pork tacos), and on the first bite I had a piece of pork get lodged in my esophagus. I got some water, took a sip and got the pork down, but as it went down there was an instant and excruciating pain. The worst pain I've felt in my life. I was buckled over on the floor. I got myself back up and tried to take another sip of water in case it was something like a chili irritating my throat, and when the water went down my throat it was just more immediate extreme pain. I called for my wife and told her we needed to go to the hospital.
We rushed to the ER, I got checked in pretty fast so was hopeful I'd get some pain relief shortly, but I ended up waiting for 3-4 hours in total agony for them to run a host of tests before they would finally hook up an IV and give me some meds. The doctors came in a few hours later and told me I had torn my esophagus and I will need to go into surgery, but the hospital I was at was not the best equipped for this type of procedure, so I got transported by ambulance to a neighboring hospital. Consulted with the surgeon, and he said it is a very serious and life threatening condition, and the surgery is no joke either, so I started to get a little nervous.
The next morning I was woken up so that they could wheel me into surgery at 8:00. They were taking me to the OR when I was intercepted by the surgeon telling me that they no longer think I need surgery. This also made me nervous because while I was a little scared of the procedure I want the problem to be fixed. They told me after reviewing the CT scans with others that they are more confident that I "only" lacerated my esophagus, but did not put a hole or tear in it. They sent me in for some more tests to 100% confirm that, and thankfully it was confirmed.
I got discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, and was ordered to be on a "clear liquid diet" until I have a follow up with the doctor who was going to perform my surgery. When I called his office to schedule the follow up they told me the earliest I could be seen was the 24th. Jumped through all kinds of hoops and spent the entire day on the phone calling doctors last Friday to try to find something sooner and finally found a GI doctor that could talk to me tomorrow morning.
I am signed up for another mountain bike race in April that I've been itching to start training for. My goals were to drop about 25-30 pounds and do exercises beyond just legs. All of this medical stuff has been a bit of a setback, and I'm feeling incredibly weak from the lack of calories. I went on a small ride yesterday that is typically pretty easy and straightforward, and it took everything in my being to keep pedaling up the hill.
The silver lining in all of this is that over the past week I have lost over 36 pounds. I'm sure some of that will come back once I resume a normal diet, but i have a feeling I'm going to be on a restricted diet with mostly soft vegetables and fruit for a while until they can do further testing. The root cause of this is a mild food allergy that I have to corn, so I'm going to meet with an allergist and dietician in case I haven't been diligent enough in cutting corn out..... which will probably lead to less fried food (a good thing).
Oh, and dry January got a lot easier with me needing to be on antibiotics that don't mix well with alcohol through 1/27. Looking to cut dramatically back on beers in general at least until my race in April.
