Not the Workouts I’d Planned

In the following 3-week Weekly RunDown post, I detail the events of a surprised diagnosis of a ruptured appendix and six-day stay in the hospital. Please feel free to skip from the first week’s Tuesday workout – my last real workout – to the final week on Thursday when I was finally released to start working out again.

 

Overview of the First Week: February 9 – 15

Before getting into each day’s workouts, here’s an overview of my workouts from the first week. Scroll beyond the infographic for daily details…

 

Sunday

Cycling: 33 miles
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 16.4 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 10:42 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 65° in basement, 40° (feels like 36°) and partly cloudy outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra

Walking: 3.09 miles
• Average pace: 15:34 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 113 feet
• Start time: 1:36 PM
• Location: neighborhood circle
• Weather: 43° (feels like 37°)  and partly cloudy
• What I wore: shorts, l/s fleece top, down vest, and mittens over gloves

I had every intention of walking to and from church, but got confused about the time of the second mass, and when I looked it up, realized that I had just enough time to drive over. So I drove, and moved my workouts to later in the day.

 

Monday

Strength training: 1 hour of total body

Walking: 2.06 miles
• Average pace: 14:46 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 101 feet
• Start time: 11:32 AM
• Location: neighborhood circle
• Weather: 41° (feels like 35°)  and partly cloudy
• What I wore: shorts, l/s shirt, down vest, and mittens over gloves

At 11 AM as I stepped into the garage to drive to the house of my fourth client of the day, her son called to let me know that she’d passed away overnight. She was 81 years old and an absolute sweetheart. I’d worked with her almost four years and during that time we’d built a deep friendship. We discovered over the years that we had many things in common: both grew up with farm roots, loved gardening and houseplants, decorating for all holidays, and had even both worked for the same department store in Denver, Colorado. She will be greatly missed.

So instead of driving to her house, I went on my walk earlier than planned to clear my head. I had one more client to train and after she left my home gym, I lay down on the sofa and slept for 3 hours. I dismissed it as grief, but later realized it must have been an illness coming on.

I started actually feeling sick around 6 PM with a little nausea, but managed to eat dinner and felt a little better. I woke up just after midnight with intense abdominal cramps and body aches, and as the night wore on I developed a headache, fever, and chills.

 

Tuesday

Cycling: 16 miles
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 15.6 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: N/A
• Start time: 6:55 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 64° in basement, 31° and cloudy outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra

Feeling meh, I got up to virtually train a client and hopped on my spin bike while doing so. I’d planned to do a Peloton intense workout afterward, but there was no way that was happening and I spent the rest of the day sleeping. Dr. Google suggested I had a stomach virus. During the course of the day I managed to eat a half a bowl of chicken noodle soup.

 

Wednesday

Having canceled all clients for the day, I slept in until 7 AM and didn’t even feel like doing a short core workout, but managed to eat a very small bowl of oatmeal. After fitfully trying to nap all morning, around 1 PM I asked my husband to take me to the ER.

The doctor at the ER ordered all kinds of blood work and an abdominal CT scan. My white blood count was extremely high, I had a temperature of 102.8°, and the CT scan showed a ruptured appendix. We were stunned as there’d been no isolated right side abdominal pain, the tell tale sign of appendicitis.

Unfortunately, we’d gone to an auxiliary emergency room and I had to get transported to the main hospital for surgery which took about five hours for a transport ambulance to become available. A combination of morphine, fentanyl, and oxycodone kept my intense pain at bay as I waited.

 

Thursday

I finally got to the main hospital around 9:30 PM, but another appendectomy had moved in front of me and I was scheduled for surgery at 1:30 AM. At my follow-up appointment two weeks later, my surgeon told me he’d done 5 appendectomies on the day of mine.

Surgery went well. The surgeon said I was a mess inside, but they felt confident they cleaned up all of the infection spread throughout the area. I was left with a drain which I dubbed as my frenemy, a necessary evil to help drain the excessive fluids and allow the doctors to see if an infection returned.

Back in my room, I slept for about three hours (with hourly stats checks) while having the most psychedelic dreams imaginable. They reminded me of the movies we were shown in high school in the 70’s to discourage us from using drugs. The dreams were very disturbing and lingered during sleep and naps for about four days. Luckily, once surgery was behind me and my angry appendix was no longer hanging around, Tylenol did the trick for pain management.

On a liquid diet, I ate some broth and jello, fun times.

 

Friday

Still on a liquid diet, the thought of eating repulsed me, but I forced down some broth for two meals. Happy Valentine’s Day to my hubby and me! We celebrated with some slow strolls around the hospital corridor. I felt pretty good, but as the day progressed I started feeling miserable as I developed ileus (paralyzed colon), a common post abdominal surgery malady. Looking six months pregnant and with unbelievable heartburn due to food going in, but not being digested and just setting in my stomach, I couldn’t lie down and eventually I threw up violently, making me feel much better. After that 11:30 PM episode, I slept well that night.

 

Saturday

I knew walking was the best thing to get my digestive system rebooted so I continued to walk laps around the hospital corridor – 5 laps took me just over 15 minutes and I did that 3 times a day. The nurses called me “the walker” and encouraged me to keep at it.

By the end of the day, my digestive system started waking up, albeit slooowly and very painfully. And with that, I was able to start eating solid foods.

 

Overview of the Second Week: February 16 – 22

Before getting into each day’s workouts, here’s an overview of my workouts from the second week. Scroll beyond the infographic for daily details…

 

Sunday

I got in 4 sets of my 15-minute hospital corridor laps

 

Monday

After doing 2 sets of 15-minute walks, I received word that I was getting discharged and they needed my room STAT. What the nurses told me normally took 4+ hours of paperwork, sitting, and mostly waiting, took about an hour. With very little fanfare, I walked out of my room and to our car – no wheelchair involved.

 

Tuesday

3 sets of 15-minute indoor laps

I was apprehensive about getting on my treadmill so my walks consisted of walking laps around the kitchen, family room, and dining room. I was so slow and cautious that Fitbit often didn’t detect any steps.

 

Wednesday

3 sets of 15-minute indoor laps

 

Thursday

3 sets of 15-minute indoor laps

 

Friday

3 sets of 15-minute indoor laps

I had a follow-up appointment with my primary care physician who said everything seemed to be coming along nicely.

 

Saturday

It was my husband’s birthday and National Margarita Day, but no margaritas were enjoyed. We did enjoy family time and cupcakes, and promised ourselves a date night when I feel up to it.

 

Overview of the Third Week: February 23 – March 1

Before getting into each day’s workouts, here’s an overview of my workouts from the third week. Scroll beyond the infographic for daily details…

 

Sunday

3 sets of 15-minute indoor laps

 

Monday

3 sets of 15-minute indoor laps

 

Tuesday

3 sets of 15-minute indoor laps

 

Wednesday

3 sets of 15-minute indoor laps

I had my follow-up appointment with my surgeon and desperately hoped he’d remove the drainage tube that had been sticking out of my abdomen for 13 days. Luck was with me and he removed (yanked) that bad boy out. I almost lost it when I saw that there had been 18-inches of it snaking around inside my abdominal cavity. He described it as a French drain of sorts with holes on the sides of the tube allowing maximum fluid to be syphoned out of me.

Most importantly, the doctor released me to start back exercising doing anything that I felt like doing, being sure to ease back in slowly and letting pain be my guide.

 

Thursday

Walking: 1.06 miles
• Average pace: 23:27 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 36 feet
• Start time: 3:31 PM
• Location: neighborhood circle
• Weather: 61° and mostly cloudy
• What I wore: capris, tank, fleece top, and gloves

My first official post-surgery walk outside, and my pace was so slow I had to take my Garmin off auto-pause so it wouldn’t keep pausing on its own. Unbelievable!

 

Friday

Balance and Stretching: 45 minutes

I had planned to lift weights first thing in the morning, but instead worked on my business taxes, license, etc. which ended up being a good call because I was surprisingly tired after teaching my balance and stretching class. After class, I ran several neglected errands and felt really good about getting some much needed stuff taken care of.

 

Saturday

Strength training: 1 hour of total body

Walking: 3.12 miles
• Average pace: 19:34 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 153 feet
• Start time: 10:55 AM
• Location: neighborhood circle
• Weather: 63°, mostly sunny, and windy; dropping to 57°
• What I wore: capris, s/s shirt, fleece jacket, and gloves (took off jacket and gloves after first mile)

I started the morning with strength training, cutting the pounds back 50-75% on most dumbbells as I eased back into my workout routines. After a short rest, I texted Kim to see if she might need some company while doing cardio and luck was with me. We chatted while walking, both complaining about how windy it was – March definitely came in like a lion in both of our communities.

With the day’s strength training and longer walk I felt like I really turned the corner, even if I needed a 90-minute afternoon nap to recover.

 

Flowers Galore

My kitchen is overflowing with floral arrangements. Friends and family have been so kind to think of me.

 

Questions:
  • • If you’ve had appendicitis, did you experience lower right side abdominal pain? ~ no
  • • How did March start out where you live, like a lion or lamb? ~ like a lion
  • • What was your favorite workout of the week? ~ yesterday’s walk

 

And that’s my rundown… Have a great week!