I started coming down with a chest cold or something last weekend. I woke up Saturday, feeling sort of crummy and it only got worse from there. I don’t get sick that often nowadays. I know some of you think that isn’t correct, but compared to when I was younger, I’m sick just a fraction of when I was younger.
A big reason for the continual illness is that I had my spleen removed when I was 6 years old. I fell out of a tree and it ruptured, so they had to do an emergency splenectomy The spleen holds a ton of thick red blood cells, super high hematocrite, plus it filters the blood to your lungs. So, I’ve historically had a bunch of lung infections throughout my lifetime. I’ve had to take preventive pneumonia vaccines all my life.
I though that maybe I could keep the dripping out of my lungs, just up in my head. But, no, it got into my throat and then lungs. After reading all the bad news about antibiotics, plus, my own personal experience, I think I’ll just try to ride this one out, even though I’m coughing brown stuff out of my lungs.
I’ve been pretty stressed out the last few days and maybe that is one of the reasons that I feel so rotten. I try to avoid stress, but sometimes it just finds you.
It’s funny how sometime being sick is such a drag and other times I doesn’t seem to matter much. I’d say I’m kind of in the middle here. Early season illness is always a big setback. You just get to where the pedals are turning over pretty well and the weight is coming off, then you get sick and it’s back to square one. Well, maybe not square one, but square two or three.
I try to ride through sickness, but when the air temperature is in the 30’s, it’s a little tough. I did an hour and a half with Bill yesterday. It didn’t feel too bad, but I was wiped last night and this morning. Maybe it was a half hour too far.
Okay, enough of the moping . The weather is supposed to get nice here towards the end of the week and hopefully I’ll be less anxious by then.
I couldn’t find any of these at the Walgreens.
Common colds are caused by a virus. Antibiotics work only on infections which involve bacteria. I’ll never understand why a) people with cold symptoms run off to the doc demanding an Rx for antibiotics, take them and then claim it cured their cold b) why docs give antibiotic Rx’s to people who do not have bacterial infections. I try to follow this general rule: You can get some sort of drug and be recovered in a week OR you can do nothing and be recovered in 7 days, your choice.
Let’s just ignore the elephant in the room. Please no one tell Steve that a guy on BMC got busted for ozone doping on Saturday. It might make his chest cold worse.
I knew a guy at K-State that was a Druggist.
See recent “Caught by the Weather” blog post.
I recently read “The Obree Way,” by Graeme Obree, and was interested in how passionate he is about the idea of proper recovery. It seems as if he would not suggest riding through sickness, and advocates really holding back on recovery days – says he really only uses a pulse monitor to make sure he’s going slow enough on those days. Curious what you do when you ride through sickness, Steve, and how you make that work for you.
A cold does not produce that color of sputum. It could be caused by Klebsiella pneumonae bacteria, which would require an antibiotic treatment. I would recommend that you see a doctor, especially if you have a fever or difficulty breathing.
Vitamin C, fluids and rest. Give your body a chance to combat the cold or bacterial infection.
That’s exactly why I got one too few years ago. Clever dude that O’Bree.
Has some funny ideas on breathing as well.
One day you gonna kill yourself. Long time ago I knew a guy who got myocarditis from training with a cold. He was in his teens and very promising. Never got back to racing after that.
Whoa….
Sputum!
Vino like ozone therapy for a sniffle, special Kazak ozone make me strong like bull. Call Och, he knows where to get some
Vitamin C will not help.