In my last post I talked about my first couple Open Water Swims (OWS) and the challenges I faced in my swimming. Well to round out my experience, I started to not feel well. It started with some pretty severe stomach cramping which left me at home and taking a day off from work. No big deal, I've been sick before. Well, the cramping didn't go away. I started having lots of gurgling and after the first day began to spend a lot of time on the toilet. My first instinct was to blame the fast food we happened to have had the same night I started feeling ill. But, after two or three days you begin to wonder if that was really the case. Then about that time a news article came out about some food born illness related to some bug on lettuce.....I had lettuce in that meal at that fast food establishment. But alas, it turned out not to be as that product and never been delivered to Montana. Hmmmmmmm why am I sick and what could it be?
Well after much discussion we began to wonder if I picked up something from my OWS (all two of them). Now remind you, my wonderful wife Lindsay is a health care professional, but she doesn't practice in internal medicine and will be the first to tell you that. Regardless, I insisted that she help me so I wouldn't have to go to my regular doctor. Lin decided to order a stool sample analysis, for which I needed to provide a stool sample. (Two reminders, I am having urgent trips to the bathroom, and my wife does not practice internal medicine.) Anyway, Lin brings home a urine sample cup for me to collect my stool sample in. Let me say that again, I AM SUPPOSED TO COLLECT A STOOL SAMPLE WITH A URINE SAMPLE CUP....DO YOU KNOW HOW SMALL A URINE SAMPLE CUP IS????????
Anyway, I carried the urine sample cup around for about a day and just couldn't get myself to attempt to use it to collect the stool sample. I KNEW that would end in a disaster. Finally I went to the lab where I was supposed to turn in the sample and held the urine cup up and said "I am supposed to provide a stool sample but this urine cup seems woefully inadequate. Do you have something better for me to use?" The guy at the lab barely refrained from laughing out loud and provided me with the proper accessories. While I was using said accessories in the restroom at the lab I heard him telling the other lab technician that the doctor had provided me a urine cup for a stool sample......and they had a good laugh about it. Granted, its very funny now, but at the time I was in crisis mode. I was going on my third week of having issues and I needed this to be taken care of.....NOW!
Well the 24-hour stool sample results took 4 days to get back and then we found out that they didn't test specifically for certain bugs that I may or may not have. So we were back to square one. Well kind of, Lin prescribed some medicine that would essentially take care of any bug I had and I was the most compliant patient for those 10 days that I have ever been. I normally miss days, or don't complete courses of medication, but not this time. I followed the prescribed dosage as instructed and within a couple days I was already feeling better. By the time I completed the course of medications I was almost normal. So over a period of 4+ weeks, I was not feeling well and not really training. We never did figure out whether I had giardia or cryptospiridium or some other bug, but the medication definitely cleared me.
Well after much discussion we began to wonder if I picked up something from my OWS (all two of them). Now remind you, my wonderful wife Lindsay is a health care professional, but she doesn't practice in internal medicine and will be the first to tell you that. Regardless, I insisted that she help me so I wouldn't have to go to my regular doctor. Lin decided to order a stool sample analysis, for which I needed to provide a stool sample. (Two reminders, I am having urgent trips to the bathroom, and my wife does not practice internal medicine.) Anyway, Lin brings home a urine sample cup for me to collect my stool sample in. Let me say that again, I AM SUPPOSED TO COLLECT A STOOL SAMPLE WITH A URINE SAMPLE CUP....DO YOU KNOW HOW SMALL A URINE SAMPLE CUP IS????????
Anyway, I carried the urine sample cup around for about a day and just couldn't get myself to attempt to use it to collect the stool sample. I KNEW that would end in a disaster. Finally I went to the lab where I was supposed to turn in the sample and held the urine cup up and said "I am supposed to provide a stool sample but this urine cup seems woefully inadequate. Do you have something better for me to use?" The guy at the lab barely refrained from laughing out loud and provided me with the proper accessories. While I was using said accessories in the restroom at the lab I heard him telling the other lab technician that the doctor had provided me a urine cup for a stool sample......and they had a good laugh about it. Granted, its very funny now, but at the time I was in crisis mode. I was going on my third week of having issues and I needed this to be taken care of.....NOW!
Well the 24-hour stool sample results took 4 days to get back and then we found out that they didn't test specifically for certain bugs that I may or may not have. So we were back to square one. Well kind of, Lin prescribed some medicine that would essentially take care of any bug I had and I was the most compliant patient for those 10 days that I have ever been. I normally miss days, or don't complete courses of medication, but not this time. I followed the prescribed dosage as instructed and within a couple days I was already feeling better. By the time I completed the course of medications I was almost normal. So over a period of 4+ weeks, I was not feeling well and not really training. We never did figure out whether I had giardia or cryptospiridium or some other bug, but the medication definitely cleared me.