Feeling Fortunate

In the midst of my best competitive paddling season ever, I was delivered a shock.

I've been racing canoes for 10 years and the focus of the spring has always been the General Clinton Canoe Regatta. This is a 70-mile race on Memorial Day, which starts in Cooperstown, NY. It takes long hours of training to prepare for this race. The race itself usually lasts longer than eight hours.

After a full week of recovery time, I decided it was time to step up the training again. Rather than ease into it, I chose to do some interval training. For those unfamiliar, this is a series of hard efforts separated by short periods of rest.

By Monday evening, I felt some soreness in my abdomen - most likely a result of the intervals following a week off. Sleeping was difficult Monday night. My ribs would hurt no matter how I was lying in bed. Upon waking on Tuesday, I took some ibuprofen, which took care of the rib pain.

Throughout Tuesday the abdominal and rib pain had spread to my back. At times this pain was acute, but mostly it was a dull ache. Still, there was nothing to indicate that it was anything other than muscle soreness from the intervals the day before.

On Wednesday morning, I noticed some chest congestion and shortness of breath to accompany the pain. Looking online, my symptoms seemed to indicate that I had somehow contracted pneumonia. I made an appointment with my doctor for Thursday morning.

I left my Thursday doctor visit with a diagnosis of abdominal muscle strain. It didn't seem right to me, but the chest x-rays didn't show anything in my lungs. I was prescribed an anti-inflammatory was told that the pain should subside within a few more days. I was skeptical, but I didn't have anything to point to that could show the diagnosis was incorrect.

Despite taking the prescribed anti-inflammatory, the pain on Thursday was the worst yet. As the day progressed, I decided that if the pain didn't subside by morning, I would call the doctor again. That never happened. Instead, my doctor called me late in the day to say that the radiologist spotted something suspicious on the x-rays. He wanted me to go for a CT scan right away to rule out the possibility of a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in the lung.

The words "pulmonary embolism" certainly grabbed my attention. My mother has had a recent history of blood clots and I was fully aware of the risks involved. An undiagnosed and untreated pulmonary embolism can be fatal. As I drove to the hospital, I wondered how this could happen to me, someone who was very fit.

The CT scan confirmed the pulmonary embolism and I was admitted to the hospital. A series of doctors and nurses asked me all the standard questions - "Had I traveled recently?", "Any pain or swelling in your legs?", etc. None of the typical precursors seemed to apply to me.

After an overnight stay at the hospital, I was released with a full understanding of my prognosis and treatment. Yet, I still had many questions about how and why this happened to me. I've since learned of other paddlers who have suffered from pulmonary embolisms. In addition, some brief searching found a number of stories of endurance athletes that were similar to my own. None of these stories included suitable explanations.

I may never know the exact cause of my pulmonary embolism, but I do know this - I feel very fortunate.