seven year itch

I will do my best to not be graphic.  Unfortunately, I've been wasting the recent lovely weather after all :(.  I didn't run on Saturday, but walked a lot (including to/from a beer festival which also had some wine-tasting for us glutards!), and I was looking forward to a 10ish mile run on Sunday, and maybe more running on Monday.  I was planning on making best use of the weather until it got hot again, taper be damned.

Unfortunately, near the end of the beer festival on Saturday, I started feeling "off."  Was I just dehydrated? or was there indeed gluten in the hotdogs?  We walked further and had more drinks and some food, and the situation gradually worsened.  By nine, it was clear that something was up.  By midnight, I was wondering if I would have to go to the ER, but I decided to wait and see, and several hours later, I finally fell asleep.

I've been down this road before, during the spring of 2000 (or 2001?) and during the spring of 2007--I guess it's a seven-year cycle.  My right ovary is the creative culprit: bored with the usual tiny monthly ovum-releasing cyst, it occasionally embarks on a golf ball-sized project (one doctor suggested that the same sack or structure is being reused).  Unfortunately, ambition eventually trumps physics, and the extravaganza bursts.  I have smaller bursts more often, but the big ones are in a different league and thankfully rare.  The first one made me believe I was dying.  That was the worst one, probably because I was ignorant and unhealthy even though I was abstaining from most of the delights of downtown Montreal.  I had no choice but to go to the ER because I was passing out from "septis" (too lazy to look up the English word).  They guessed at the culprit then, because they found nothing but infection and fluid in my abdomen, but ultrasounds before and since have spoken the full tale.   Enlarged cysts aren't an uncommon expression of ovarian creativity, and are less objectionable if they simply exist or shrink gradually...but some people just have to be dramatic: BOOM!

The abdomen typically contains fluid, all sorts of fluid, but it's compartmentalized.  Free fluid outside of and in between organs is restricted--there isn't a lot of space.  So when a disgruntled ovary destroys an over-reaching work with a bang, there's a fair bit of pain and then lingering discomfort because the trespassing fluid doesn't really have a designated exit.  It doesn't just shoot down the fallopian tube; apparently, Art is a Nonconformist Struggle.  The fluid has to be gradually broken down and reabsorbed.

So, that's where I'm at.  Breaking it down.  Also getting a lot of studying and research and quality pack time done because I'm mostly remaining horizontal, although I did walk the dogs this morning.  Kind of a drastic taper, but I'm recovering well and hopefully will be back to normal on Sunday. 

No complaints, though!  This is why I run: that first trip to the ER was what inspired me to start running, although I had to wait about a month due to anemia.  Staying in shape helps me bounce back more quickly.  The second time, there was no septis, just intravenous saline required; this time, there was no hospital at all.  Maybe there won't be a fourth time.