This has been one of the more unexpected 6 week periods of my life. The week after IMAZ I was relaxing into my off season, maybe playing a little bastketball, mostly drinking beer, when I felt a little dry cough come on. I had had viral bronchitis before and this felt the same. For the next two weeks the annoying cough persisted but I never felt any other symptoms. I felt fine going to work, taking care of kids, shooting hoops, etc.with no ill effect. After three weeks my cough had become annoying enough to others that I started a Z-pack. Over the next few days, the cough progressed into such horrible chest pain and shortness of breath that I went into the ER. My oxygen saturation had started to drop so I got a CT angio to rule out a PE. The CT revealed a left sided pneumonia and pleural effusion. I was started on a second antibiotic and slowly improved at home over the next ten days. All of the holidays and holiday parties were spent feeling like ass in bed. After finishing the oral antibiotics, I spent a week or so back at work before realizing I was heading south again. I went into the ER a second time this week with a fever and was found to have a loculated pulmonary effusion that was first approached with a drain and finally with thoracoscopy. Apparently my left chest was filled with pus adhering to the lung and chest wall that a small drain and iv antibiotics were never going to get to. I spent the next three days in the ICU with two chest tubes which were mercifully removed this morning. It now appears I may be on the mend but this has been an eye-opening experience to go from such a deep level of fitness and health to facing severe pulmonary disease in such a small window. My friends and family have asked if I think I got sick because of IM. While anything is possible, I’m choosing to believe it was back luck and poor timing more than an opportunistic bug preying on my immunocomprimised body.
I wish you all the luck in the world with your recovery.
Wow, glad you are healing and have the chest tubes out. Typing this in the hospital?
Surprised you were only treated with oral abx for your pretty serious pneumonia at first.
Was it valley fever?
Either way hope u get well quick! Congratulations on a great race.
I’m hoping for a discharge later today if my follow up CXR is normal and they can arrange for home abx. I already have a PICC line in place.
I believe oral abx are standard for community-acquired pneumonia with no other disease. Most of my hypoxemia was related to the pleurisy and small breaths I was forced to take. Once I got my pain under control, my sats came up.
At every step, I have been told,“you’ll get better quickly because you’re so fit!” and then things proceed to get worse. Sometimes Mother Nature has other plans…
Of course - If your sats came up right away. Avoid going to the comedy club for a while and plug your ears if any good jokes are in earshot 
Healing vibes your way!
Was a minute behind you at IMAZ (not that it matters).
Hope you recover soon!
Dude that sucks hope you heal quickly and congrats on a good race.
Quesrion…How do you know ur are addicted to ST???
Answer…when you get tubes removed from your chest and first thing you do is post on ST.
Godspeed on your recovery and I hope you are racing again soon. Even if you are in my AG!!
My friends and family have asked if I think I got sick because of IM. While anything is possible, I’m choosing to believe it was back luck and poor timing more than an opportunistic bug preying on my immunocomprimised body.
Difficult question to answer. I have heard that excessive endurance training can compromise the immune system, but most endurance athletes seem to be OK. It would seem to me that one would be most vulnerable during the training or competing phase rather than during the relaxation phase after the event.
Regardless of the cause, I’m glad to see that you are on the road to recovery. It may not be a bad idea to consult an infectious disease specialist, and get his/her opinion on the status of your immune system.
Rather than asking if IM caused the illness, I’d ponder if IM conditioning saved you from a far worse experience. Not a doc, but perhaps!
Best for a speedy recovery.
Please be aware that there are other people with immunological weaknesses. Walking around with a cough from pneumonia may be annoying to some people, but it’s a serious medical threat to others.
Wow. I hope you get better soon. During the three weeks you had the cough did you take any OTC meds or prescriptions to treat it?
The reason I ask is I am coming off of a severe outer ear infection that kept me down for 5 days. Obviously not dangerous to the magnitude of your health scare. But 5 years ago while training for IMAZ I had an ear infection that ended up being a real medical emergency.
I have become aware that allergy medications/cold medicines are immunosuppressive agents to the extent that while ‘treating’ a cough, cold or allergy they hi-jack your bodies ability to fight infections. Is this true? My experience has been that it is and that these medicines actually invite infections. Seems like while peaking for an ironman or recovering from one the body can be very fragile, especially at a high level like you with your 9:48.
Again, I hope you get better soon.
Get better…completely crazy story.
Please be aware that there are other people with immunological weaknesses. Walking around with a cough from pneumonia may be annoying to some people, but it’s a serious medical threat to others.
Not even a “Hope you get well soon?”
Now that the sanctimonious sector has been heard from, that sucks! Glad to hear that you might be out of the hospital soon, and mend fast!
John
Glad you are on the mend and get out of the ICU ASAP, it’s a good place to catch something
Yeah, Oral ABX are standard of care of CAP in a non-immunocompromised patient with a z-pack being the preferred therapy and they generally work good most of the time. I’m assuming they cultured the infection, just curious. What was it if you don’t mind me asking
I’m hoping for a discharge later today if my follow up CXR is normal and they can arrange for home abx. I already have a PICC line in place.
I believe oral abx are standard for community-acquired pneumonia with no other disease. Most of my hypoxemia was related to the pleurisy and small breaths I was forced to take. Once I got my pain under control, my sats came up.
At every step, I have been told,“you’ll get better quickly because you’re so fit!” and then things proceed to get worse. Sometimes Mother Nature has other plans…
Pleurisy is no fun at all. I developed it after a nasty case of pneumonia many years ago. Felt like a knife was being jabbed into my chest, sides and back simultaneously. Lying down was the worst. Fortunately, I did not develop the complications you did. But for 2 years after, I could still feel a pain and tightness on my right side whenever I took deep breaths from the scarring left from the pleuritis.
HTFU! It’s supposed to be hard it’s IM…
:oD
Seriously, good luck and I hope you get well soon!
Thanks to everyone for the well wishes. I safely made it out and am now lined up for two weeks of iv abx at home. The culture grew out strep viridans which wasn’t my first bet since I haven’t had any dental work and can’t recall swallowing my own vomit - recently.
Maybe you grinded (or growned?) your teeth down a few millimeters in your efforts.
I was kicked in the face in the swim, water flooded my right goggle, my contact didn’t like it. My eye was red and weeping for a few days. Cleared up with erythromycin, so probably wasn’t EColi like I thought 
You finished 2 people infront of me. Nice job. Hope you get better quickly. Unwanted time off sucks.
On the bright side, this is the perfect time to be sick. You’ll be all better in time to start training again! Best wishes for a speedy recovery!