As expected, I got the maybe-you-shouldn't-participate email. Last time, my doc shrugged it off and said I was smart enough to figure it out, and since the Spouse Thingy was walking with me, it was fine.
This time...aside from the fact that he's not walking with me this year, because Things came up and he couldn't ask for that time off, my medical situation has changed. Participating in the walk no longer entails just managing diabetes insipidus and all the electrolyte issues that go with it when you're sweating like a mofo and probably not drinking as much as is ideal, and it no longer just entails dealing with chronic pain.
It now deals with managing those things alongside stage 3 kidney disease.
Walking 60 miles, even when parsed over three days, requires sucking down a lot of sodium, a lot of water, and trying to balance them. I don't always get it right (Atlanta 2011, anyone? Or San Diego 2014? And maybe even 2015, but they kinda blur together now.) Nearly everything offered is necessarily salt-laden, and they push sports drinks--half of what you drink is, ideally water but the other half is Gatorade--and pounding all that down and not getting my hydration right is a recipe for disaster.
Whatever is going on with my kidneys isn't making things easier.
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| I'm sure there will be SOME painkillers there... |
I'm still waiting to hear back from my doc. The 3 Day is like, "Well, you might want to rethink it, but we won't ban you." Which I appreciate; they're looking out for their own liability, and it's a subtle way of telling me that if I participate, it's my own damned fault if something happens. But I'm gonna be honest: if my endocrinologist says no, even though she can't stop me, I won't go.
I'd like to keep my kidneys.
So I'm suspending my fundraising until I know, and hopefully I'll know soon. But I needed to put this out there, since quite a few of you have already donated.
If I don't walk, I will ride.
You'll still get 60 miles out of me, but it'll be on the bike, where I can control the environment, and it'll be on a couple of days where the Spouse Thingy can function as my sweep. He can follow, enforce breaks, enforce food, and keep me from doing something stupid.
If my doc says yes, I'll wind up doing a last-minute fundraising push. And she might say yes with caveats: limited miles, limited number of hours at a time, and I'll do what she says.
This cause matters to me, but staying healthy matters more.
But cross your fingers for yes.
3 comments:
Do what is best for you. But you know that. I still keep you as my hero!
Do what you need to stay healthy!
Do what you need to do. Reading your post it just does not seem like a great idea to do it. Getting through a 3 day without NSAIDS sounds impossible.
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