I wrote a blog this morning and sent it to Courtenay for editing. Here is her response when I called her to ask how the editing process was going:

“That is the worst blog you’ve ever written, and I’m not even done figuring out what you’re trying to say in the second paragraph, which comes after a run-on partial sentence/paragraph in the introduction. Plus, sometimes your parenthetical asides are more distracting than helpful.”

“Okay, I’ll rewrite it.”

“No, I’ll just rewrite the whole thing, if I can even figure out what you’re trying to say.”

“It’s okay, I’m a better writer; I’ll do it myself”

“Yeah, you’re a much better writer… ‘Blah blah incomplete sentence blah, I feel better, I thought everyone hated me, but they don’t, and by-the-way I want a new bike.’”

Below is the long version of that synopsis (rewritten by Courtenay Brown):

A day ago I was in way too much pain to think about leaving this place. Then, even after my fever broke and my headache went from “piercing” to plain old “dull”, I still didn’t feel bored or antsy to get out of my hospital bed or tiny hospital room. Thanks to Google, with Gmail’s video chat and Google Voice, I was able to pass the time talking with far-away friends and family COURTENAY despite a dead cell phone battery.

Here in Colorado Springs, however, I wasn’t so sure that anyone noticed I was sick. I figured Kevin was in Florida, Matt was getting ready to go to Florida, it was Jill’s birthday yesterday and she was getting ready to go to Florida, and I should have been on my way to Florida too! Then Sherry (the “Resident Mom” at the OTC) called to say she was going to come visit – she showed up with the birthday girl in tow! – and Matt even found a car to borrow so he could come poke his head in and tell me the cross hanging in my room is definitely not a “real” Catholic cross because there is no sign of suffering. Thank you Courtenay for making this paragraph have a beginning, middle, and end!

I also found out that, after a full day of debating and trying to figure out logistics (not their strong suit), my parents are flying to Colorado Springs today after Mom finishes rowing practice so they can make sure I am OK. I’m looking forward to seeing them, and to helping them feel useful. I am moving into a new room in the permanent-resident dorms this weekend, and with the condition I’m in, I’ll need a lot of help ☺. This paragraph was written entirely by Courtenay.

After all of yesterday’s visits and good news, I slept better than I have in a week, and woke up this morning feeling only mildly ill. So now I’m trying to plot my race schedule. How do I use this delayed season start to my advantage? I’m obviously not going to be kicking everyone’s butt in Miami this weekend, and I’ll likely be ducking out of Mazatlan next Saturday as well. How do I get the points I need to race in the World Championship Series, make a little bit of money (to use for visiting, and possibly at some point being able to live close to, my studious, fast, and hot girlfriend at whichever awesome school she decides to spend the next ~5 years), please the excellent sponsors I currently have, and show potential bike sponsors that, because I kick ass on a bike, I should kick ass on their bike. That’s a long list of things to accomplish with a now-shortened season.

This morning and the rest of last night were a continuation of the awful throbbing headache and pain that has been gradually worsening over the past few days. After the second shot of morphine last night I passed out, only to be awoken 30 minutes later by another phlebotomist who needed an additional blood sample for an additional culture. An hour after that the nurse’s assistant came in to check my vitals, and an hour after that yet another blood sample was taken. An hour after that it was 5 a.m. and the painkillers had worn off, so I hit the nurse call button for some help. Not too long after that the sun came up and I realized that my humble hospital room has a fantastic Colorado view. I enjoyed it long enough to snap a picture, then pressed the nurse call button to see if I could get somebody to shut the blinds – the light was provoking an already very tender headache.

The view from Penrose Hospital. Pike's Peak is hiding behind those clouds

This afternoon my fever went back up, but my headache has subsided for the time being. I took advantage of this mild respite by taking a shower and asking for my sweaty sheets to be changed. There’s definitely something to be said for being in a room with its own bathroom and somebody that can help me out when my head hurts so badly that I can’t stand up.
…
The nurse just came by and did a Tb test –just a shallow injection under my skin that looks like a mosquito bite – if it turns red that’s bad. Then to make sure it’s a fair study they do the same test for Candida (yeast) on my other arm because everyone has that and it should definitely react.
…
I still haven’t found out what’s wrong with me, so far the battery of tests that have come back are all negative. The leptospirosis test takes 48 hours, so I won’t know if that’s what I have until late tomorrow, but Courtenay looked it up on Wikipedia and has expertly decided that despite my abnormally long incubation period, I probably definitely have leptospirosis. (My uncle – the ER Doctor in Hawaii that deals with leptospirosis frequently – called to give me the same opinion).

My parents are looking into flying out here. Hopefully I’ll feel a little better by this weekend and they won’t have to sit around worrying about me.

8:15pm – I’m pretty sure that I don’t belong here. Sitting in a hospital bed in Colorado Springs waiting for a doctor someplace to tell another doctor someplace else that I should get some test that the OTC wasn’t able to do on site that will hopefully tell me why I’ve had a fever and a raging headache for three straight days after having a fever just last week. Some of the diseases they threw out there are pretty scary to me – mono, leptospirosis, meningitis, hypochondria… (just kidding about that last one, I wish I had the mental capacity to worry myself into a fever like this).

I’m sure eventually I’ll have some …

…

9pm – OK, the phlebotomist and the nurse just came in. Hooked me up to an IV and took a bunch of blood for analysis. They’re looking for all the things I listed above (except the last). The nurse is on the phone with the Doc from the OTC telling him she can’t do an “LP” until tomorrow for some reason. I have no idea what an LP is.

…

10:30 pm – Alright, I gave four vials of blood, peed in a jug, and now I’m sitting with my computer talking to Courtenay and my Mom on video chat. The nurse keeps coming in to check on me, and I keep telling her that my headache is killing me. Now she’s going to call the doc and ask for something better than Advil. I’m not sure I really want something more than Advil, that sounds scary, but my head really hurts. Oh, and the “LP” is a “Lumbar Puncture” or what is otherwise known as a Spinal Tap (as in, “Our amps go to eleven”). I called my uncle, who is an ER doctor in Hawaii, and asked him about what they’re doing and he also thought I needed the spinal tap tonight so they can start me on antibiotics.

…

11:20 pm – The nurse just came back with morphine. Never been so glad I had my computer handy so I could check the status of morphine on the DRO (Drug Reference Online – otherwise known as the banned substance list for those of us that get random out-of-competition testing). It’s legal out of competition, but not in. I’m still not keen on it. Also, they’re going to do the spinal tap right now.

…

12am – That was really really scary. I asked a ton of questions. Apparently they do this procedure a lot, but when the doc came in wearing some radiation suit (he was a radiologist because they use an X-Ray machine to pinpoint where the needle needs to go) and he had bright white hair, slender build and a German sounding name (Van Wagoner), I was absolutely certain that I was part of a mad scientist’s experiment.

First they turned me on my stomach. Wait. No. First they made me sign a form saying that there were all kinds of risks, but there was no other option. Then I turned on my stomach – which hurt like crazy because my neck is so stiff – and then they wiped down my back three times with iodine, then came the first big needle of lidocaine, a local anesthetic. A moment later, a second, bigger needle of lidocaine. The first one hurt a lot, the second hurt almost as bad, and then I saw the 5 inch long, thick as the momma earth worm in the compost heap, shiny, scare-the-crap-out-of-me needle.

Now, I’m a watcher. When I was little I had really bad acne and I had to take this terrible drug called Accutane. It was so harsh that I had to have blood draws every few weeks to make sure the drug wasn’t going to kill me (ah, what we do for vanity). I got so used to having needles stuck in my arm, that I actually started to like it. The way it goes in and then the blood starts squirting into the tube… The point is, I don’t mind needles at all, and if anything I derive some strange enjoyment of being poked and prodded. This was different.

There is nothing about a spinal tap that is not scary – even if they rename it to “Lumbar Puncture”. The giant needle goes in, then he taps it to get it into the spine, then he taps again, then the x-ray machine comes back over while the needle is standing straight out of the spine, then a bit more tapping, then the doctor’s hands are both way over away from me grabbing other stuff while this giant needle is protruding from my spine. And the whole time I’m laying there face down, afraid to move, afraid to breathe, afraid to do anything that could mess up the procedure (I read the list of awful things that could happen! It said DEATH!!!), and meanwhile I’m running out of oxygen, about to pass out, trying to will my back muscles not to spasm as the pressure in my spine telegraphs its way into my hips and upper back and slowly starts to cause a few twitches throughout my back, and then into my abdominal muscles. The words I had read on the waiver are flashing in front of my eyes, “Nausea, Headache, Fainting… DEATH”.

He finishes drawing the first vial and asks me if I’d like to see what spinal fluid looks like. I’m thinking “can’t it wait?!” in the primal part of my brain, but the more academic side is first to the vocal chords and I hear myself muttering, “Yes, of course.”

It was completely clear. Like water. I thought it would at least be viscous like glycerin, or maybe a bit opaque, but it pretty much looks like water. I relaxed and began to think, “at least that’s ove…”

“Okay, we’re going to do three more vials like that one.” I froze. I was so scared, and so uncomfortable it seemed like that big needle had been in there for way too long already. How could the prep have been so quick, but the actual “tap” be more like a crescendo.

I held my breath, then breathed shallow, then held it again and finally it was over. The needle came out with a jerk and a pop and before I knew it I was back on the gurney being pushed back to my private room here in the hospital.

Now I’m on antibiotics and tomorrow I’ll have a better idea of what’s causing all this illness. But for now, I’m going to take advantage of this moment of opiate-induced painlessness (first time since Sunday afternoon without a headache) and try to catch some Z’s.

The state of my skin the past 48 hours has gone from “don’t want to whine and make excuses” to “wow this really hurts, I can’t believe I let myself get this burned” to “twitterable, but I’ll try not to sound too complainy” to “full on bloggable.”

I’ve been taking antibiotics the past 9 days. Was supposed to go another day, but I finally called a doc at home who sent me see the doctor that Brent McMahon is staying with. He took one look and said, “that is definitely an allergic reaction, stop taking the antibiotics”. See, the strange part is that I was “burned” under my jersey after yesterday’s 4 hour ride, and it kept getting worse through the ride, and even when during the ride to the beach this morning. I layered on the HIC 2x Suncblock (I’ve raved about that stuff before, you can put on one coat and it’ll protect you until you get it off with soap). I ran with a shirt on. I was done early in the day. I mean – I’ve been here nearly 6 weeks without any sun burn, you’d think that I would have it down, eh? But I just kept getting redder, feeling sick, nausea, headache, swollen joints, and I was red under all my clothes and even my eyes looked bright red.

The verdict is I’m allergic to sulfur medications, and if I had continued I could have developed a much worse condition, which would have required TUE (theraputic use exemptions) drug forms and time off from training. Right now the doc said I should stay out of the sun as much as I can, wear lots of good sunblock, stop taking the drugs and use Claritin to get over it. Luckily, the infected cut I started taking the drugs for has healed, so I should be fine without another round of antibiotics.

So good! And now I can get back to training, feeling strong, and hitting the Kefer to get my GI tract back on schedule! As for the title question between rash and burn? Hard choice, at least the rash isn’t from stupidity of neglecting sunblock, but it sure hurts. (And swimming on a reef and getting an infected food three weeks ago was not without stupidity.)