Weekly Review: A Hospital Stay?!

Waterfall #2 on Sunday (Grotto Falls)

Happy Monday! As always, I'm joining Hoho Runs and MissSippiPiddlin's Weekly Wrap linkup, plus Courtney's training linkup. Be sure to visit the hosts if you haven't already!

July 31–August 6
Monday: 3 mi
Tuesday: 4.4 mi + dog walk
Wednesday: 4.4 mi (3.5 with BSWD)
Thursday: 1.4 mi dog walk
Friday: rest
Saturday: Sweet Pea 5K (recap) + 2.8 mi
Sunday: 6.4 mi + dog walk

Total RUN: 24.3 mi
Total elevation: 906 ft

Tuesday's run & example of the haze. Where are the mountains?!

Last week started off well. It was hot and hazy for my first two runs, but I finished them. Things started to derail on Wednesday. Alex and I went to the Big Sky Wind Drinkers fun run. I was feeling pretty rough, but chalked it up to the warm weather, windy conditions, and the wildfire haze in the distance. I walked a few times during the 3.5 miles, but still ended up with an 8:50 pace, which is pretty unbelievable with hills and walking. In fact, I didn't finish that far behind Alex.

Bite of Bozeman

Afterwards we went to Main Street for the Bite of Bozeman (lots of food trucks) and I didn't have an appetite. Very odd after a hard run. As I walked around my vision was a little blurry but I figured it was the fire haze getting into my contacts. Just when I'd settled on some food, I lost peripheral vision out of my right eye! My right hand went numb and I told Alex I had to leave. My vision came back pretty quickly, but it was weird. He wanted to go to the hospital, but I brushed it off.

Disclaimer: It's probably a bad idea to share medical drama on the internet, but it didn't end up being anything embarrassing and ~40 people regularly read this blog. ;)  

Gross

Fast forward 20-30 minutes: I'd finished some cereal and started to look at twitter on my phone. All of the sudden I couldn't read a tweet. I could see it just fine, but the words didn't make sense! I called Alex over and he had me read it out loud. It was gibberish. I tried again and again. No luck. So, we got dressed and went to the hospital. I tried to laugh it off at first, but on the drive there I'd go through moments where I could say everything just fine to not being able to form a single coherent sentence. I knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn't get it out. I wasn't slurring or anything. I just couldn't find the right words.

We got to the hospital and I was back to normal. I described what happened to nurses and doctors and the first theory was a Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA), or small stroke. So, they started the stroke "procedure." Over the next 18 hours I had an EKG, MRI, CAT scan, and Echocardiogram. It was weird and a little crazy, but I rolled with it. The techs were amazing. They walked me through everything. As each test came back negative for whatever they were looking for, it became apparent that I had a "complex migraine." It doesn't sound as exciting as a TIA, but I'm a-ok with that! The actual headache part of the migraine began Thursday morning and has stuck around since then (yep, still got it right now).

Anyway, I share all of this because: 1. I could have ignored it, but I'm glad I didn't, 2. At least now I know what all of those procedures feel like (wow, an MRI is loud), and 3. it's the same thing this reporter had a few years ago. I'd forgotten about her story!

Thursday's dog walk

I took Thursday off since I didn't get home until 4pm. We had a nice, long (for Tobias) dog walk around the neighborhood and it felt great to shake out my legs. I decided to take it easy on Friday in preparation for Saturday's 5k (recap). Post-5k we went out for breakfast and then I intended to run 6 miles, but unfortunately, I got a mid-run migraine and had to stop. We went out for lunch and shopping in the afternoon, so it wasn't a completely wasted Saturday.

Palisade Falls

Sunday was a nice, lazy morning followed by two waterfall hikes at nearby Hyalite. Beautiful trails! I went out for a run around 8:00pm and it felt fantastic. Thank goodness, finally a good run!

As I mentioned above, I still have a dull migraine. I'm trying to avoid taking meds, but I think that might be a silly idea. I hope this migraine is just a result of the wildfire haze, but it's not really that bad. It hasn't rained in about a month, so perhaps that's the cause? Whatever it is, I've never had a lasting migraine, so this is new territory. Luckily, it's not debilitating and I'm able to stay positive.

Weird week, for sure.

Have any remedies for migraines?