On the 19th of December, the day after the big ride last described here, I slept most of the day. No big deal, right? It HAD been a demanding three-day ride AND I had driven that blood sugar really low on the last day.
But then on the 20th, I was still very fatigued and my leg muscles really hurt. I passed it off as delayed lactic acid build-up. I ignored the brain fog and went to work.
But then things progressively got worst until my short-term memory was completely eroded, I had to talk myself through the steps of simple tasks, and the pain in my muscles and joints had become un-ignorable. I started getting pins and needles in my legs….
I continued to deteriorate right through Christmas. From the 29th through the 5th, the exhaustion was total. I couldn’t get out of bed. Taking a shower resulted in a need to take a 3-hour nap. The joint and muscle pain was teeth-gritting at times, particularly in my elbows, knees and calves.
I finally went to the doctor on the 2nd of January when valiant attempt at going to back to work failed miserably. The doc was perplexed but immediately thought Ross River virus – a mosquito-borne virus that drops people like flies. He sent me off with extensive pathology requests. I shit on sticks, peed in cups, and gave enough blood for a donation.
Initial results were perplexing. I appeared to be in perfect health… except the Ross River results take longer to return. Finally, they came back. I have definitely been exposed to the virus, but they need another sample to confirm the case is acute. And so… here we are on the 21st of January awaiting those results.
Only in the past three days have I felt just very, very tired and achy instead of completely exhausted and in severe pain. Consequently, I am way behind on concluding this journal, and I have not yet even thought about my riding goal journal for 2018 yet (I have goals, but have only managed 125kms in 2018 so far, all in the past week, and almost all very painful).
However, it is a fitting end to a WTF!!!! year. This journal reflects the topsy turvy year it was. Some months have maps; some don’t. Some months have summaries; some don’t. All that disjointed crap is how the whole year went.
After all the work to say goodbye to Oz, all the research about places and potential jobs in America, the excruciating goodbye to the man I’d hoped to spend the rest of my life, after all the money spent trying to get reestablished in some way in America….
After all that, I end up back in Australia in my old job and trying to get back into a rhythm again. I survived one American mosquito-borne virus in July only to get another Australian mosquito-borne virus less than six months later… and so any hope of getting a rhythm back… gone.
Good riddance, 2017!
However, after many years of friends and family pressuring me to do my own website that was more mobile-friendly and which they could follow by email alerts… I’ve made the leap. I am slowly copying over my crazyguy content as bandwith, data allowances and my energy levels allow. Please be patient – I still feel like total crap. It’s like a 2017 hangover… I’m determined that 2018 is going to be a better year… just as soon as I get this virus out of my system!
