penny for a thought | Patrick on every & anything

Wow! A nearly two-month blogging hiatus, how could I? I’ll tell you, it has actually been easy… Remember my last blogosphere disappearance when I joked about using illness as my excuse? Well, Karma got the best of me as soon after that statement a life altering (non-contagious) intestinal virus hit me like a home-run in the 9th inning, bases loaded.

Up until about a month ago I argued that I was invincible, or at least the healthiest human on Earth. Now I’m humbled and thrilled to be myself again. It’s a weird feeling to know something isn’t right, but have doctors and nurses tell you it’s just lil’ bug or indigestion… WRONG!

After three-weeks in Purgatory and countless hours explaining my symptoms, it took just 5-minutes on the phone with one of, in my opinion, OHSU’s/the World’s finest doctors to tell me what he thought was wrong. Two days, three blood tests and another less-pleasant test later and the doctor’s prognosis was confirmed, I had Giardia–a parasite which terrorizes the small intestine. Wait, that’s not all. This particular Giardia strain was so powerful it prevented my body from absorbing nutrients necessary to life (e.g. Iron and protein.) As a result I had become Anemic and protein deficient.

How did I contract such a parasite you ask. This is debatable, but I’m fairly certain I contracted Giardia while backpacking in Hawaii last fall. If you’re unfamiliar with Giardia, it’s a parasite humans can pick up from water contaminated with animal fickle… I know, I know… GROSS! Apparently Giradia can only be killed via boiling your water or by adding iodine to it; I did neither. Mario however used my water filter the whole time and did not contract the virus.

In the end what amazes me is that it took more than 4-months for the protozoa to come out of their dormitory state and wreak havoc on my body. Nonetheless, it’s good to be back and feel like myself again, just a few more days of uber-antibiotics and I”ll be “tip top.” Probably the hardest part of the whole ordeal was not being able to race or train well on my bicycle, not to mention family and friends thinking I’ve become lame. Oh yeah, explaining that Girardia is not a sexual transmitted disease was pretty hard too.

There’s my story. I look forward to getting back on the blogging bandwagon. Cheers!

-Patrick