Talk About Caught Off Guard...
For the past five weeks I've been battling some type of weird "stomach" ailment. I'm not sick but, after I eat or during my rides, I get severe abdominal cramping, nausea, and an additional "messy" symptom. My mileage has taken a beating because, after about 15 miles, it takes everything I have to stay on the saddle. I've done some 30 milers and one 40 miler but it has been NOT fun. I get to feeling absolutely horrible. The only bright side is that I've dropped nine pounds.
I kept thinking that it was a stomach or intestinal virus of some type. It would be pretty severe for a few days and then go away for a few days and then come back and go away... It was driving me nuts.
Finally went to see my MD this morning and while she was prodding my abdomen with her pointy li'l fingers noticed a huge bulge running from just below my Solar Plexus to just above my Navel. Hernia.
I have no idea how it happened, lol. Anyway, appt. made for an Ultra Sound and a Surgical Consult. She didn't say that I couldn't ride in the meantime so I'll just take it easy and do what I can do. Absolutely the LAST diagnosis that I expected. I was thinking she was gonna tell me that I'd acquired some strange alien parasite from visiting the Planetarium or something.
Ya just never know.