To Whom It May Concern

Mortality Rears It's Ugly Head

I have been relatively healthy my entire life. This is a combination of things. I have reasonably good family background as far as heart disease and cancer (I'm young yet so I haven't given a lot of that thought), I have been lucky enough to avoid pitfalls such as car accidents, and addictions such as cigarettes or worse. I also enjoy working out, where as most people would sooner eat their own underwear than go run a mile.

The last year or so has brought about certain realities though. I can no longer 'cheat' my way to performing well on my physical training test for the military (work out for 2 weeks and overextend my abilities to score well). At this last school I went to, from 10/25 to 11/6/03, I had to do a PT test, and I did worse than I've ever done, even when I was at basic. I only did 47 pushups, and I ran the 2 mile a full minute slower than I ever have (12:57). I was quite disappointed.

Well, as the days went on (we took that test on the second day there), I began to feel a soreness in my chest. Subtle at first, then it slowly got worse. Felt like my heart was going to explode at times. It got to a point where it became hard to sleep. At 31 years of age, the idea of my heart failing was really scary, to be quite honest.

I go into the doctor tomorrow to find out what it is. I have an idea already. I would think that if it were a serious heart problem, it would have gradually showed up, where as this seems to have popped up in a matter of two days. I think I caught some sort of infection or virus when I did my run way too hard, and it has caused the tissue around my heart and/or lungs to become swollen, either from infection or from fluid building up. Either way it hurts pretty bad sometimes.

I sit and wonder about things, it's hard to not have that 'ideal body', and to deal with the problems that arise as you get older. I know I need glasses, for instance, but it's almost as though getting the glasses is like admitting that I'm imperfect, and you know, I'm just not ready to do that yet? *blah, I do need the glasses though, getting to a point where I can't read highway signs at night*.

From this point on I realize I need to work that much harder at eating healthy and maintaining an active lifestyle that includes running, walking, biking, and my usual pushups and situps. But even with that, do I need to consider something other than situps to avoid hurting my back? Heh, the things I have to begin thinking of... I may not be ready for them, but my body is sure ready to force the stinking issue.