First let me apologize for my extended absence! Now for an update. I had a great race and crossed the line in first with a time of 17:28. The so-called ringer from the rival company was about 20 seconds behind me and complained about an achilles injury he was dealing with. My company also won the team race with ease.
After the race I went to happy hour with coworkers to celebrate the win. Well, I had been eating mostly salads and clocking some decent mileage so my tolerance was shot. I got a bit too drunk and tripped/stumbled out of the bar and hit my head on a telephone pole.
When I awoke the next morning I became violently ill, throwing up several times. I assumed it was just a hangover so I took some aspirin and tried to tough it out. But at work the illness continued and I was suffering from a splitting headache. My boss noticed I was in bad shape and sent me home early.
I tried to sleep it off and ended up sleeping for 14 hours before waking up with a headache that was even worse and I started throwing up again. My girlfriend told me it was just a bad hangover so I tried to keep sleeping it off.
I slept most of the weekend while the symptoms didn't abate so finally on Monday I went to the doctor. The doctor asked me if I'd hit my head recently and I realized that I did the previous Thursday night. Doc said it was a concussion and got me in for a CT Scan as well.
Turns out it was worse than a concussion. I had cracked my skull and was suffering from abnormal brain swelling and slight internal bleeding in my skull. I was rushed into surgery and went into a coma for approximately 3 weeks.
Next thing I know I wake up in a hospital and can't remember how I got there or how long I was there. According to the doctor I was very lucky. Unfortunately I would also require some serious rehab to get back to normal, lots of mental exercises to get my brain working again.
I suffered from spurts of amnesia as well as short term memory loss. There were days when I would sit down for hours trying to remember things and see only a black abyss in my mind. It was so frustrating. But the docs I saw all assured me that my memory would recover.
Well, my memory did recover and sometimes I think it is better than it ever was. I ended up having to go on disability and when I was able to go back to my job I decided against it because I was too embarrassed about being the guy who stumbled drunk outside the bar and had to miss 6 months of work.
My girlfriend also broke up with me as soon as it appeared that I was making a full recovery, so I was single and unemployed and coming off brain damage. I moved back in with my parents and have been doing landscaping work for the last 9 months or so. Not sure what my next step will be but hoping to get in some sub-18 5Ks this spring.