Hi my iron friends. Long long time member but mostly a lurker. A few weeks ago my wife and kids found me unconscious without breathing in the middle of the day. The night before (and a few days before) I had been struggling with what I thought was a bad flu. It turned out that I had the flu, covid, and strep throat with bilateral pneumonia. All of those conditions(and specially the pneumonia) caused me to go into acute renal failure. When my kidneys failed, it caused my potassium levels to go to 7.1 (5 is considered lethal) and that triggered heart problems and caused me to black out and insufflate, which worsened the pneumonia and caused acute encephalopathy (brain swelling). I woke up 2 days later completely deaf, blurry eye sight, loss of control of my right arm (this was puzzling), and terrible kidney pain among other symptoms. Last thing I remember was going to be the night before. It was pretty traumatic (also traumatic for my kids who watched me get resuscitated by the emts). My primary believes that what put me over the edge was the dehydration (i was severely dehydrated, I typically drink a gallon of water a day but i was feeling so crummy that I skipped on the water). Right now it’s been 3+ weeks and I feel incredibly weak. I went in the hospital at 223lbs and left at 198lbs 2 weeks later. I’m in my late 40s so I’m no longer interested in getting big or doing anything beyond trt, but I would like to get my weight and strength back. Feel so weak though that it’s hard to eat or workout (plus I still have pneumonia).
Anyways, I just wanted to share my story because I need to let it out as it’s been pretty traumatic and hopefully for others to learn from my experience, mostly in terms of always being diligent about hydration no matter how crappy you feel. My kidney values are back to normal and lab work looks great except for wbc, platelets, and inflammation markers, which I guess it’s expected. If anyone has any suggestions I’d welcome any and all input. This is a great and supportive community and I want to wish all of you lots of health in your fitness quests. Nothing nothing can ever replace good health. Thank you for listening.