22 years ago it was an oversized pickup work truck mirror that didn’t get taken out… It took ME out when the driver cut directly in front of me doing a sudden, unsignaled 90 degree turn. I caught the mirror directly in the chest on top of my heart monitor belt, dead center on the heaviest part of it.
I actually thought I might die on the spot for the first minute or two of the most intense pain ever for me, but then I was concerned with getting my bike and seeing if it was okay, while a medical person was trying to get me to sit down to get checked out. He appeared immediately after the crash along with many others who came pouring out of nearby shops as they heard the chaos occurring.
I was back on the mountain bike 4 days later, and a new road bike on order courtesy of the driver’s insurance company soon after that.
It was 3 weeks later that I learned I had a cracked sternum, after the driver’s insurance company forced the issue for me to get a bone scan done so I would sign off on any further claims. If I hadn’t been wearing the heart monitor belt that absorbed a HUGE amount of the impact force and distributed it across a wide area instead of the sharp edge-line of that big metal mirror, I suspect I wouldn’t be here to tell the story.
Back to the subject of recovery from illness, the bout with pleurisy compounded with pneumonia 2 years ago is the most significant thing I’ve dealt with since I rediscovered biking in my upper 30’s, about 30 years ago. It certainly knocked me down lower than I’d been in all that span of years, and it was difficult to reckon with how much I lost and how fast I lost it.
But I was thankfully able to do some rides even during the time of pleural effusion issues, and also while dealing with pneumonia, which was diagnosed about 10 days after the pleurisy.
My power was VERY limited on some rides, others less so, although no rides were at my previous levels of output.
I think you just have to learn what you can do by trial and error. Pay attention to the big picture, and learn from mistakes. Your body IS going to let you know what is too much too soon, but you have to be a good listener.
(And I would also say that if you do not attempt anything, your body really can NOT tell you very much that is useful. At least until you’ve lost a lot more than you may have needed to allow.)
You also need to be in touch with various aspects of health that signal how things are going. If you have any sleep monitoring that you’ve utilized (My Garmin FENIX 7 keeps me informed, albeit with some obvious misses, but generally is useful info,) pay attention to that data.
Same for HRV data (which I also get from the FENIX 7 sleep monitoring,) give it a glance daily just to allow it to speak to the overall assessment process.
Resting Heart Rate, I also gain from the sleep data…
Stress Scores, another Garmin data piece from the FENIX 7, and it’s yet another useful bit in the overall picture.
All this stuff we can track with these devices CAN BE useful information.
None of these bits is always accurate, and all of them will at times be totally OFF from what we find useful, but when taken as a body of information and monitored regularly, I think they put ME in much better position to respond in productive ways to what is happening in my life.
Whether showing me that I am MORE PRODUCTIVE when I IGNORE Garmin’s “take a rest day” suggestion,
or convincing me that I really DO need to take my sleep habits more seriously,
or helping me recognize that certain kinds of days (i.e. long travel days by car, or yard work chore days, or…) really DO add a meaningful level of stress to my body that I shouldn’t ignore completely.
Ultimately, it is up to ME to make the choices, run the experiments, and respond to the results. My Garmin devices are NOT my masters by any stretch, they are subservient to me, and I often counter their directions, but I’m still very glad about how much they’ve helped me learn about myself, and how I can be more fit.
When I am more fit, I am more happy! Fitness is not the source of it, but it is one less thing trying to rob my happiness.
… Being Sick SUCKS. I pray you all BE WELL!
