It all started March 11th when I woke up in middle of the night in Egypt in my hotel room with 40+ degrees in fever and could not breathe. I really thought it was the last seconds in my life… The emergency doctor at the hotel took great care of me that night and after a night of treatment I felt rapidly better.
A few days later I felt better but I still had some cough and tightness in my breathing, it felt like a small pipe. When I came home to Sweden the doctor said that I’ve had a respiratory tract infection and gave me asthma medicine and told me that this just take some time. I felt more or less like normal and the @hyroxworld race in Stockholm came closer. After talking with doctor we decided it would be fine to go since I felt good and healthy. During the race I rapidly felt like my performance was low and my body did not want this intensity and I had big problems breathing, the air ways just felt smaller and smaller and it was a real resistance while breathing. I pushed through the race and we took the new world record in doubles.
The day after I felt worse with the breathing but doctor said that it was probably because it got so irritated and I should not worry. Two days after I felt like normal again, breathing good and felt healthy and strong.
On the upcoming Monday after the race I had a strong stomach feeling that I should maybe check this deeper just to make sure I’ve got the right diagnosis and that it is just as good as I actually felt. That night all changed..
That night I went to the emergency hospital because I could not get this out of my brain and things did not turn as I had expected. The doctor found that I had a high Troponin T value (blood test connected to heart) and that they needed to send me to a bigger emergency hospital directly. Same night I went to a second hospital for continue the investigation and until they knew more I could not leave the hospital.
I spend a few days at the hospital with 24/7 ECG and several tests and until they could give me a clear diagnosis I needed to wait for a MR scan. 1 week later the MR scan showed that I had a heart muscle inflammtion and pneumonia. I was sent home and now I´ve been home for a month. I was very limited with movement at first and after 2 weeks and had to take it very very easy. I had a new check after 2 weeks and things looked better so I got start walking a bit faster and do some easy prehab/rehab exercises but still nothing called training. Mentally it has been a real battle, from training 5 hours a day to this.. but hardest of all haven’t been the lack of exercise it has been the emotions, constantly being worry, depression, anxiety and the uncertainty of the future.
Lately, I´ve read a few very similar stories in the news where the fever and breathing issues was initially caused by Covid-19. They also got better at first and felt good but then got sick in Myocardit (heart muscle inflammation) weeks after. I honestly think that it was covid-19 that started all this and that it later on caused the inflammation in the heart. I think it definitely had to do with the exercise but I think it might not been this bad if it was covid-19 that casued it from start. But this i all my thought and I honestly don´t know if I will ever find out….
What I´m doing now…
Right now I´m walking a lot and listen to podcasts to learn new things. I´ve already learned so much about training program, nutrition, supplements, timing, per iodization and more. I´ve evaluate and been thinking a lot about my past and how to start over better, how to get stronger, faster and reach my goals. With this blog I want to share my thoughts and my experiences from this journey but also my training later on. Feel free to always write in comments and I will do my best to answer.