The Return of Justin Harris
By
Justin Harris
Last spring I was writing a lot about the various injuries and
illnesses I was having. They still haven't gotten it all figured
out, but I'm starting to be able to get back to some real training,
and that's probably good enough for me.
I suppose I'll just go through it all and list where I'm f'd up.
Starting about 5 years ago or so, after a particularly brutal leg
workout, I'd get what I'd call a "leg fever." For a few hours after
the workout, I'd have a fever. I thought that I must have had such a
hard workout that I wasn't able to recover and my body lapsed into a
fever for a while. It kind of felt like the flu, but not bad. Over
the course of a few years, the leg fevers happened after every leg
workout, not just the most brutal ones. Eventually it turned into a
leg and back fever. Looking back, it seems ridiculous that I never
got anything checked, but over a period of years you don't really
notice. I just kind of got used to needing to take Advil and Tylenol
before and after squats or deadlifts to stave off the fever.
At some point it turned into getting a fever after every hard
workout, then every workout, and then a fever every morning and
every workout. About a year ago it turned into a fever all day. By
that time I didn't really notice. I was used to taking Tylenol,
Advil, Aleve, Aspirin, or Excedrin every few hours, so it just
became habit. If I didn't take something, I'd start getting
fever/flu symptoms and they'd get worse until I took something.
Again, it sounds ridiculous to never get it checked, but anyone that
has trained heavy for years knows you just get used to having
something always hurt.
Around the same time this was going on, I was having the elbow
problems where my tendons would swell up like golf balls on the
insides of my forearms. Before that I was dealing with hip problems.
Before that I injured my back pretty bad, and before that it was my
left shoulder, etc, etc. It finally got to the point where I was
just eating Tylenol and Advil all day at ridiculous levels. To me it
didn't seem so outrageously crazy, but when my wife picked up a
bottle of 100 Tylenol for me one day and saw it empty in the trash
the next morning, she made me go see a doctor.
After a number of tests, they found out I had Rhabdomyalysis, but
couldn't figure out why. It's an "acute" form of myositis that you
get from something like a building collapse. Somehow I had it
chronically. They still can't figure that out. I also have a bunch
of nerve problems. My left arm was getting worse and worse at
locking out, and part of my left tricep was "dead." When I flexed,
it just stayed soft. They performed a bunch of nerve tests, and
pretty much all my nerves were jacked up.
All the nerves through my arms and legs are injured in some way.
They're also all "slow." They're supposed to fire at a minimum of 50
m/s and all of mine fire below that. Some of the nerves through the
left side of my upper body fire well below 20 m/s. One cool thing
about that stuff is that I have no reflexes, so if I go to a new
doctor and they decide to check my reflexes my leg doesn't move when
they hit my knee. So they go to my other leg...and get nothing. Then
they check my calves and my feet, etc, etc. They always figure the
patient doesn't know anything, so they just act like nothing is
going on. Eventually they look at my chart and get that "ahhh...."
look.
The nerve docs think that I have ruptured various discs in my spine
over the years because the major nerve damage leads out of a few
spots on the spine. So when I heard that "gunshot" in my back back
in '07, that's probably what it was. The elbow inflamation is
probably linked to that as well. My spine checks out okay, though.
There are a bunch of desiccations and other little things, but it
doesn't look like I ever fractured anything.
So, at the end of the day, they still have no idea what the hell is
causing the fevers. They figure it's all related (they're brilliant)
but don't know how. It's really not bad at all now. They have me on
meds that pretty much keep the fever at bay and keep the nerve stuff
down.
I forgot about this, but I was also having nerve flair-ups where it
would feel like someone poured hot water on my leg, or someone was
putting a flame on my hams, or it would feel like someone put a
match out on various parts of my body. I'd also get phantom itches
that were f-g annoying.
Another thing that sucks balls is that every once in a while I wake
up nauseous as shit and barely make it to the bathroom before I'm
yacking my guts out.
So I feel fine now, but the real shitty thing was that all the nerve
stuff was making training impossible. Anytime I'd go through a hard
workout, all the "fever" stuff would go into hyperdrive. All my
nerves would go on alert and I'd get that "kicked in the balls"
feeling through my stomach. Then I'd throw up all over the place and
fall asleep for a few hours. So, it would be the same as normal,
only I wasn't paying someone to kick me in the balls between sets.
It really did suck though, because it felt like I ran a marathon
after any lame ass workout.
Anyway, that's my story. I'm not looking for any sympathy and I know
everyone here has a list of injuries at least as long. To be honest,
if it was five years ago, I would have probably found a way to deal
with the puking and passing out. It has mostly been frustrating to
feel like a pussy. I could never stand all the dickwads that would
miss a week of football practice because of a "thigh bruise," or
people that would be late returning from an injury for any reason. I
never missed a single game of any sport my entire life. I broke and
re-broke my nose every game my junior year in college. I cut a cast
of my hand my senior year on the way home from the hospital. I
passed a test by the team trainers to be allowed to play with a
partially torn MCL by ODing on pills and having a teammate tape my
leg up with some metal we stole from the dorms so that I couldn't
bend my leg with a crowbar.
The hardest part has been feeling like such a pussy and using injury
as an excuse to miss training sessions, but I'm finally starting to
feel better. I'm probably going to have to take pills for the nerve
damage and stuff forever, but they're not so bad.
I still have to get a muscle biopsy because they can't figure out
how the hell I have all the myopathies and whatnot, but I've given
up hope of ever figuring that out.
So, if anyone actually read all of that, that's why I've been gone.
As for everything else, my wife is finally done with school, and her
mail is now addressed to "Dr. Jorie Harris." She doesn't much care
about that, but I think it's cool as hell. I'm still lucky to get "Mr"
on my mail though.
We've moved from the Detroit area to the Kalamazoo area where my
wife is starting her practice. I'm attending school at Western
Michigan here, too. We didn't sell our old house because we would
have lost our ass, so we're keeping it as a rental.
Another reason I've been short on time has been school. So, while
I'm sure no one gives a shit, I'll give an update there too. I don't
know what the f--k I was thinking, but trying to go from never
taking a math class to completing a math degree in a year was harder
than I had planned. I'm still really enjoying school though. I'll be
taking two quasi-graduate courses in math this fall. I'm starting to
get to the point where it won't be so crazy (hopefully). At this
point I've had Calculus I, Calc II, Calc III, Linear Algebra,
Differential Equations, a course in Mathematical theory, and I'll
have a Numerical Analysis course and a Vector Calc/Complex Variables
class this fall. I still don't know when I'll officially start
applying to the PhD programs, though. I'll end up with a second
degree in Math with two minors in Physics and Astronomy.
I'm going to build a gym in our new house, and I'm excited about
that. I'd really like to get it all set up and start videoing some
training sessions. There are a lot of big lifters within driving
distance, so I'd love to have some big group sessions where a bunch
of guys all meet up and get some training in. I'm thinking about
maybe setting up some training seminars in that same manner as well.
View Justin's Training Log
here
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