Starting Today...

So I'm not going to start this out with the very beginning of my story. I guess I'd rather come back to that and just let you know why it is I started this blog. The first reason is that I am currently training for my first half marathon on September 19, 2010! I've always been a dabbler in athletics. Not real hard core, but I have participated in sports of some kind for most of my life.

Before I got sick, I was a triathlete! Sprint distances only and had really only done a few. I had also done a duathlon and, of course, numerous runs. The farthest I had ever run at once was 5 miles! I have been running again since January of this year and have worked my way from running solely on a treadmill to pounding the pavement!! Actually, I am supposed to be putting in my short run right now (3 miles), but am here letting my fingers do the walking instead!

So I am here to journal my training and to get information out to people about Stevens Johnson Syndrome. It's a very rare illness, they say 2-6 per million every year! Most often times caused by a reaction to a medication, nearly 40% of all people who get it do not survive. Actually, I just read that Manute Bol, the famously tall NBA player from the 1990's is currently battling this illness. It often times starts with flu like symptoms; fever, chills, nausea, etc. It then causes a rash which in turn changes to water filled blisters and the out layer of skin begins to slough off of the body. I lost nearly 95% of my skin! I was on a burn unit for 3 months and was in a medically enduced coma for much of that time. The mucous membranes of the body are the most drastically involved and many times blindness or loss of vision results. That's me! I have lost nearly all of the vision in my left eye. There are other things that have been forever changed for me too, but you'll hear about that as we go along. I would hate to bore you too much on my first entry! What fun would it be to come back, right?

I hope to have some followers on this blog at some point. I'm not holding my breath, however! I'm just glad this is here so that I can write it all down. And hopefully see some major progress in my continued healing and recovery. Who the hell knew it wold take so long to recover from an illness I was told I would make a full recovery from? Ah, oh well. It's all a process, so I've been told, and today I am putting one foot in front of the other!