Rhabdo

Rhabdomyolysis: dying muscle cells that cause toxins to build up in the blood. If left untreated, can lead to kidney failure and other life-threatening damage to the body.

“Rhabdo” is what I had. Rhabdo is what I thought I’d never get. Rhabdo is what I heard of, but knew very little about. So my story is not one to scare. I hate scare tactics. But instead, to inform.

Insert a year a and half into my CrossFit journey. I’m tracked out and I have some spare time on my hands. I attend my normal class Monday & Tuesday and decide to do some additional work with a friend afterward on both days. Nothing crazy, but a decent amount of sweat & heavy breathing were involved. It felt good and I was doing movements that all needed work-- those movements that aren’t in my “wheelhouse.” I ended up pretty sore the following day, but nothing too out of the ordinary. So I got up and went to class on Wednesday, worked out, passed on the additional work, and went home to rest.

In the middle of the night Wednesday is when I got my first sign, although I didn’t know it was one at the time. I rolled over in my sleep but woke myself up with terrible pain radiating from my abdomen. I attempted to go back to sleep, but found it difficult because every time I rolled over, the pain would come back. I rested Thursday like I always do. Did some chores around the house, took a nap, and was about to head to a football game when I had what can only be described as instinct or intuition to text a coach and ask what an ideal number of GHD sit-ups would be for someone of my “caliber.” Their response after I told them I had done roughly 70 on Tuesday? “You’re lucky you’re not in the hospital. Had you done 30 more you’d probably be admitted for rhabdo.”

Rhabdo. Uncle Rhabdo. Rhabdomyolysis. Whichever name you'd prefer. The rare disease that is unfortunately known in CrossFit & marathon running communities. The rare disease that I couldn’t possibly have because I’m average at CrossFit. Rhabdo is for the big leagues, the Games athletes-- not mediocre people like me. Wrong. I looked up rhabdo on WebMD, read I was going to die (sarcasm...kind of), and drove myself to urgent care. There they had me give a urine sample. It was brown, like Coca-Cola brown. I started crying because then I knew. And this all might be TMI, but brown pee is a rhabdo staple. My urgent care doctor ironically did CrossFit herself. She asked if I had done any specific movements that may have triggered it. I mentioned the GHD sit ups, to which she smiled and told me, “GHD sit-ups send more CrossFit athletes to the ER with rhabdo than any other movement.” Fabulous. Our conversation ended there. I grabbed my stuff and drove to the ER.

Which, tangent, is ridiculous that they even call it an emergency room. I got there at 4pm and did not get back to triage until 7:15pm. Glad my body isn’t shutting down over here or anything. Oh wait…

Anyway, once I got back to triage the doctor came to see me. They had taken blood and I had given another Coca-Cola sample. Apparently in the average, healthy person, CK (creatine kinase) levels in the blood are between 0-200. This is considered normal and within a healthy range. Some athletes can get toward the very low thousands when doing a strenuous workout. Typically, with proper hydration, these levels can lower back down to normal on their own with no significant damage to the body. However, when extreme strain is put on the muscles and there is not enough time for proper rest & recovery, these CK levels can begin to climb rapidly. And when this happens, the muscles shut down. In essence, our own bodies are shutting down in order to protect us. They’re literally forcing us to rest. The potentially bad part is once you get so much CK into your blood, your kidneys begin to clog up. They can’t filter the toxins as fast as your body is producing them. And when your kidneys clog up, you get protein-filled, brown pee.

Again, normal CK levels are 0-200. My CK levels came in at 62,588. Yeah. No joke. Except the nurse made the joke that I had set an ER record for her; "I have never seen levels so high!" *Slow clap for my nurse*

At that point they hooked me up to IV fluids, sent me for an ultrasound to make sure my kidneys looked okay, and then admitted me. I got lucky. Yes, my CK levels were high, but we caught it in time that with proper flushing of the kidneys and a lot of water, I was going to be fine. There was no significant or life-altering damage to my kidneys. For the next four days, I was hooked up to an IV and had my blood drawn every 12 hours to monitor my CK levels. They continued to drop and eventually I was discharged when my CK levels got down to 5,000. Still high, but with enough hydration at home, they would continue to lower and I would be okay.

So...now what...