My health and future

so you've probably already seen this [Music] it was back in February so four months ago that happened and since then um I've seen the doctor I don't know 12 to 15 times so quite a few different times and not just for that but for other things as well and I kind of felt like it's time to update you on what's going on with me and sort of explain you know why you haven't seen me backpacking at least a current backpacking trip since that happened I've put out a couple of videos uh where Evan and I sort of recycled uh some backpacking trips that we've done um just sort of keep backpacking fresh on the channel because I think people still want to see that and they expect that and they should but Rhabdomyolysis is no joke I will just tell you that straight up and it's also extremely confusing there's not a lot of information out there on it there's no experts you can find that specialize in rabdo at least that I've found and so information is limited and if you know about it if you're in the circle of you know high endurance athletes and that kind of thing it may seem common to you but it's actually only like 26 000 cases of Rhabdomyolysis are reported annually in the United States uh about a month ago or so my family and I had a big maple tree in our yard and it needed to come down because it was dying so we cut it down and I didn't want to get rid of the firewood because we have a wood burning stove in our house and so I spent a Saturday with a log splitter and a chainsaw splitting firewood it was a hot day it was sunny and 85 degrees out about hour six into that because it was a pretty big tree I started to feel the exact same chest pains that I felt in the Grand Canyon I mean identical I knew instantly what it was and so I stopped everything I was doing and I went in the house and I told my wife I'm like I gotta stop because I got that pain in my chest again and I've just absolutely freaked out I thought I was going into rhabdo again and it just totally scared me one of the things that concerned me was am I gonna get this again are you prone to get it well I finally have an answer from a doctor that I trust that no you can't get it again just because you've had it so that concern is off the plate that can be challenging if you're a Backpacker and hiker I mean you're always exerting yourself right so you know you care and have you pass could be climate all that kind of stuff elevation there's a lot of exertion that goes on so that was a concern for me but then the chest pain I found out was caused by I have esophage esophage I can never say it esophagitis G is sounds like a j esophagitis uh which just means that my esophagus is inflamed and sore and I have no idea what's caused it at all but I've been given that as a diagnosis of what's caused chest pain we've come to the conclusion that when I over exert myself it's causing that to somehow be irritated and so now I'm on medication and I've got a much different diet to help with that so that's part one um the other thing that's going on with me that you maybe don't know my knees have been bothering me for years so going on probably four years my knees have been bothering me my right knee especially has a really nasty crunching sound kind of gross but like if I go upstairs it's audible like very audible you'll hear it if you ever walk next to me and we're going up any flight of stairs and it's super painful and so when all this went down with the rabdo I'm like hey man I'm going to see all these doctors I may as well just get everything checked I'm at the doctor orthopedic doctor having my knees looked at right now they've been bothering me for three years four years probably very painful when I hike and uh so I did some x-rays talking about MRI gonna have a physical therapist come in here and talk to me you know and so I'm hoping that it is not a big deal we will see I had been putting off getting my knees checked because I didn't want to admit a I'm in my 40s so I'm getting older and things just happen in your 40s start to fall apart and uh B I didn't want to admit that there was a possibility that I would have to stop hiking hikes that would impress people right some of the more strenuous hikes summiting mountains or doing the Grand Canyon and things like that but it turns out I went and saw a doctor and I had an MRI and I have a recent report on my knees I'll have the results next week I go see the doctor to read these report to read this report because it's all medical jargon to me but it sounds like and I don't want to have any sort of a diagnosis yet because I don't know for sure but it sounds like I have arthritis in both of my knees so that's fun when I rewind back when I went to the doctor originally for my knees he um told me that he didn't even want me walking on ground that was uneven I'm like how am I supposed to do that like do you know what I do so we've worked really hard to I don't want to say hide it but to put out videos that were still watchable but didn't require me to put myself through anything that was going to cause further injury but it's kind of the point now where I need to let you know what's going on next week I'm going to find out in detail about what's going on with my knees and I'll have better answers but just know I have zero intent on stopping hiking or backpacking I I don't think you could stop me from that doesn't matter what kind of condition I'm in I'm going to figure out a way to get out and do it but I may be having to choose hikes that are less miles less rigorous less elevation if you're wondering how I'm actually picking out these hikes I actually use a website and an app called Onyx Backcountry so that's what I'm using it's good because I can see the elevation profile so I know how strenuous something is I can see my elevation gain and my elevation loss I can see exactly how long it will be to get to a campsite I can read notes on what this hike is actually like to see how strenuous it really is so that's how we're picking out the next few hikes so that really is going to help me decide what I'm physically capable of doing and if you want to know how to do this I'll leave a link in the description for this as well so I didn't want to be like a Debbie Downer today that's definitely not the um goal of this video but I did want to make you aware and sort of update you on where I'm at kind of what's been happening and just be completely transparent and honest with you about what's been going on because I don't ever want to pretend and I haven't really heard a bunch of comments from people I haven't really seen many comments from people asking like hey Dan why aren't you backpacking anything like that so um that's not why I'm making this video at all but um I just kind of felt like you know it's time it's time I kind of let people know what's going on so uh next week if you're a Praying person you know I wouldn't mind having you pray for me that um you know God will heal my knees and uh he'll make that uh pain go away that'd be super awesome and I think um this medication I'm on is a positive thing for my esophagus so that's good and what's even crazier about all this is that none of this is related to the other like my knees aren't related to my esophagus the esophagus isn't related to the rhabdo that just sort of is like the storm of things that happened all at once where I found out all this stuff at once that was going on so I blame it on being in my 40s um yeah and not working out my entire life that's always not necessarily a good thing either I suppose we can blame it on that but I do have plans also to hike coming up soon um the end of this month we're planning a trip and then another one at the end of July and so we are getting back out on trail no matter what the doctor tells me but of course it'll be based on parameters of what the doctor tells me so thanks you guys appreciate y'all and uh we'll see on the next one

Channel: Dan Becker

Views: 166,559

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Id: Zy9kCGQVTnQ

Length: 8min 28sec (508 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 15 2023