You should’ve seen the look on my doctor’s face when I came in for a visit just over a week after my last staph infection healed.
“I got another one.”
“ANOTHER ONE??? AS IN… NOT THE SAME ONE???”
“Yeah… not the same one. This one’s on my knee.”
He was shocked.
I couldn’t believe it either.
There I sat, removing the bandage and showing him my second staph infection after just a week of the first one healing.
Similar to my first infection, this one didn’t respond to the first course of antibiotics.
In contrast to my first infection, this one didn’t seem as bad but was more painful AND took twice as long to heal.
Searching for answers, he ran a few labs. They all came back normal. On my follow up visit, discussing possibilities with my doctor, we came to the medical conclusion that the best explanation for this was “really bad luck”.
So, one month, two staph infections and four courses of antibiotics later, here I am to write about my training month.
From a jiu-jitsu perspective, about one thing went really well: my Lasso Guard.
In the only week I was able to train, I was able to pick up some new techniques and work on my lasso guard. I was making some substantial improvements on this guard I never work on until I noticed a pus bubble develop on my knee. At that point, it was straight back to the doctor.
The fact that this infection took 3 weeks (exactly 21 days from infection to doctor’s clearance) to heal gave me so much time to myself. The first two weeks had me laid up on the couch, in pain from the swelling in my knee as well as fatigued from my body’s trying to heal as well as the side effects from my fourth course of antibiotics.
I watched a lot of Netflix since that was about all the mental energy I had until about twelve days in. This was approximately three or four days after the doctor drained it and prescribed my second antibiotic for this infection. It was finally healing.
The pain was subsiding so I was able to move around better. I started reading and finished three books in the time since then and now (I had a LOT of time to read). My mind was not focused on jiu-jitsu. As a matter of fact, I had zero desire to learn or study or watch jiu-jitsu. In some respects, I just feel like I needed a detox so that I could “start from scratch.”
I was finally ready to come back. The abscess had stopped draining. I showed the photo to some of my doctor students and they recommended I get a follow up just to get cleared (there was still redness in the area). My doc wouldn’t be available for another three days. The magic that happened in these three days is the bulk of this training journal.
Let’s dive in.
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