After training on wet roads last weekend a mild sore throat escalated very quickly resulting in hospitalisation for one Irish club cyclist. Monica Freiband was whisked off to hospital and even put in quarantine.
While many Irish cyclists were riding their first races of the year last weekend or tuning their sportive condition, Monica Freiband was enduring something of a health crisis.
She suffered a rapid onset swollen trachea and was in A&E hooked up to breathing apparatus just hours after having had no symptoms whatsoever.
The Orwell Wheelers cyclist has been told her trachea swelled, severely restricting her breathing, due to an infection caused by severe cold weather training and farm run-off.
Medics have told her that a combination of cold weather and farm waste splashing up off the roads she was training on combined to cause the infection.
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And once it set in, it caused her serious problems very quickly that necessitated immediate hospitalisation.
Thankfully after a couple of days in St James’s Hospital, Dublin, where she was in quarantine for a period, she has now returned home to complete her recovery.
It appears a passing vehicle splashed rain water, with a distinct taste of cow manure, off the road into her face and water bottle.
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She woke up on Sunday morning after her training ride on Saturday with a minimal sore throat but nothing of serious alarm.
However, the next day, her breathing became increasingly restricted and she decided to seek medical assistance.
Within 20 minutes of presenting to her local doctor she was in St James’s hooked up to a nebulizer and intravenous antibiotics in A&E.
After very decisive action by her doctor and further expert care by the doctors and nurses in St James’s for 48 hours she was back home yesterday.
Such was the sudden impact of her airways swelling and closing up that Freiband estimates only five hours passed between having no symptoms and being hooked up to breathing apparatus in hospital.
It sounds like there was little she could have done to avoid what happened. And with bad luck the same could befall any cyclist training on wet roads in just about any area of Ireland.
However, her case serves as a warning to those who may experience similar symptoms to act quickly in seeking medical attention.
The cycling season is long and clearly training in very cold weather on roads where farm run-off may be a risk are clear from this case.
Monica Freiband told stickybottle she was very grateful to the staff at St James’s and also to her friends for keeping her company, and her spirits up, while in hospital.
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