Fighting through the pain
When Aimee Perrett struggled to move the pedals of her bike she knew something was seriously wrong.
She had just battled whirling sensations and several bouts of dizziness during a 3.8-kilometre ocean swim and was about to embark on a 112km bike and 42km run.
Little did she know she had developed rhabdomyolysis, a condition where damaged skeletal muscle breaks down rapidly.
The diagnosis comes three years after a brain aneurysm nearly killed her. She was out riding her bike near Apiti and had a brain haemorrhage, but got to hospital and had surgery in time.
Perrett, 50, described the week leading into her third Ironman World Championship in Hawaii as hell on Earth.
She had developed a skin infection and woke up several times, drenched in sweat. However, she was determined that nothing was going to stop her.
‘‘Giving up just wasn’t an option,’’ she said. ‘‘As an athlete you never want a DNF. We were competing in high humidity, 40 degrees Celsius. I thought I had acclimatised properly and was confident going in... until the race.
‘‘I did the swim. I wasn’t feeling well. I wasn’t well the day before, but I thought ‘oh it’s just nerves’. I got on the bike and from the first pedal stoke I knew something wasn’t right – I didn’t have any power. I looked at my stats watch and thought ‘you’ve just got to get through this’.’’
She soon began to fall behind her usual times and her condition got worse. ‘‘Seven kilometres in, I was starting to get scared about my head. I thought that maybe it could be the aneurysm again.’’
She stopped at a first aid tent for a health check. Her blood pressure was 80/50. ‘‘It was so low they were surprised I was still standing.’’ A normal reading is 100/70. Perrett finished the race in 12 hrs 49 mins, down from the time of 11 hrs 15 mins she had recorded one month earlier.
It wasn’t until the next morning when she was washing her hair in the shower that she decided to see a doctor. ‘‘My hand locked up and it went spastic. The same thing happened when I picked up a fork.’’
She went to hospital, but her condition baffled doctors. An electrocardiogram initially feared she had suffered a heart attack.
Upon returning home, it took three medical experts to diagnose her.
‘‘One minute I was told I was having a heart attack, the next it was renal function. The question was asked, ‘do I have a problem with my nervous system’. One of the things the neurologist wanted to check me for was multiple sclerosis.’’
In the end it was revealed the root of the issue was a rare muscle disorder.
The muscle damage is most often the result of strenuous exercise and infections. Going into the race with an infection together with the intense nature of the sport provided an explosive cocktail, she said.