After all the trips to the doctors to figure out what is going on with me, the conclusion seems to be that I had/have a virus. A mystery virus. It's possible that my training compromised my immune system and I became sick. It's also possible that my Mystery Virus was caused in part by being overly obsessive with my hobby. The three weeks off have given me some perspective and I can see clearly that I was overtraining. I just started multisport training in spring of 2005 and shouldn't be pushing my body to Olympic-level standards. It shouldn't surprise me that I was breaking down instead of building up. I am sufficiently humbled.

I still stand by my argument that the state of health care in this country is frightening. The lady who brought me some films this morning couldn't be bothered to get up from her desk, and then she spoke to me with a mouth full of food. That's nasty.

My plan is to find a new primary care doctor. Mine made three errors that concerned me: (1) I asked twice for my iron to be tested when I had both blood tests, and it was not tested either time, (2) I asked three times for my body temperature to be measured in one visit, and that request wasn't fulfilled, and (3) my doctor overreacted and diagnosed a severe medical condition, which I will not mention, based on a verbal description of some diagnostic imaging, to the later consternation of a specialist.

Since undergoing the epiphany that I am overly obsessive, I have been obsessing about not being obsessive. Apparently, I am insane.

We are products of our environments. It is difficult to make the right decisions when immersed in the wrong environment. Once upon a time, I thought that frequent bar-hopping and binge drinking were perfectly normal, since everyone I knew participated in those activities on a regular basis. When I took a step back from that, I realized that I wasn't missing out on anything but a lot of time-wasting and stupid, regrettable activities. What I'm doing now isn't much different. You could say it's healthy, but that's simply a justification for overdoing it. It's not healthy to overtax the body with excessive and painful physical activity. It's not healthy to go through life feeling frazzled because there's little time left over for recovery and downtime, what with all the hours of cycling and running and packing for cycling and running and driving to races and training events. Three weeks ago, I think I was about to lose my mind, I had not stopped to sit still for more than three seconds. It isn't right.

So, how do I proceed from here? I don't know. I still want to be obsessive. I want to go by the numbers and I want to beat everyone in the world. I want to push through the pain and I want to experience immense pleasure from making myself work hard.

There should be a 12-step program for this addiction, too.