Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Work...the thing that pays for shit

I've decided that I need to be self-employed. I just had the most excruciating day all so I could get my allotted hours in...so they would pay me my 40 hours...of salaried pay.

Here are the things I like to do:

Read
Write
Talk

How do I make this into a job? Anyone? Well, just popped a pill and now I will rest hoping that my drug induced dozing will produce an amazing idea. Sigh...

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Post-op 2 weeks gone

So, when I said I would be blogging more often I did intend for it to be more than once a month. :) And fair warning, this is a LONG ASS post.

I am now bionic. I will now set off the metal detectors in the airport. I now will have to check the box for radiology that says, 'metal implants'. I am repaired!

The surgery went really well according to the Dr., I obviously do not remember much about it. (Whew!) I was really nervous for some reason, not sure why, but just scared. My blood pressure was up to 125/80 or something like that and I rarely hit the 120s. Anyway, that morning I got there at 6:30am and had my blood drawn for my clotting factor. Then I met with the anesthesiologist team, one guy (Joe) was really sweet and he put in the nerve block. (The nerve block basically makes it so you can't feel anything on/in your leg...at all...trippy.) They wheeled me back as soon as they found out I wasn't going to bleed all over the place and started right about 8:35am. T left at that point to take Brodster to be boarded, we needed him nice and exhausted for when we were home together.

I woke up in recovery and was apparently out of it for hours. From my last couple of surgeries I remember that I do not wake up well, I'm cold, disoriented and well...scared...and thirsty. I was there for approx 3 hours and finally I was rolled up to a room, after I made them give me drugs for the vicious headache that just wouldn't go away. They gave me laudanum, which I only know from the movie 'Tombstone.' :) So I was plenty out of it in my room when my first visitor appeared. My friend who is a nurse of anesthesiology and was laughing at me...nice, but seriously it was SO sweet of her to show up. T had to work so he didn't see me until much later.

Have you ever been in the hospital? If not, let me tell you, it is NOT a restful place. They are in and out of your room every 2-3 hours. I was up and walking on crutches that very day! THAT DAY! Can you believe it? I couldn't, I thought the PT guy was stealing my drugs. But with the surgery I had they want you mobile as soon as possible so your quad doesn't wither up and die. Seriously. And of course at this point I still didn't know what kind of surgery I had. Fast forward, T comes by after work, I finally get my phone...my PHONE...my life line. Sad. I took my funny pics for FB. (what did we do before all this technology? Oh yes, relaxed and called and WROTE people...with a pen and paper.) I didn't have breakfast of course, or lunch and so my first meal (hospital meal) was dinner...and what did they bring me? FISH. EFFING FISH. Gross. Okay, well, I do like fish, when I prepare it or have it prepared in a way that I know I'll like. So I had them take that away and the really sweet nurse brought me a turkey and cheese sandwich that lasted me the entire night.

I slept...kind of...for about an hour at a time. Used the bedpan at 3 am...yes, I said bedpan. I hate bedpans, I can't imagine anyone out there who really likes them, but seriously...they suck. And my body refused to 'go' in a bedpan. T came by before he went to work in the am, some more friends stopped by, that was awesome, I had two more PT appts, all this before 3pm! That's when I finally got to go home. I hadn't seen my knee and still didn't know exactly what was done. The surgeon's PA (the one who diagnosed me) checked me out and she said I apparently have a high pain tolerance to have been walking around with a knee like that. I had damage in 3 places, side of the knee, under the knee and the patella, all down to the bone. Rockin.

The first 3 days post surgery were good, I was doing my PT, I was making progress thinking this wasn't so bad and then *BOOM* my nerve block wore off. Holy.Shit.Balls. I woke up and was crying, I don't cry that often, especially from pain. I took a lot of drugs that day. The next day was equally as bad and the day after that was minimally better. The fourth day I was seeing the light, when I didn't have the urge to wake up at 4am, pop a pill and go back to sleep. Fast forward to 2 weeks later, I'm feeling good.

I was weening myself off of the drugs until yesterday when I had my post-op appt. The dr said, "I'll be the first to cut you off if you're overdoing it, but by not taking them you are stalling your recovery." Huh, so today, back to popping pills every 6-7 hours. I have to do PT 3x a day, I generally do it 1.5x a day, I have to do a stim treatment 2x a day, I make it 1-2x as I can fit in, and I have to be on the CPM machine 4x a day. Well, I sleep with it and get one longer session in the afternoon, I figure the hours even out right?

Today was a big day though...I FINALLY got to take a shower. Sponge bathes, not my thing. *shudder*

Okay, so I had a partial knee replacement with metallic implants (or a metallic OATS procedure) and have two metal implants and a plastic patella. It's pretty wild looking. The Dr is going to send me pics of during surgery as well, it was nasty gnarly, but cool.

Alrighty, so I do have more to post about, but it will wait. I've already babbled on for the day. I do apologize if there are a ton of grammatical errors, I am under the influence. I'll be using that excuse for a bit. ;)

Peace out kiddies!

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Time...flies....by...

Holy shitballs! Another 6-7 months has slipped by. I really had nothing to blog about, or rather that I wanted to blog about. I just read my last couple of blog posts...hahaha, my 'To Do' list for my 38th year is going to hell. I did do the 3M half and I signed up for the Splash and Dash races, I even signed up for an early race. Had the whole year planned out...SO excited....and then...life.

While training for the 3M half, which by the way was great and was my fastest half marathon to date, I took a hard fall on one of my last long runs. I was by myself, on mile 11 of 12 and was looking behind me to see if I could sprint across the street, and sadly my foot landed on the side of the curb, I was falling and didn't realize it until I hit the ground. I hit my knee and my wrist. Took a week off, went to the Dr (it was my fat clot leg) and they said to watch it. I did, nada, pain but I'm always in pain so whatever. I finished the race a few weeks later and then took about a month off. :)

I was training about 3-4 days a week, when I could squeeze it in. And then the most amazing thing happened..my work decided to send me to Europe! I've been wanting to go and meet my clients for years but never thought it would happen. So in late April I went over with the full intention of starting my training for my first almost Oly race in July. The first week I traveled everyday and the only exercise I got was walking/running to the gates in the airport and lifting my suitcase up above me on every flight. I'll have to write about my time in EU later, good times. ;) The second week I rode a commuter bike to my place of work every day (so 3 days) and swam twice. No running though. SO, when I came back I ran on Monday morning, 4 miles. Then Tuesday morning, 4 miles...exhausted! My next run was Saturday, I had an hour of running to complete and I did 5.5 miles, and then my knee blew up.

Well...it swelled up pretty bad anyway. So bad that I couldn't bend it by the end of the night. The next morning I couldn't put any weight on it so on Monday I got into the Dr. They drained 40cc of fluid out of the knee..gross, and gave me a cortisone shot and sent me on my way. They said to wait a few days before exercising so I did nothing and that weekend I swam...because by day three after I had it drained it was filling up with fluid again. Called the Dr the next Monday and they said to call an Ortho doc. Got in to them on Tuesday, they drained it and sent me for a MRI on Wednesday, and it started filling up again on Wednesday. We thought maybe a meniscus tear.

My inlaws came into town (another post...) and the Dr went on vacation so I had to wait for the results. When I called to check and see if I could exercise (I'd been 4 weeks without any consistent exercise and it was killing me) the medical assistant said, "yeah, so no meniscus tear, acl, lcl, all okay so just don't do anything high impact." Which I took as, "there is nothing wrong with you, it's in your head and you're going to have to deal with the pain." SO I swam on Saturday and rode my bike Sunday. Hurt like a mother effer. Got extremely drunk that Sunday night (it was Memorial Day weekend) and was hungover Monday but still swam that afternoon. Had my appt on Thursday when...

...my Dr (or PA) said, "well, there is no tear, but there is a LOT going on with your knee." Apparently I have a 13mm hole in my cartilage (see fall up above), left knee, and have worn all the cartilage down to the bone on my patella. Bone on bone. Enter pain and swelling and THANK GAWD it is not all in my head. The only fix is surgery unless I want to deal with the pain, not being able to walk my dogs more than a mile, getting into the shower and not being able to put my undies on like a normal person. Oh, and become a swimmer...not gonna happen. So T and I met with the surgeon on Monday, set a date...June 26th, and he is going to decide on which surgery once he gets in there. I have a surgical clearance appt with my primary on Monday, get my doppler done, blood work yada yada. And then we're just 2 weeks away.

I mean, there are worse things in the world. But this really screws with my plans this year. I'm gaining weight like no ones business...apparently my body didn't share with my appetite that we are doing less...therefore I do NOT NEED TO EAT SO FUCKING MUCH! I digress...it sucks. I can't even work out to get in shape before the surgery. Lame ass. And I may not be able to do my IM next year as I've been planning since LAST year. Ugh. Again though, there are worse things that could happen to a person.

Well, this was long, I apologize if I even have readers left. Ha. Peace out kids, I'll be blogging more b/c I will be immobile for 8 weeks, the first 2 at home with not much to do. Brody above at 1yr, he's gonna be a monster, but such a sweet monster.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

One dream becomes reality

I started riding my bike in 2004 when my friend Legs suggested that Trainer and I do the MS150 the following Spring of 2005, a bicycle ride from Houston to Austin. She had done it the year before and so we said, great! Sounds Good! Lucky for me a co-worker rode and so did his 2 sons. They had an extra bike that he was willing to sell me for $200. We didn't want to invest too much money into the bike because we didn't even know if I'd like riding. Another $100 went into the bike - seat, handlebars and some other little things. And the next week I went on my first 10 mile ride. Which I thought was SOOOO far!

In 2005, before the ride, Trainer got a brand new bike with Dura Ace (top of the line) components for a GREAT price, it was one of those...'we have to do this, too good to pass up' kind of deals. We trained and trained (he used to bribe me with scones in the middle of our ride) and finally made it to Houston, with our bikes in boxes, and did the ride from Houston to Austin. I loved it. That is also when we fell in love with Austin and decided to move here!

Once we moved here I didn't do much riding, running...anything...for about a year. I gained 10 lbs and was working all of the time. In 2007 I started running again. In 2008 was my first attempt at swimming, that didn't stick. Then I met Mid-West Girl. During our friendship she started training for the Austin Triathlon in 2009. So I told her I would ride with her. It got me back on my bike and remembering how much I LOVED riding. Just for the joy of being outdoors, alone with your thoughts, looking at all the beauty that surrounds us...for me it's like a sanctuary. A really big one. Anyway, after riding with her for months and months, running with my running partner I decided to take real swim lessons with T3 Training group and then I started Triathlons. But my love was and is the bike.

We put off getting me a new bike because something else was always more important. New windows, vet bills, paying off debt...and once we started doing that I wasn't going to spend thousands on a bike. My little, heavy, Cannondale got me through several Century rides, countless weekend rides, 6 triathlons included a Half Ironman, and brought me peace when I needed it the most. I will always love that heavy monster.

It's been a year now that I've been with my new training group FOMO, well...my Coachy Coach  is a sponsored athlete and she can share some of those discounts with her athletes...such as myself. Those discounts included (drum roll) bicycles. OMG. I scored a complete deal on this bad boy below...or will it end up being a bad girl. Hmmm...ponder that. Anyway, no, our debt is not paid off. Yes, this will add about 2 months to the end of our schedule. BUT, this is a one time shot to get something really nice for myself for a really great price. Not everyone understands it. One of my girlfriends said I was crazy and that she'd spend that money going to Europe. (PS - that kind of money won't get you very far in the EU.)

So - here it is...my new ride...that should arrive on Wednesday or Thursday (most likely Thursday b/c that is how my life goes):


What do you think...male or female....hmmm...

Well, time for my long run, I've put it off long enough. Peace out my pretties!

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Six weeks until Vacation!!!! (Rambling post)

GAWD I cannot wait to go on vacation. This hot weather is sucking the life and soul out of me. And now with the wind my allergies are mimicking a sore throat and shitty attitude. :)

Okay, so first I have to respond to Shan's comment on my last post. Love my Shan, Sexy Hippy Mama, with all my heart. If I told all of you readers how much sleep I get you might hunt me down and slaughter me in the middle of the night. I get 8-10 hours every night (albeit broken sleep - thank you Brody, but still.) I do sleep, and sleep, and sleep and if I didn't have to get up I'd probably sleep some more. And just to point out to all of my parental readers: Believe me when I tell you that my athletic endeavors are SO much easier and less energy sucking than your adorable children. I can go out on a 7 hour bike ride, run for 30 min and still be able to make it through the rest of the day (with a short nap of course) and be fine the next day. When I watched my precious little 'H' man while Yoga Babe was giving birth (yes, remember I was there during a home birth) for 8 hours I was exhausted. Mentally, physically exhausted for the next 2 days! My point is that child rearing (haha) is effing hard work, a lot harder than this tri shit.

Speaking of tri-shit. I am on my maintenance plan and enjoying it. I have one week left and then I start training for my 1/2 marathon in January. I'm excited. Running with a purpose is good at times, especially when I'm trying to refocus on me, my body, my motivation...etc. You get the idea. Blah-diity-blah-blah-blah.

Fun stuff in life: Went to tea with Yoga Babe and a new friend on Saturday. (side note - I was completely lazy on Saturday, read a book and a half, did no exercise...blissful day.) The Steeping Room is one of our favorite places and after tea we walked around the outdoor shopping area and well, we shopped. I got new UNDIES! YEAH!!! Yes, I am super stoked about my new undies, and they are not Fredrick's undies, they are good 'ol day to day underwear. They have come along way in 7 years. I think that is the last time I purchased undies for day to day. I have plenty of uncomfortable, only on for an hour max, sexy, sassy, play things underwear. I bought 14 new undies. Bikini and thongs. They are SOOOO comfortable. I threw out all of the old undies. Very satisfying. UNDIES!!!! Sorry, still excited and it was 3 days ago. :)

OH, and I remembered why I quit WW this last time. It doesn't quite work right for people that exercise a lot. I guess it could...I don't know, maybe I'm doing it wrong?? Regardless I'm paid up through December so I will lose that $$, but I did join a nutrition challenge through my nutritionist. Probably a better way to go since it is custom to me, my workout habits and life habit...ie; pizza Fridays and pastry Sundays.

K, I'm just babbling again. I will post again tomorrow (mostly b/c work is sucking the life out of me and this makes it bearable.)  I will pick one of those topics from my last post. Have a great day! It's Tuesday, 4 days to go. Rockin.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

I need a tape recorder...

...for my bike. So that when I'm riding and have all of these fabulous ideas for blogging I remember them when I actually sit down to WRITE the blog. *sigh*

This is the phrase that has been plaguing my thoughts this week:

"Wanting something means nothing if you're not going to DO anything to get what you want."

When I was trying to organize my 'crap' room I came across my old (seriously old, like when I was 17-18years old...old) journals. Here is the opening sentence to one entry: "I want to be thin...and I'm writing this as I eat a snickers bar." Well duh honey! That's not going to work! And today I find myself doing the exact same thing. Well, not really a snickers bar, but too many calories, not enough burn...etc. Whatever.

My score for the week on getting up early =  0/5, that's right. NO early mornings! DAMN IT! But, I will try again next week. I have to keep trying. One of these days I might actually get a foot on the floor, followed by the other foot, dressed and out the door. It could happen. Really. Swear.

Other things that were going through my head on my ride, which will become blog post (so stay tuned!):

  • I need new friends, ones that aren't talented...so I can feel like I am talented. 
  • This fat leg thingy issue is a curse, but a blessing.
  • Why do I stay at my job.
  • Women CAN be crazy and over sensitive, and then there's the other side of the coin. 
  • Why did I start this blog.
  • If self-loathing were a competition I could podium.
And so on and so on. At least I have ammunition for 6 new posts, and I think they'll turn out well.

But really, back to the 'wants'. Action is needed to make these 'wants' into reality. If I want a new bike I need to save for it. If I want to become a better athlete I have to practice/train. If I want to lose weight, like really lose the weight, I'm going to have to take action (fortunately I'm on the right path for this one!) And if I really want to do an Ironman I am going to have to DO a lot of 'somethings' to make it a reality. Actions speak louder than words, even if the words are only in your head. 

My solo ride was good today. I rode 26 miles at 16.4mph, so getting my speed back...slowly. I'm still about 2mph shy of what I was riding in 2009, so I'll keep at it. Can't get a new bike and suck. I completed my brick (run right after bike) and it was a struggle, but I didn't short myself. Yesterday I did my run, I didn't short myself. Tomorrow I will run AND swim...and that's right...I won't short myself. 


Tomorrow and the next day and the day after that I will strive to become a better version of myself. What will you do today or tomorrow or the next day to take a step towards those 'wants'?

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Control

Getting back into the swing of things takes a certain amount of control.

During my lunch with Coachy Coach she asked me some great questions, many were just to get me thinking, but most were to get me moving in the right direction. One was, "well, how ARE you going to get control of your eating and working out?" Legit questions coming from the person who writes my workouts and is seeing no progress...to no fault of her own, which I tell her every week. :)

Anyway, the good news is that even before our meeting I had just joined (or re-joined) Weight Watchers. They have yet another system, I think this will be my 4th time doing the plan?? The first time didn't work, but I don't think I really wanted to lose the weight. Or rather, I didn't want to work at it. And losing weight takes work...a lot of work and perceived sacrifice. (Because really...saying no to a donut isn't a 'real' sacrifice...) I started on Tuesday morning and by my weigh in on Friday I was already down 3lbs. Yes, water weight, however if I keep drinking the water - the weight will stay off - so I consider it a real loss. I will weigh in once a week like I'm supposed to and log-in online and TRACK my shit. Yes, you have to track what is going in your mouth and you are forced to make decisions. I feel more in control and know that this is all in my hands. Good.

And guess what? From there, the weight loss comes the benefits of exercise. I get more 'points' if I exercise...meaning I can eat a little more when I exercise, not the entire farm. ie; after a 2 hour workout I can go have a slice or two of pizza and not worry about it...however, I cannot have the 2 slices of pizza, a cinnamon roll, ice cream and mac and cheese for dinner. Which sadly, yes I admit it, has happened before. I haven't gained a ton of weight, but I popped back into the 160s which ticks me off. So now I am less than 2 pounds away from the 150s (yes, that would be 159)  and I'm motivated to get there. (Oh, and more than that...it is so much easier to run and bike when you weigh less, every 5lbs makes a HUGE difference.)

Motivated to get there....and to do my workouts. Every week my dear Coachy Coach write these workouts and on Sunday I get ALL excited for what the week holds. Then ultimately I work a few 10-12 hour days, come home, feed the pups, start dinner and it is 8pm and dark outside. And then my lovely 9month old pup wakes us up every couple of hours to go outside...and not because he needs to relieve himself, but because it's cool outside and he wants to bark...so I get no sleep and am exhausted and therefore do not get my ass out of bed to get to the gym. Then a pattern of missed workouts start to pile up, I start to feel like shit from missing the workouts....and then we repeat the pattern. (Pete and Repeat go into a bar, Pete comes out, who is left? Repeat...Okay, Pete and Repeat go into a bar...)

Well, Trainer has no choice and has to get up for clients. I've made another decision that I'm going to get up at 5 am every morning next week and GO TO THE GYM (that opens at 5:30 and is 5 min from the house) and do my workouts. At least the ones I can do at the gym, like mid-week cycling and swimming, the running I will only do on the dreadmill if there is no other alternative.

I have the puppies in Playcare 2x a week so on those days (Monday and Thursday) I am going to workout in the AM and/or at lunch. There, I said it. Now I have to accountable. Which is something I obviously need. I will report back next weekend to tell everyone (my millions of readers....hahaha) what I did and did not do. I'm not superhuman, I know that, but I can do SO much better than what I've been doing. I AM better than this. I am. I know it.