I am getting healthier

Truly, I meant to get up early enough to go to Central Park and put in 3 miles before my 9:15 doctors apppointment. But when one sets the alarm clock wrong, for about the billionth time, one wakes up late. (I'm beginning to think this alarm clock and I, which I bought eight years ago, just aren't going to have a future together.) The am/pm indicators aren't present enough and I often set a p.m. time rather than an a.m. time. Very annoying. But I'm not going to buy a different one until I find the perfect alarm clock. They're getting quite slick, most of them can dock an iPod now, but still...I need an alarm clock I can set while exhausted, half-asleep, drunk, visually impaired, AND all of the above! And, of course, it has to look good, too. I'm really not a big fan of plastic.

Anyway -- so I woke up late and had about fifteen minutes to get out the door. There went any thought of showering or shaving. I already have a week's worth of beard growth, so despite my nice clothes and the seasonally red pullover sweater, I must have looked either like a well-dressed bum or an artist.

The appointment went pretty well. PFTs and weight are both up, but not high enough to excite my doctor. So the IV antibiotics will be extended at least through Monday, to make sure I get the full course of 14 days of Tobramycin and Vancomycin. Now, the good news is that I'm feeling SO much better than four weeks ago. My 5% improvement in FEV1 is actually quite a lot. My doctor, having to do this without my previous charts (Mt. Sinai seems to have their administrative and organizational heads up their asses), has to go on rules of thumb right now. She wants to see more improvement, although she acknowledges my lungs sound very much improved in the stethoscope.

The astounding - and quite unbelievable - part is that I've apparently gained 7 pounds. I tell you now that this is quite impossible; I don't care that it was the doctor's office scale, the same one both weighings, it just doesn't make SENSE. The scale put me at 125 pounds - a tie with my highest-ever weight. But if I weighed that much, I would have noticed it in the hollows of my knees, felt it in my legs while running, and the first words out of my doctor's mouth upon seeing me would not have been, "Have you lost more weight?" (Maybe it was the week's growth of stubble? Does that make people "look" thin?) So I think the scale is wrong. It was either wrong at the first weighing and I was heavier (which is more likely, actually), or it was wrong at this weighing. Problem is, I don't have a bathroom scale and pretty much refuse to get one, so I can't correlate these results with any of my own. (Why refuse a bathroom scale? Well, for one thing, I don't want to get weight-obsessed. Weighing in now and than at the doc's or at a health club is often enough for me. There's also the issue of looks and design. I could maybe get a nice glass bathroom scale...I just don't want plastic or metal in the bathroom. White ceramic and terry cloth is the order of the day in yon throne room.)

Now, as is human nature, I kept mulling over that weight issue even as I ran, which had the interesting effect of making me FEEL heavier - fat and slow. Oh, please. ME have body image issues? Hah! But there it is: once presented with new information, one tries to correlate it with new evidence.



Lumpy run - mostly because of traffic. It was cold out and I was wearing more running clothes than the mild autumn had me wearing, so that contributed to a feeling of heaviness. And though the run was short, it still felt pretty good. Starting to have shin splint issues again, which points to tight muscles and ligaments - got to get back to stretching. Now that the lungs can keep up with the legs, the legs are having a hard time. Still, my per-mile pace is improving!