Live to Run - Run to Live

Transplant seminar #3

2012-01-17T22:44:00.003-05:00

Since being accepted as a pre-transplant patient at Columbia, I've had to start attending educational seminars, designed to equip with patients and their caregivers with as much information about transplant as possible without resorting to throwing encyclopedias at us. Each seminar is two talks, usually, and focus on one corner of the transplant world.

The first I attended was actually rather nice, as it was a panel discussion of post-tx patients. (They generally have their own support meetings, so it is not common to meet post-tx people.) It was great hearing their stories, seeing how healthy they've become, and listening to the complaints of their caregivers, who seem to have become accustomed to being bound to a *sick* person, rather than just a *person*.

The second set I attended had to do with the ex-vivo project. Columbia is in a group of five transplant centers doing the very first ex-vivo lung transplants, using a machine that can keep lungs viable outside the body much longer and allow for treatment of those organs before implanting into the recipient. Fascinating stuff. So far, they've done two. The study needs 42 before the FDA will consider it an approved method.

Today's session was a two-parter covering the donors themselves and pre-transplant testing. I found it odd that Carmen Saunders was covering that topic (and she needs practice!) considering that every patient in that room had already gone through these tests. But that's an assumption. And perhaps the caregivers aren't up to speed. Or maybe we need a reminder why some tests get repeated so often. I personally didn't find any of the tests too onerous, despite the gloom-and-doom rhetoric from other patients, except perhaps for the bicycle test, which I see the importance of and am glad to repeat anytime they want it.

The topic of "who are the donors" was new area for me, certainly. I was shocked to find out that not every donor is an accident victim. Or rather, that there are circumstances under which a person is considered a viable donor but is NOT DEAD YET. Cadaveric donors were not covered, as they're pretty much no longer used for whole organ transplant, only certain tissues. Of the remaining donors, where heartbeat and breathing has been maintained through brain death in one fashion or another, here's the breakdown:

1) traditional brain death - typically an accident victim. someone who is found still alive but who dies en route to the hospital, or is killed in a way that poses no trauma to the thoracic cavity, but damages the head AND life support begins immediately. This is the ideal case and the one I certainly think of when pondering how I'll end up with lungs (if that should so happen).

2) DCD or Donation after Cardiac Death. This is a NHBD Category III donor, who is still alive, but will die if life-support is withdrawn. There are strictly controlled standards against which patients are judged. The injuries must be fatal, the patient has no hope of recovery, and continued life-support or treatment is only prolonging the inevitable. Etc. (This would have been my dad. He donated his corneas; and the transplant surgeons can be ready, but after his pulmonary embolism, it became only a waiting game. Dad's fate was sealed at that point. Unfortunately, since his lungs are what killed him, his other tissues were too damaged from poor oxygenation to be useful.) ANYWAY.... this is a less-common category for donors.

3) extended criteria donor. This is the healthy old guy out mowing his lawn who takes a rock to the head and never wakes up again. If you're over 65, you don't meet donation criteria. But exceptions can be made. I'll take a 65-year-old marathon runners lungs any day over a 20 year old basement-dwellers'.

4) Finally, we learned about CDC high-risk donors. These includes people who have been incarcerated, have a drug history, history of risky sexual behaviour, etc. Not entirely off the eligible donor list, but a person would receive their organs only if in dire, dire need.

I also learned today that if there's a multiple organ transplant, it's the condition of the lungs that is the primary determiner of viability, as opposed to liver or heart.

And what exactly goes into a patient's LAS in the UNOS system? PFTs, arterial blood gas results, and the number of feet walked during the 6-minute test. There may be more, but those were mentioned.

I find these seminars mentally exhausting. Not to mention my personal discomfort being in the same room with other people who may have bugs I might pick up or who might get my bugs.

Coffee obsession

2012-01-15T19:30:00.000-05:00

I have a problem: I can't seem to stop collecting coffees. Or maybe the problem is that I'm too delighted in all the variety out there. The obsession isn't actually about coffee: it's about CHOICE.

I have a Keurig brewer, which was a gift two (three?) years ago from my mom. It is, in fact, the only coffee maker I've ever loved. It's just so EASY. And it makes switching from one variety of coffee to another - or even to tea or hot chocolate or chai - as simple as getting a sampler pack or a 12- or 18-count box at the local grocery. On a weekend, I may have three different kinds of coffee in a day. Or tea. Or hot chocolate. It's great!

These aren't the K-cups you're looking for.

My problem is that I don't quite finish a box before stocking up on a couple more. So at present I have six varieties of coffee in my pantry, another half-dozen represented by stragglers in the little revolving carousel, and two varieties of K-cup tea.

They're like merit badges!

Not that the long-rooted tea obsession has gone away either! In teabag form, I have three different kinds and in loose-leaf form another four. And as long as we're on the topic of pre-packaged hot drinks, I'll admit that I also recently got a box of Trader Joe's instant coffee (pre-sugared, pre-creamered) just to try it. At 10 cents per serving, I'm not risking much.

And it doesn't suck, believe it or not.

But is all this variety too much? Sure, I love offering my guests a large choice, from regular to hi-test to half-caff to decaf and even herbal teas. But I'm the first to look at a restaurant menu and point out that I could make a decision a lot easier if there were fewer choices!

LESS choice is a discipline and is probably a good one. For instance - let's look at the lines formed at two different establishments for getting your morning cuppa on the way to work. On the one hand, you have Starbucks - highly glossy, awful coffee, very expensive - I have to wonder why people ever go there. Ah, but they have CHOICE. So they flock to the counter, debate for a while, give their complicated "coffee" orders, which take the baristas five minutes to make, and the whole trip takes 10 or 15 minutes.

If you get tennis neck from reading the menu, it's too big.

But on the other side of the street, there's the local deli or small diner. They make one kind of coffee - and it isn't decaf. It's made by the gallon (or two or three) at a time. They have some choices for cream and sugar or their substitutes, but those are limited. And if you have them do the cream and sugar, they do it one way and that's it. Guess how long their lines are? They have none! Not for lack of customers, but because they have a high turnover rate on each order. A good sidewalk coffee/donut guy can pump out 180-200 cups of coffee an hour.

Order some breakfast in your head. See how easy that was?

So if less choice is clearly the better way to go, why am I so obsessed with collecting coffees and teas? If I'm honest with myself, I could be happy with a single roast for the rest of my life. (Note: that roast is currently Eclipse, but any of the extra-bolds will do.) I don't get bored with a coffee so much as distracted by shiny new ones. If I weren't such a braincase, perhaps I could have some mental discipline and narrow my coffee selection to something more reasonable. Perhaps I can focus if I have just one more cup of coffee...

Holiday Windows 2011

2012-01-11T16:24:00.002-05:00

Now that the Christmas window season is wrapped up and behind us, I want to record a few thoughts. First, I'm not entirely on board with the entire concept of Christmas, as it has become in modern times. I could do an entire blog post on THAT, but I won't. Suffice it to say that my skepticism about what's genuinely GOOD about the holidays guides my evaluation of my own work as well as others.

I had a hand in multiple retailers' windows and I'm quite pleased with how things turned out. Note that I'm NOT posting pictures here or anywhere else of windows I was involved with. I'm not refraining because I feel bound by non-existent stipulations in a contract I never signed, but rather that the web is saturated with these images. I also never brought a camera along on my many trips to the windows, other than my iPhone, and never got great shots. Que sera sera.

I was responsible for the initial design phases of Lord & Taylor, under the aegis of Spaeth Design as production company, and guided/directed by the client's dreams and wishes. They bring to us the central idea and we flesh it out. Then we build. In Lord & Taylor's case - build and rebuild and rebuild. Though the product we installed was true to the central concept and looked very good, with continuous thumbs up across the internet, the process to get to that was more convoluted than it should be. There must always be time for reflection, evaluation, and necessary modifications as the design is being brought to life, but I'd say that that has been taken to an unhealthy extreme in L&T's case. On the commercial side, I don't see how it can possibly be a sustainable business model for the production company. But that's their fight to take to the client, not mine.

Spaeth has my final color models of the windows on display at their offices, which horrifies me. Models are not the product and are certainly not art. There's a certain archival value to them, but these are not meant to be seen by non-L&T clients. But whatever. I don't own them, Spaeth does. And there's plenty of artifacts floating around those offices that I *am* proud are on display.

Macy's is a riddle in a puzzle in an enigma blah blah blah. Along about May, I was tasked with taking the initial sketches of the Macy's Herald Square designs and converting them to tell the same story in Macy's on State in Chicago. There wasn't much time to do this and much of the drafting was supposed to hinge on what was planned for New York. But much of THAT didn't exist - and so I made up fresh designs to explore the concept and the client, the production company, and I boldly stepped forward into building. Of the pictures I've seen, I like the results. Fun and unusual. Really liked the puppets. We have separate motion and costume designers and I have to give them credit for doing a great job.

I had nothing to do with Macy's Herald Square's scenery, beyond what was copied out of Chicago drafting for use in Herald Square - a few gear shapes, some lettering. My job in New York was lighting, which was an enormous undertaking. I was able to talk the production electrician I used in 2009 into coming back on the promise that there were fewer lights to deal with - less cable to run in advance, maybe 60% of the number of lighting units, and some miscellaneous practicals to power. I didn't LIE, but....well, I knew it wouldn't be as simple as all that. Yes, there were less units to put on the ceiling - but more on the floor. And there was an enormous amount of LED lighting to power. I did any LED installation myself, if it wasn't already dealt with at the shop, but poor Shu ran a lot of 12v power this season. If this style of lighting continues as a trend, I am wondering if dedicated 12V lines, powered from a main transformer, wouldn't be a better idea.

Anyway, the actual total count of lighting units runs to about 325 to 350. Conventional lighting planned for about 160 units, and LED lighting doubled that. For counting purposes, I define a unit as any piece of lighting powered by it's own connection. So each LED is not counted, but a group of them in one housing that then connects to a breakout or a transformer is counted as one unit.

What was shocking to me and a major obstacle to overcome, was Spaeth's reluctance to put money into the lighting. They had contracted to DO the lighting, but hadn't considered the actual costs. I had to get fairly blunt with them and explain what it really takes to light Christmas windows, labor costs, etc. They conceded on labor and also purchased all the LEDs needed. I got the client to purchase other needed items, including some units we can reuse for several years and some color. All told, though, the total lighting expenditure had to have run pretty close to what it did in 2009.

I am pleased to note that the LEDs held up extremely well. Only two units actually died the entire season. Maintenance was reduced (one of my goals), though the store employee responsible for changing burnouts really didn't like the birdies. :)

So how do other retailers' windows compare? Well, I thought Bergdorff-Goodman's Carnival of the Animals was awesome, though not especially Christmasy. Tiffany's got more accolades than I thought it deserved, but they were well-executed. I loved Van Cleef & Arpels small windows. I was disappointed with Saks. And while everybody was talking about Barney's GaGa windows, I was just puzzled. Wrong time of year. But whatever.

Happy New Year all

2012-01-01T13:25:00.002-05:00

A few tribulations with my Apple computers lately. Had many things to fix and had to put it off until my FIT class was done. But finally, I had the Christmas break to deal with it all.

First I went to TekServe and after extensive queries and waiting, a manager managed to dig up a MacCuff in the basement. Apparently, these things are generally sold in bulk to institutions, not individually to people who want to get the Mini under the desk, rather than on top of it. (My desk has 7 square feet of space.) The MacCuff is a very nicely engineered piece of steel, I have to say. Easy to mount with a variety of options, all ports accessible, and the fit is snug but smooth. I guess that's what surprised me most - how well the thing fits a Mini. I'm now trying to find a similar mount for my connected external drive.

The Seagate hard drive I've been using as my Archive drive is borked. In early December, I was doing a TimeMachine backup when it fell off the desk. This damaged it enough that DriveSavers couldn't recover any data. So...19 years or more of work - gone. I'm still discovering things that are gone forever, but surprisingly, I'm not terribly upset. It feels like freedom, in a way. but I will shortly have to start a new Archive drive and will BACK THAT UP along with backing up the main computer harddrive. So frustrating.

Within the last three weeks, I've had to get service for all of my expensive Apple toys - some of it long overdue. The Mini needed a new optical drive. (The mist from my breathing treatments eventually buggers the optical sensor, I believe, as this isn't the first optical drive to quite working and the techs ALWAYS note a "white, salt-like substance" on the computer's vents and fans. (As a matter of fact, hypertonic saline is one of my meds.) For similar reasons, the 23" Cinema Display also needed service. They did about $600 worth of work, replacing the glass and LCD screen inside completely.

What AppleCare didn't cover, however, was the liquid damage to my MacBook Air. Scotch is not good for a laptop. And though the niece and nephew indirectly caused the accident, it was, I admit, primarily my own fault. Let's just say NORAD Santa Tracker is now the target of my enmity. The upside is, the repairs were cheaper at Apple than at TekServe and I now, basically, have a new early-2010 MacBook Air, given the number of internal components that got replaced.

iCloud: Upgrading to Lion has gone smoothly, mostly due to good advice from a stagecraft forum. Moving to iCloud went smoothly until syncing the Air last night. Instead of disabling the calendars on MobileMe, I deleted them - which had the effect of deleting them on iCloud and everywhere else. Undos only brought back the calendars, but not the events! Fortunately, I'd backed up the calendars before installing Lion on my first machine, so I restored my calendars and events fairly quickly. Still, I have a lot to learn about Lion.

NOTE TO VECTORWORKS USERS:
When you upgrade to Lion, your user Library is hidden by default. It IS available as a shortcut from the Go menu with the command key held down. To get regular visibility back, type this command into terminal: chflags nohidden ~/Library.

And so my annual "deal with the hardware" is over, for now. I am ready to deal with taxes.

New Year's Resolution #1: A better writing habit.

2011-12-12T18:06:00.004-05:00

First New Year's Resolution (and we're only half way through December!) is this: less Facebook status updates, more blogging. After all, there's about two dozen things I want to post to Facebook each day, but I realize that most of them are not something I should broadcast - a blog is a much tighter circle of readers. At least, mine is.

So from today forward, I'm getting back to this blog which AS ALWAYS is chiefly an exercise log. But in the past, it's been a great outlet to think through other problems and I didn't give that enough credit. There were many moments these last four months I should have brought my thoughts here, but didn't - and instead they festered.

Many of those thoughts revolve around Dad. I'm finding it a lot harder to process the fact of his death - no, his ABSENCE - than I thought I would. Let's face it: we didn't have the closest relationship ever. There'd be weeks where we didn't speak; months even. But towards the end, it was a lot closer than it had been in years and now I find I miss that.

FIT is also at the top of my "hell no I'm not posting that to Facebook" list of things to express. I had a serious problem with my students this semester and perhaps in a later post, I'll document it. No names will be used, of course.

And, of course, my health remains variable. Right now I'm on oral antibiotics and much to my surprise, they're WORKING! No IVs this December! But what impact will this winter have on me? I don't know. Another New Year's resolution, and one I'll talk about at length in another post, is my resolution to put on some muscle mass. Back in March 2008, I looked GOOD. No reason I can't get back to that with a few months of focused weight regimen.

My one hesitation in returning to blogging is that I really don't want my family reading it. It isn't that I don't want their support - I really do - but I don't want their input into my day-to-day quandaries beyond what I post on Facebook. Unfortunately, my only choices are to either shut down public access to my blog, or keep it public and straight out tell my family I'd prefer they not read it. This blog has had proven benefit to other people, complete strangers. My post about cough syncope from February 28, 2009 is the fifth hit in a Google search for "cough syncope". Many people have found that they're not alone! (Incidentally, I need to update my readers on how things have developed on that front, as well.)

So, let's say I'm back as a regular blogger. My reticence to blog, attributable in large part to Dad's death, is slowly evaporating. And my need to document my life is increasing - possibly due to a heightened awareness of my own mortality.

And I'll wrap up with how I staved off mortality today: a return to the gym. I haven't been to my gym in several months, mostly because it was great weather this summer and I exercised outdoors exclusively. My bicycling skills are good! My running has shown slight improvement lately. But my upper body strength and overall flexibility are poor. Hitting the weights is way overdue, so I did a test workout at the gym this evening - seeing where I'm at currently so I can start a structured 2x week program. I'm about 30% off where I was a year ago. Gotta fix that.

Where was I?

2011-08-20T15:34:00.002-04:00

Newsflash: Cris makes rookie mistake and goes running in the heat without water. DUMB. My reasoning was also rookie: I'm fairly acclimated at this point, I'm only going a couple miles, etc etc. See, I was running in a new pair of shoes for the first time and didn't want to go too far in them - it'll take a while to break them in. But I didn't take water, either, and that was just dumb. I was very uncomfortable out there on a route that I usually run quite well.

So where was I? Where am I?

I've seen most of my doctors lately and I'm still not a candidate for transplant, thankfully, but I'll be the first to admit that it's getting harder and harder to keep my lungs clear and functional. In fact, I'm on IVs again, a mere six weeks after coming off them. That's not a record for me, though, as there was one time I only had four weeks off.

Dad's birthday passed this week. He would have been 69. In a few days, I'll be off to Terre Haute for Dad's memorial.

And, of course, I'm working. That's good, though I'm less than energized by the work I'm doing right now. I'm designing - drafting at this point - two sets of Christmas windows. Neither of which is based on a particularly solid premise. They could be charming; they could be disasters. At every turn, I'm told budgets have been slashed, we can't do THIS, we can't do THAT... and I fear that will make all the difference.

On the plus side, the IVs are working - my sputum was markedly less green and I'm producing less. And while my running abilities have nosedived through lack of ability to breathe and just lack of practice, I have gotten back on the bike and am pretty good at cranking away for an hour and squeezing a worthwhile workout out of it. If I'm serious about my health, I'll get back to 3 runs a week and add in a weekly weights workout at my gym, something I've neglected all summer. Who wants to be in a gym while the sun shines?

The year is about to start at FIT and I'm slated to teach two classes. I am uneasy about this, but can't back out now. If the Vectorworks I course doesn't go any better than this last spring, I'll decline to teach it again.

Duane Reade pharmacy people are...not smart

2011-08-01T20:18:00.002-04:00

For the third time in a year, I've been handed someone else's medication. The first time, I didn't catch it 'til I'd gotten home, as the copay was identical, the bottle size identical. Only the pills were a different shape and that clued me in. What if I'd taken them by accident?

The second time, I discovered the error in the store. The higher copay tipped me off.

This time, I was well into being unhappy with the way things were going before I discovered the error. When I went to pick up my pulmozyme, I gave the woman my name and SPELLED IT OUT. Then stopped her from searching the small bins, saying it would be a box and was probably on the bottom shelf. She goes searching and comes back saying my insurance denied the refill and shows me the denial slip. She said if I wanted to pay for it myself, it would $215. I was not happy about this; I am not prepared right now to shell out that much for a single medication.

I was puzzled because this was a new prescription, not a refill. And though it was for the same medication as the previous script, that script had long expired. So what the dealio? I didn't recognize the 800 number on the denial notice, but called anyway and got connected to Medco. That seemed odd, so I hung and checked the number. There was an 866 number listed for patient helpline, so I called that - and got connected to United HealthCare. This is where bells began going off. I was with UHC when I worked for NYU, but that was eight years ago. Were they called some old numbers still hanging around in the system? That didn't seem right.

Then I noticed the patient name. Robin Do-something. The stupid lady had only looked at the first two letters! What if that woman's insurance hadn't denied her refill and I'd ended up taking it home? Another day would be lost as I was already out of Pulmozyme and the Robin woman wouldn't have her medicine either! This is INCOMPETENCE.

So I have the pharmacy girl on the hunt for MY meds and find out they never filled the script! "We don't have enough." I know that, I said, and thought I'd made arrangement when I dropped this off seven hours earlier - WITH THE SAME PHARMACIST ON DUTY - to take the one box they had; a partial fill. Apparently, since I wasn't going to wait on it, it was forgotten about. Goddamn it. So they grumbled, but I got my box of Pulmozyme. They owe me two more boxes.

On the plus side: two thumbs up to MY insurance, which is not only covering my meds as usual, but is now not charging a copay, either, as I've hit my catastrophic cap for the year.

First transplant education meeting

2011-07-28T00:01:00.003-04:00

I had a series of tests and meetings at NY Presbyterian today. The full battery of PFTs was the bulk of it. And they ran two parts over and over and over... Then a blood gas, of course. I hate those, but the nurse there is really good at it.

My PFTs came back much improved! By 5 percentage points. That may not sound like much when the margin of error is almost that much, but I think this is a real improvement, especially since my last PFTs, just after IVs, were 31% FEV1 done post-albuterol and this series done pre-albuterol. I am at 36% FEV1! I'm thrilled and wonder if returning to cycling has contributed to that, or if I'm just lucky.

The day wrapped up with a transplant patient education meeting in the Millstein building. I was late because the PFTs ran long, but that's OK - the education meeting ran long too!

I'll admit right now my eyes were opened to many things. Some of which are heartening and others dismaying. I knew grapefruit is verboten post-tx, but I had no idea sushi is too. :( And pets. Pets owned before tx can be kept, but somebody else has to deal with the litterbox. And no new pets. But, all in all, given what I'll be able to do versus what I won't; it's still a great deal.

Perhaps what shocked me most was the wide demographic spread of the people in the audience. Black and white, old and young. More white than black, admittedly, and lots more old than young, but still. Quite a cross-section. The patients speaking were all over 50.

I walked in and went into instant germophobe mode and I don't think I'll be able to overcome that. Consciously, I realize that this one group - pre and post tx patients - is probably the *cleanest* group of people, but given the low-volume chorus of coughing, the scattering of masks in the crowd, and the large amount and variety of oxygen tanks like buoys in a grey-haired, wheezing sea - I just about turned and fled.

But reason got the upper hand and I stayed, standing, at the back of the room. I found myself about five feet from someone who I believe had CF. Not unusual as the patients are chiefly a mix of people with COPD, IPF, and CF. The CF crowd was decidedly younger than the rest. There may have been people with other conditions there, too; I don't know. But we're all in the same boat, I suppose.

My dad could have been in that boat. He needed one. And there were post-tx patients there who had been transplanted in their late 60s. I wonder if Dad missed his chance; or if he was even offered that chance. Standing there, I flashed back to that hospital room and was again filled with the frustration I felt then: powerless to do anything and even if I could, it was too late.

I noticed on the sign in sheet that most of the patients were there with their caregivers; but most of them are far more advanced cases than I, too. I will need to go to a meeting or two with Mom, I think, but not a pressing deal. I have a lot to learn at these meetings. But next time, I'm not taking any chances and will wear a mask.

Live to run, run to breathe? 1st annual Boomer's Run To Breathe

2011-07-09T20:10:00.002-04:00

Beside my computer, sitting askew atop my bin of lancets and needles, is a photo. It isn't very large, not even 3x5, and is unframed, awkwardly cut from a larger sheet of photos. It's a picture of my family. It's from that period of time before our family went through the upheavals 2010 wrought upon us. Dad, Mom, myself, all my siblings, my nephew, my sister's now-ex. A happier family in a happier time.

But in that photo, two people are dealing with separate lung diseases, ones which will ultimately be terminal for them both. I didn't know then that the end would come so soon for Dad. As for me, there have been no real surprises since that photo, though the progression of my disease is disappointing.

And lately this disease is getting to me - at long last - mentally. It could never get into my head before; but with the combination transplant testing and watching Dad's rather sudden passing from respiratory failure, I am... well, beginning to be afraid. And what I'm afraid of isn't death itself, so much as a growing suspicion I'm not as in control of my journey as I thought.

But I am still in control of my legs and where they take me.

So today, my legs took me to Central Park for the first annual Boomer's Run To Breathe, sponsored by NYRR and the Boomer Esiason Foundation. (I have run for Team Boomer in the past and will do so again.) It was important to me to attend this not just because of the obvious recognition that cystic fibrosis is something worth running to beat (in a couple of ways), but also because it is about *breath*. Dad may be gone, but he is with me, in my very genes and all the expressions of them. In the mirror, my eyes are my dad's, in my struggling grunts for air, the soundwave is my dad's. So I breathe as he did now; I have to keep on keeping on.

The humidity was high, and I won't kid you: that really didn't help. But my legs were willing, my energy was good, and I arrived at Central Park optimistic for a nice stroll, if not a quick one. Fortunately, I arrived at almost the last minute and, after bidding good luck to a doctor I rode in with on the train, hung around near the start, not wanting to march all the way back to the purple corral. Just let the crowd pass and join in toward the end.

But then a familiar face called out my name; and there was Marci! Now, Marci is a wonderful Fred's Team athlete, dedicated and capable. She's training for her first triathlon and had thus put in seven miles in the park already that morning. Here she was beckoning me into the stream of runners with her, so I hopped the low wooden rail and walked with her. She decided to run with me at my pace, which I was flattered by. It's nice to have understanding company now and then and perhaps I would perform better if I were with a friend. For her part, Marci was nursing a blister, probably caused by her new Vibrams, so was fine with taking it easy (for her).

I won't give a blow-by-blow account of the run. It was pretty typical for me, especially with the high humidity. Lots of walking. Ran into Jerry Cahill at the halfway point. He'd been just ahead of us and had stopped to change oxygen tanks. (Yep, he runs with oxygen tanks!) Spent a few minutes watching him do that, said hi, then got going. He managed to keep up almost the same pace Marci and I were running and finished just a few minutes behind us. Not bad for a 55 year old cystic who needs new lungs!

Anyhow, after that couple minutes break, my legs actually felt GREAT. Like real runners legs, like they haven't felt for a long time. Also, the humidity started to drop, my lungs opened up a little, and the last mile or two were actually pretty pleasant. I would like to know, however, who thought it would be a good idea to have an uphill finish. Still, I picked up to a real running pace for the last 100 yards and found a reserve there that's also been absent for a long time.

After the race, Marci and I walked and talked then grabbed a cab outside the park. She dropped me off at the Boat Basin before heading to a Fred's Team practice. I finished up my day by having lunch and a couple beers with Jerry Cahill, Moni Hendrix, some Boomer staff members, and a couple dozens of Team Boomer runners, which included at least four of us with CF (though I heard there were 14 runners today with CF). For the first time, I met Gunnar Esiason, who is in the "goofy college kid" stage. I wrapped things up by walking down the park to 60th street, breathing in the Hudson river air as I went, and then headed home.

Today I was in control. Yes, my lungs dictated my pace, for the most part, but I'm off IVs, I'm up to 6 miles again, and tomorrow I'm going for a long bike ride. Marci is coming out to Brooklyn and hopefully she can show me *how* to ride a bike properly. Because...well, I think I have a lot to learn yet.

NYRR Front Runners Gay Pride 30th anniversary run

2011-06-25T12:48:00.003-04:00

On the heels of an historic vote by the New York state legislature, passing a bill that will legalize gay marriage 30 days after the governor signs the bill (with exemptions for churches), the 30th Front Runners Gay Pride run took place in Central Park at 9 a.m. on a very warm and extremely humid Saturday morning.

The route was changed to be the top 5-mile loop, which includes the Harlem Hills and was run counter-clockwise (regular direction) and so was the harder direction, as runners went UP Cat Hill instead of down. And despite internet predictions that the run would be more celebratory party than a run, such was not the case. The bill passage was mentioned during the opening speeches, but that was it. Other than that, I personally found the run to be blessedly run-of-the-mill in execution.

I ran my IVs while on the trains up to the race, changing from meropenem to vanco on a runner-packed 4 train, which drew several curious glances. I continued to draw those looks as I picked up my bib and cap before the race. I guess someone walking aroiund with a strange-looking bottle in their back pocket and a coil of tubing snaking up under his shirt is not the norm. The Vanco ran out just before the race started - great timing. I have yet to run while actually doing an IV and didn't want to try it today. It's bad enough I kept my shirt on to keep the line extension from bouncing around. (I would have loved to have run shirtless today.)

NYRR has their corral system down pat. Excellent. I didn't bother traipsing all the way back to my purple corral - I just waited until most of the pack had passed before joining the crowd. I crossed the starting line 7 minutes and change after the horn. Now, this is important to note because I think I got too close to the chip readers before the race and so my start time was not recorded and my official net time reflects gun time, not net. RunKeeper backs me up on this. So my real time is 1:04:something, good for just under 13 minutes/mile. Water stops were well-placed after the first one, which didn't come soon enough - no water in the first mile. Also, some Gatorade would have been nice.

I wish I had done better, but my lungs are really not in good shape right now. Despite improved PFTs at the doctor's office two days ago, I still feel tight almost constantly and the humidity really didn't help this morning. I was walking more than my legs would have needed and downright gasping for breath at times. Several full stops in addition to walk breaks. In fact, two of those came in the final stretch, where I was in a steady, slow jog I thought I could keep up, but found myself so short on breath I had to pause for a few seconds to bend over and try to suck in an actual deep breath. Didn't exactly work, but did help me keep going.

My "people to beat" targets all beat me, except one. These are the people you notice you keep passing and who keep passing you. I'd have beaten the fat girl in red, I think, except I had to stop in a porta-john on the crossover. I admired her slow-but-steady technique, even if her breathing was so loud and so fast, even on downhills, that I was worried she was going to collapse on the spot. I probably could have beaten the very tall, very overweight black gentlemen I chatted with before the race, but he got the best of me in the last half mile, dammit. I did, however, come in ahead of a girl who, for some reason, thought that a lace top makes good race gear. No one, of any shape or level of fitness, at any time, should wear lace as running clothes. Ever. OK?

This was, in short, a miserable run for me. I couldn't get my mind off my lungs and I couldn't get them to work for me. I am giving very serious consideration to getting a decent road bike fitted to me and switching over. At least on the bike once I get going, I can keep going at a pretty good clip without breaks in the rhythm. Are there bike races in the city? Would I have to become a clown-colored-spandex-wearing, pedestrian-cursing douchebag? I hope not.

IVs started

2011-06-12T13:18:00.002-04:00

I was able to postpone starting IVs until last Friday evening, because I knew what was going to happen: fatigue, irritability, sleepiness from the Benadryl, etc. And it has. In short: I knew I'd have to put a big rec x through this Saturday and Sunday. So be it.

I am going to try to get a few things done around the house today, but am putting off exercise. I know a run would probably make me feel better, but I just don't have a lot of energy. I'm planning on doing an after-run work tomorrow of about 4 miles.

So the IVs consist of Meropenim 3x day, Vancomycin 2x day, and tobramycin 1x day, along with 2x day Bactrim orally and a typical Prednisone bump, which by the end of the weekend will be 40% over.

Another one breathes easy

2011-06-10T22:47:00.000-04:00

"Breathe easy."

"Breathe easy."

"Breathe easy."

This is the most common comment left in Youtube, facebook, and online memorial guestbooks when someone with CF passes away. It is simple to understand why. After a lifetime spent trying to breathe with less difficulty, losing ground little by little, and ultimately losing the war, death frees us. Whether there is life after breath, who knows? But if there is, we hope our friends are, indeed, breathing easy.

Alyssa Marie Crank -- breathe easy.

Ten minutes

2011-06-09T20:35:00.002-04:00

I'm stepping out to get some grub in ten minutes, but thought I'd post first.

Had a doctor's appointment today. I outlined some of the problems I'm having, such as the low blood sugars at night and, of course, increasing tightness and shortness of breath, etc. I'll have to talk with the endocrinologist soon.

We did PFTs of course, and they were the lowest I've ever had. FEV1 is 20% of predicted. :( I had no idea I'd slipped that far - I don't feel *that* short of breath. I ran 6.5 miles on Sunday. I'm a little winded at the top of stairs, but nothing like what I've experienced before. And yet the numbers don't lie.

So IVs will start again Friday. For the record, my last ones were in December, not September as I'd thought. So I managed a six-month stretch. Not too bad! But I'm not looking forward to the side effects of the IVs, such as the yeast infections. For that matter, I'm also going on a course of White Candy (prednisone) and not looking forward to the side effects of *that* either.

I've also dropped some cash on a new window AC for the kitchen. The old one was 11 years old and had just had it. I'm setting it out on the sidewalk with the trash tonight. The one in the bedroom is 8 years old and seems to be holding up OK. The new one in the kitchen has some automatic features for saving energy (I just heard the fan lower a bit, now that it's finally cooler in here) and has an ionizing mode. :) It is 12,000 BTU and heavy as hell, but I managed it. It has to cool 2/3 of the apartment, so I needed a big one.

Cough Syncope update

2011-05-18T17:03:00.000-04:00

I find it interesting that my February 2009 post here is the sixth post in a google search for "cough syncope". Awesome.

I haven't had another episode since my birthday last year. While I did sell the motorcycle, I have promised myself that if I remain in good health and don't have a cough syncope episode by my birthday this year, I'll buy another bike and have a very specific March ride in mind.

Always good to have goals. :)

The negativity of the nomenclature of the nap.

2011-05-14T18:53:00.002-04:00

I just got up from a two-hour nap. After getting only 4 hours of sleep last night so that I could be at the park by 6:30 to volunteer for the Healthy Kidney 10K (the winner of which, BTW, set a new course record), I felt like going home, but had to hang around and meet a colleague to meet for brunch and talk about a small job he wanted me to do.

So when I finally got home, I decided to take a nap.

But what is this "take a nap" phrase? Why must we take it? Why can't we give it? That's so much more positive, the idea of giving ourselves a gift of a nap; rather than the negative idea that we have to steal a nap from our day.

Similarly, why do we get our children "put down for a nap"? Why "put down"? That, too, is full of negative connotations. If you apply it to any other breathing animal, it means to have them killed! Is there an unconscious desire amongst all parents that their kid's next nap might be their last? Here, again, we could use a better phrase - GIVE. "I'm going to give Johnny a nap," despite the mob-enforcer overtones, is at least marginally better than "I'm going to put Johnny down."

So today, I GAVE myself a nap.

Or does this entire line of thinking simply signal my transition into old person?

No blogging

2011-04-22T22:20:00.002-04:00

Sorry, just can't do it. Many thoughts recently which would be great to work out in these writings, but I just don't have the interest anymore. The time of my life when this seemed important is done now. Many things changed in the latter half of last year and it is such a sharp dividing line between what came before and what comes after.

This was one of the primary means of communicating with my dad. This is how he knew what was going on with me. Realizing that, and with him gone, I don't know who I'm writing for. Maybe it's time to just delete the damn thing.

Well, I'll wait. I'm sure I'll enter some big race and go through a training cycle sometime soon - I'll come back to this as a training diary, nothing more.

two year anniversary

2011-03-15T21:46:00.003-04:00

Two years ago, I was diagnosed by my CF doctor w/ diabetes, pending confirmation. Two years, now. Jeez.

Too much going on in my life to blog, and I've pretty much lost the will to do so. Now that Dad's gone, I somehow don't see the point. Anything I want to say to the world is more easily summed up in 420 characters or less in a Facebook status post.

House is nearly done. Looking for a tenant for the big downstairs apartment. Happy with my changes upstairs and I hope I never have to move again.

Working at NYU full-time for a few weeks. Not the best time of my life. I'm also on oral antibiotics right now and that's causing havoc with my system. But I'm trying to avoid IVs until at least the end of April.

QR code!

2011-02-18T11:57:00.002-05:00

This one takes a user to my website's mobile front page.

Midnight Run

2011-01-01T18:37:00.004-05:00

Well, not much going on in my athletic life. Health is so-so. Feeling pretty good the last few days, so when I got a New Year's Eve invite from fellow runner and Pheddip listener, Marci, to run the Midnight Run with her and her friends, I took her up on it. Not that I had a prayer of running WITH them, but we spent a couple hours together beforehand and a little bit of recovery time after. Marci lives on 58th, very close to Central Park, very convenient for running meetups.

So after some of the usual pre-run BSing and worries and watching Marci squeeze on her Vibrams, we got going about an hour before the run. We needed at least half that to get to the Bandshell, where the party was, as many routes were blocked off by the popo. (The warm weather brought everyone out to Times Square, which on New Year's Eve sort of extends itself outward. Nuts.)

The Emerald Nuts Midnight Run is a great tradition, with runners dressing in costumes for a contest or just come as you are. I've done this run at least once before and volunteered at the mid-point "champagne" station two years ago, when it was in the teens. My impression at those times was that the run draws about 3-4,000 runners, max.

This year, however, there were a lot more. A LOT more! I'd guess at 7,000 or more, at least and perhaps one bandit for every registered runner. Things have advanced, certainly. They had the lead truck out for this and elites were warming up in a protected sprint area. This is moving beyond "fun run".

The start was amazing. There were no corrals, so we just squeezed in where we could. Midnight came quickly and the fireworks started. The fireworks lasted a LONG time - at least 20 minutes. I was a mile and a half into the run before they stopped. Or, rather, paused, because they started again as I was about a half-mile from the finish. Very nice!

As we started, I told the others to have a good run and just did this at my own pace. They were planning 10-minute miles, and I was planning perhaps 12s. The results are somewhat slower:

The first mile was pretty slow at 13:30, but I didn't walk at all until half a mile into it, when I was well up Cat Hill, even well past the bobcat statue! Perhaps the slow, crowded start gave me that energy. (Or perhaps it was the nasty caffeinated strawberry-banana Gu I took a half hour before.) The second mile was flatter and I walked only twice, for very brief periods, and turned in a 12:15. One of those walks was to slug down a few swallows of non-alcoholic champagne. I might have passed that, but the entire pack slowed to a walk there. So, whatever.

Mile three was a lot of hills and a fair bit of walking, resulting in 13:29 for that mile. Considering how tired I was getting, not terrible, but not great. However, the fourth mile was a real winner, as it's on the long downhill towards the 72nd street crossover. No walking (much to my surprise) and a bit of a push toward the finish, resulting in a sub-12 mile.

I wrapped up the evening with the mile-long hike back to Marci's and some hot cider. Headed home shortly after, knowing the train would be local and take 90 minutes or so.

Want to thank Marci for being a good host and turning my New Year's into a very memorable one!

Something's wrong

2010-12-18T17:42:00.003-05:00

What else is new, right? Seems like something's always going wrong, but this time it isn't anything external, nor anything painful. It's just that lately I feel like I do when I'm on prednisone. Wild mood swings; weeping at the stupidest little things, good and bad. My diabetes is back to its normal course. The early-winter honeymoon is over. Can it be a chemical imbalance? I don't think I'm depressed - this month has been a little better than last month, and last month better than the one before. In fact, if none of my friends die before New Years, I'll be able to conclude that the Dark Year was pretty much November 2009 to October 2010.

Transition, transition

2010-12-05T17:06:00.007-05:00

I think I've written it before that this is turning out to be a year of transition, and as time passes that is more and more true.

It's been three months since Dad passed away and it is starting to really feel like he's gone. But then I look at Facebook and Mom's posts or comments and there's Dad's face staring back at me from her profile picture. It's a good picture, but it's starting to be disturbing.

The downstairs renovation is being done mostly on the loan, as planned, but there are some overages and extras that I didn't plan for. These are not major - actually, far less than the 15-25% that homeowner's websites say to budget for such expenses - but it's enough that I'm greatly annoyed. Why the hell did I spend 10 months with the architect and her drawings if it wasn't to avoid hiccups like these? (As of now, we're waiting for the city to send a plumbing inspector - once that is done, the entire downstairs can be buttoned up. But until then, the bathroom is little more than exposed plumbing, electrical, and studs.)

So on to upstairs. My gift to myself from Dad's life insurance is a moderate renovation up there, starting with pre-finished oak hardwood floors. (I really can't stand engineered wood floors, even though I was forced into it in the basement, since I couldn't lose the extra 1/2" of height down there.) In addition, I'm having the contractor redo the bathroom ceiling to let the sunshine in. And the walls and ceilings throughout the apartment are getting puttied, sanded, and painted; and I'm putting in a new kitchen. I wouldn't have done the kitchen at all except that the oven is on its last legs, the cabinets have mildew and are falling apart (due to the last tenant, stupid motherfucker), and the current layout is awful.

So. Year of transitions. Dad passes away; both my apartments are getting renovated (a horribly disruptive process by the way); I'm moving upstairs; AND...

I sold Roxie. I've written about my concerns here before that with the cough syncope that has happened four times now (maybe five), that I may get myself killed if it happens while on the motorcycle. In contrast to the other risks of motorcycling, this is one that I can't manage or mitigate. I can't prevent syncope. So...when I was given a good enough offer, I took it. I'm currently slowly selling off all extraneous motorcycle parts and tools. In fact, I'm selling and freecycling a LOT of posessions, so that I won't have to move them upstairs. Anybody need a green sparkly Hello Kitty TV?? :)

There's still biking in my future. I'll get back to it full-time someday and in the meantime consider one or two weeks on a borrowed or rented machine on the road with friends to be worth the risk.

Courses of IVs are getting more numerous. I'm on them again right now - it's only been two months since my last course. But because of the immunizations from two weeks ago, I ended up getting sick and needing antibiotics again. Only this time, it's being done through a Port! Finally! I had to twist some arms, but I got my port put in on Thursday, and I started IVs Saturday morning. This is a new way of doing things, but at least no more PICC lines. I may write up a whole post about the getting the port. We'll see.

Finally, there's another huge transition in my life: I've been referred for lung transplantation at Columbia. This is something I've been writing about in blog posts I haven't published. You see, I hadn't told my family 'til Thanksgiving. I planned on waiting until the night before my flight out, but the perfect opportunity came up the Wednesday night before Turkey Day, as we all sat around the kitchen table and talked about Dad and read some of the sympathy cards. I told everyone to stay put, that I had something I wanted to talk to them about. Then I went and got the big packet of info that the transplant center had given me and gave it to Mom to read. I told the family my status, that I'm in the initial rounds of tests, immunizations, and the like, and that transplant itself - even being listed for it - is likely many years off, still. But this IS a change - what has always been theoretical for my family has now become an impending reality.

My thing is, once listed, I will have to have a caretaker living with me. So I'm cranking up my search for a mate another notch. :)

However, at the moment, the best caretaker option is probably going to be Mom. But I want her to have the utmost in freedom and to live her own life for as long as possible before having to return to the role of caretaker. She did that long enough for Dad. I recall vividly that moment right after the Bridge Run when we were having brunch and I cracked a joke and for a moment she was absolutely transformed. She was genuinely laughing and her smile reached her eyes and she looked about 40 years younger. That's the Karen that I want to help reach the surface and nourish for as long as possible. The Karen that is in the photos next to dad is a wise and responsible face, but not a happy one. So it's one I hope to keep in a box for a long time yet.

To end this post, a quick congrats to my sister Rachel, who finished the Las Vegas half marathon today in about 2:07. I don't know the exact time because a) their athlete tracking system failed spectacularly; and b) the results aren't up on the webpage yet, which just screams incompetence. (NYRR race results are up within a couple hours of the race.)

First meeting with lung tx team

2010-10-29T18:25:00.002-04:00

Several weeks ago, when I was in the grip of an exacerbation, my FEV1 dropped to less than 25%. Dr. DiMango commented that it was time to get meet the lung transplant team. Not that I'd need a transplant right away, but it's better to get to know them and do the tests sooner rather than later. OK.

So IVs came and went, as noted in my blog, and it's been another couple of weeks. My last couple of runs have gone quite well, much to my surprise. But looming on the horizon has always been this date: October 29th. The day I'll first meet the transplant team. A couple weeks back, the coordinator sent me a whole package of paperwork to fill out and pamphlets to read. Interesting and useful, all of it. I didn't have a lot of questions left after reading it all. And I know what questions I do have can be answered in two ways: I can call the coordinating nurse, or I can go online and ask my friends who have already started this process. (Philosophically, there's no "finish" to lung transplant. Post-operation, there's life-long maintenance and evaluation, of course.)

So I had a 10 a.m. appointment, which I managed to be late to because MTA stranded my ass on a platform for 45 minutes, then sent the D local. :( FUCKING MTA! The people at the transplant center didn't seem too perturbed.

For some reasons, I thought I'd be meeting all of them at once, but instead I met them one at a time.

The coordinating nurse, Carmen Saunders, is really quite nice and exudes an aura of calm competence. I liked her right away. She did a lot of explaining of the main plot line, so to speak, while gathering an updated medical history. She seemed pleased that most of my info is already in the system since I'm seen at the Columbia CF center; and she wasn't alone in that opinion. Anyway - great gal, coming out of the now-gone St. Vincents where she was a nurse on various wards, even ER for a little bit, but especially the endoscopy suite - so she KNOWS what the tests are like. She and I exchanged paperwork (rather little more than my name and basic info, at this point), and then went to fetch the doctor.

Dr. Selim Arcasoy is now my pulmonologist for transplant and from this point forward will coordinate with Dr. DiMango. Post-tx, he'll be my main pulmo and DiMango will take care of the rest of my CF. I also like Dr. Arcasoy a lot. We had a good conversation and he seemed content with my current state of health. He listened to my lungs and felt my legs (diabetes check?).

Both he and Carmen confirmed my assumption that while I'll be in the program and on their radar, I probably won't be listed for transplant at this time. Not unexpected. I'm not yet sick enough.

The next visit was from Dr. Frank D'Ovido, the surgeon. He was less personable. Kind of mumbled through some boilerplate stuff, all of which I'd heard befoe, but it's good to hear from the surgeon. He did surprise me by saying that the operation itself is the least difficult part of the transplant experience. He stressed the importance of good exercise, nutrition, and fitness in the coming months and years before transplant, as basically the healthier I am, the better I'll do after the operation. I'll heal faster, bounce back faster, and be less susceptible to complications. His visit was quick.

While waiting for whoever was next, I got a drop-in from a doctor I'd seen in the past: Dr. Lori Shah. I knew she'd gone to Columbia, but didn't know she'd joined the transplant staff. It's probably best that she's not my pulmonologist - I actually think I prefer Dr. Arcasoy. But it was nice to see her again. She looks so young!

Finally, my last meeting was with the financial counselor, Beatriz Badillo. This was very short. She'd called Tricare (I'm not sure how long ago) and gotten the skinny on what's covered, what's not, and what copays I can expect for tests, procedures, and medications. She was, let's say, pleasantly surprised. Me too, actually. I'm covered to the same, regular deductibles and copays as all my other CF stuff. After running through the numbers, she said she has only once or twice seen such good coverage. I have to believe it. I am... a bit overwhelmed at my good fortune.

Or perhaps not just good fortune. I really, truly, have my father to thank and the more I need my health insurance and the more it's there for me, the more I realize what a tremendous gift my dad gave me. Now, I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Tricare to call and say "you're not in our system anymore," but I have assurances from various quarters that that won't happen. I hope not; at least not before transplant! I mean...I think about the overall cost of a transplant and the care leading up to and after it... Did Dad know during his 20 years of service that he was effectively banking two to three times his pay in future saved healthcare costs for his son? If this were the sum total of my inheritance, I'd be a wealthy man! Thanks, Dad.

So, anyway, got out of the clinic after about five hours and immediately went to take care of the myriad bloodwork that needs to be brought up to date. Fifteen vials. That breaks my old record by six! My one mistake, at this point, was to take a picture of the vials and post them on Facebook. Mom commented it looks like a transplant evaluation! But I haven't told Mom yet that the T-word has come up. 'Til now, it's all been a hypothetical. I mean, a definite "going to happen someday", but now shit's gettin' real. So I want to have a sit-down with her and Rachel at Thanksgiving and let them know I've transitioned into the first stages of the transplant process, that things could take awhile, but that sacrifices will be asked of all of us. Unfortunately, more from Mom. Not financial, but personal. She just got done taking care of a terminally ill patient and now she's going to be saddled (within - best guest - two-three years) with another. The tx center requires social support; they require caregivers. Not just one, but two. One more-or-less full-time in the last stages pre-tx and immediately post, as one might expect, but also a second person in town who can contribute support and act as a backup to the primary caregiver. I asked if a close friend would be OK, instead of prevailing upon my siblings to make a sacrifice, and they said it is. I have a couple of people in mind I want to approach about getting on board my care team, but I need to know more about the extent of their role. This would all be so much easier if I had a live-in gf or spouse.

I'll wrap this up by saying that the survival rates are not good. Not as good as for other organs, at any rate. Hell, I'm surprised lung tx works at all. They are proud of their one-year survival rate for CF, which tends to be higher than for other people needing lung tx (but which can be explained by the younger demographic), is 90%. This drops as time goes on, of course, to about 60% at 5 years out and 25% at 10 years out. Scary stuff. Of course, the alternative is 100% certain.

Off the IVs, off the prednisone; UGH

2010-10-25T19:26:00.003-04:00

Prednisone gives me such energy and makes me feel so good. I can breathe, I can run, I can get around without pain in the joints... so why do I have to go off it? I'm back to hurting, needing painkillers, walking more than jogging, no energy to speak of, etc. Ugh. I should call my doctor. I need to anyhow, so I can get a port scheduled.

In other thoughts...

I've been trying out the GUS flavors and now there's a contender in the low-sugar, for-grown-ups soda category: Bionade.

The elderberry and lychee flavors are quite good. The ginger-orange, not so much. In fact, it's pretty bad. I haven't tried the herbs flavor yet. I'd have to say both the elderberry and lychee are unique.

By contrast, the GUS sodas come in a standard assortment of flavors plus a few interesting ones (pomegranite), but I think are still superior, especially the Dry Meyer Lemon and Dry Valencia Orange. I have purchased one of the Extra Dry Ginger Ale to try.

Staten Island Half Marathon 2010 race report

2010-10-10T20:50:00.005-04:00

Haven't been blogging too much lately, have I? It's lost its appeal, really; feels like all I want to do here is bitch about how life sucks. My thoughts these last three weeks have been fairly dark and I'm trying not to bring that here. Before I get to the race report, a quick update on other parts of my life:

1) Running - not too hot. Got a 10-miler done 3 weeks ago that I almost cut short, but perservered and overall it wasn't bad. I was happy enough with that one. But since then, nada. One or two very short runs and that's it. Hell of a taper, eh?

2) Motorcycling - if all turns out as planned, I'll be selling Roxie tomorrow morning for just about what I could get for her if I sold via ebay motors. Selling as-is and they buyer knows he'll have to put some coin into her to get her ready for functional city riding. I'm grieved about this, but have my reasons. It is time to let her go, as my riding needs and wants have changed. I'll keep an eye out for my next bike, as with prices depressed right now, the money I'm getting for Roxie would be a great downpayment. I am, for the record, looking more at Ultras than anything else.

3) Grieving for dad - it comes and goes. Dad never lived HERE, so life seems pretty normal day-to-day, but sometimes it just hits hard. Like at the end of today's race, for instance. I know Dad would have been so proud that I finished it at all.

4) Health - I'm on IVs and am in week 3. Will probably have to do a week 4 as I've somehow contracted a cold on top of things. Friday's PFTs are promising, but it is taking more and more albuterol just to let me breath. The PICC placement this time was awful. I didn't feel much pain, of course, because lidocaine (or whatever the hell they use) is a wonderful thing. But after four failed attempts in my left arm, they had to move to the right and that should have been like buttah, but instead had its own problems. I'm not waiting on a port anymore. As soon as I'm off the PICC, I'm getting my doc to schedule a port procedure.

5) Work - back to teaching, getting some small jobs here and there. Picking up. I hope its a real trend and not just a burp in the steady stream of nothingness.

6) Renovation: ongoing. I actually like my contractor and his crews. I feel like I've made the right decision with him and that the money spent on this is well invested.

So. How did the Staten Island Half Marathon of 2010 go for me? Well, I'm not only on IVs for lung infection, but I also have a cold; I nearly skipped this. But I've done it every year since 2005, so I didn't want to miss it. I'm glad I got out there. But between the poor last three weeks of training and muscles cramping up due to salt loss, it got pretty hairy in the last three miles. I was running pretty consistent 12:30 miles through mile 7. Mile 8 has the big hill, so was a lot slower, but I expected that. Mile 9 and 10 were back to 12:30 or thereabout. But 11 through 13 were difficult and slow. I'd aimed for a 2:45 overall, just based on being untrained, and almost hit that mark, with an official time of 2:46:52. The weird thing is, this is one second faster than last year's race! All of the other data are similar, too, including splits, temperature, humidity, weather, my place in the pack by percent, and my Age Graded percentage. Creepy.

Some observations;

I have no problem striking up a conversation with people, but I fail to ask their names. Too bad; at least one of the ladies I chatted with before the race was single. Another lady had just had her first child in April and this was her very first race. :) I'm sure she did well, as she runs 8:15 miles in practice.

Knowing the route helped keep it from being insurmountably long. No wrong turns this time. I could expect certain landmarks and knew the rough distances between them. The flat out-and-back portion wasn't nearly as long as I remember (miles 5.5 through 7.5). The big hill was.

Kudos to the city for resurfacing the streets! Almost the entire route was on freshly laid asphalt and my knees, ankles, and hips appreciate it!

Fantastic volunteer support - plenty of water tables (more than usual, I think) and plenty of portapotty stations.

And kudos to NYRR for finally ordering enough fucking bagels! For the first time in at least the last three years, I actually got a bagel and an apple. I know that should be no big deal, but when you are as far at the back of the pack as I am, it's depressing enough that they're rolling up the finish line before you arrive, but to find that the order or rationing of the bagels wasn't enough to supply the back of the pack with the end of race food and Gatorade that everyone else enjoys is just aggravating. But this time was different. I am grateful!

I took a year off from running to attempt to reboot, but I'm exactly where I was. EXACTLY. And I drew so little joy from today's run. I'm thinking about shelving any racing longer than 10K altogether. Finishing used to be its own reward when it was my first few big runs; but after 21 half marathons, that really doesn't apply anymore. I am so tired of fighting my lungs for control of my running. I am tired of ending up with hands on knees, coughing my lungs out, every 10 minutes or so. I'm tired of drawing concerned attention from volunteers, medical personnel, cops, and other runners. I don't know what I'm going to do from here.

Soaked

2010-09-13T19:33:00.002-04:00

Well, I napped too long, waited too long and it was threatening rain by the time I went out for a run. I thought I might have enough time for two miles, but I was wrong. It was starting to come down before I hit a quarter mile and was pouring by the time I ended the run at the grocery store.

The walk home was great - I was already wet. Well, got to do a rainy run once or twice a year to remind me how great most of our weather is.

Strong 5-miler for cut down week

2010-09-11T20:10:00.003-04:00

Looking at my training, I thought perhaps I should run 9 or 10 this week, but was having a hard time getting motivated. After going to a work-related event this morning (watched a whole dance audition - never done that before), I headed to Central Park. One of the dancers had asked me when the Staten Island Half is and I had to look it up. I realized at that moment that it is four weeks away, not three. How convenient!

So I took a cut-down this week to save my aching knees. I decided to do the northern 5-mile loop of the park and if I felt like it, tack on another couple of miles.

I took a couple Tylenol leaving NYU and sucked down a Red Bull. I hated to do it, but my morning caffeine had had no effect after my asshole tenant kept me awake all night with his drunken carousing. Turns out Red Bull does give you wings, slightly. I also sucked on my inhaler three times, as my lungs are not doing well. (The oral antibiotics haven't done much and now I'm supposed to get a PICC line this week and start IVs.)

The run started out hard, as usual, but I told myself to enjoy the park, take my time, there was no rush. I'd begun during the hottest part of the day and didn't want to overdo it. I was generally pleased, though, at how well things seemed to be going by the end of the first mile.

Mile two was harder, with the Harlem Hills to tackle, and I lost a full minute waiting for people at a water fountain. (I had Sustained Energy with me, but real water is also very good on a warm day!) But after that little break, I found I had enough energy to actually go UP some of the hills! I wasn't fast at all, but it happened and I'm still amazed.

At this point, I was getting bold. Things were going relatively well and I hoped it would last for the rest of the run. I skimmed along down through mile 3, which was mostly downhill - I always enjoy that section of the park. Mile 4 got tougher, with more walk breaks, as it included the 72nd street crossover (heavy pedestrian traffic) and Cat Hill. But after Cat Hill was easy cruising through the remaining .9 miles to the end of the loop. I really should have tacked on that extra tenth of a mile, or even gone for another repeat of Cat Hill and make it a full 7 miles for the day, but no matter: I ended feeling good in both lungs and legs and that's so rare these days, I'll take it as a gift.

8 mile LSD

2010-09-05T18:33:00.002-04:00

Well, this should've gotten done yesterday, but I just couldn't get going. Despite doing all the regular pre-long-run things I do, I had no energy and couldn't fight the wind, so quit after about a mile and a half.

Today was different.

What I found most interesting about this run was that despite wanting to do this one "for dad," I didn't think about him even once during the run. In fact, I didn't think about hardly any of my various problems - all the things a person might try to puzzle out during a run just failed to materialize as subject matter for the space of an hour and forty-three minutes. (Okay, health did, but only insofar as the condition of my legs and lungs are constantly making themselves known while I run.)

Instead I found myself quite concentrated on what I was doing. Not that I was doing it WELL, mind you, just that this was the right frame of mind to be in. Part of training is being able to concentrate on the run and not need to zone out to get it done. Zoning out can be a tool, but shouldn't be a habit.

I did sometimes think that I'd need to blog the run and not forget to note, for instance, that mile 1 sucked just as bad today as yesterday, and that mile 2 wasn't much better. Both had lots and lots of walking. But mile 3 turned out somewhat better and the pain had gone away. I was mostly spending walking time coughing crap up and the breaks were becoming shorter.

I was aware at the time that miles 4 through 7 felt like what training is supposed to feel like and that I could be happy with them. They were along the bay on flat ground and having other people exercising around me always helps my effort. Mile 8 was rough. Too much walking, too much traffic, and very tired. But after Runkeeper announced the end of the 8th mile, I continued on with the run segment until the next point where I'd be walking anyway and then ended the run, totaling 8.17 miles. Having no MTA card on me, I ended up walking the remaining mile home. Did some stretching in a park, made sure to ice bath (well...cold water at least) for a good long while, then a hot shower. Nap. Coffee and muffin. I will return to all my problems tomorrow.

I had no idea...

2010-09-03T22:25:00.004-04:00

...that my dad was QUITE this accomplished. Missile design school? Who knew?? Nice!

Funeral Home Obit.

Look how handsome he is. He was always good-looking. Too bad I couldn't have inherited some of THOSE genes, eh?

Inward Focus

2010-09-02T19:39:00.003-04:00

I can't keep my mind from replaying events over and over, wondering if I could have done something else to make things better or have events play out better. This is a fool's game, and I know it. I've got to shake myself awake and move on.

First workout since Dad died: a hard stationary bike followed by a mile run. I probably could have gone further. Should have gone further. But I wanted to save something for tomorrow, where I'm planning four miles of hills. This will be the first time in well over a year that I have actually concentrated on hills. I'll be running to the top of Prospect hill and back down twice. My only goal is that I do the second set better than the first.

Rest in peace, dad.

2010-09-01T19:43:00.002-04:00

My father, who suffered from pulmonary fibrosis, has passed away. Robert C Dopher, Jr, Major in the United States Marine Corps (retired), shuffled off this mortal coil at 2:10 p.m. Monday, August 30th, 2010.

What follows here is quite detailed partially because I need a solid record of events, & partly because it is illuminating for CF patients, who can appreciate the insight into the process and particulars of dying from a lung disease in a way most people can't. A warning: it's a long post. A LONG post.

---

Let's set the scene as of August 24th:

My dad has been on o2 for a couple of years because pulmonary fibrosis, an insidious, unexplained lung condition, has been destroying his lung tissue. His resting sats are rarely above 90, but I understand the body can get used to that. His active sats could go below 70, but once he started o2 full-time a few months ago that has been rare.

But on the 24th, his sats dropped to 70 and stayed there. Docs found a clot in a pulmonary vein and had to go in via catheter and roto-rooter it out. Apparently heparin therapy was either too risky or would be ineffective; I'm unclear on that point.

Though Dad was moved to a recovery ward, Dad didn't improve. In fact, he got worse. Back to ICU on the 28th. If he lies still and does NOTHING, he can maintain 90% sat on 14 liters per minute of o2. If he does anything, even goes to the bathroom, his sats drop to 50% and he has to be put on 21L until his sats rise again. (I got all this info second-hand through Mom. She's gotten pretty good as a caretaker, so I think I can trust the numbers reported.)

They put dad on a non-re-breather, mom said. When I heard that, I suggested, based only on what I have witnessed in CF and my friend Stephan with severe asthma, that they may have to put Dad on the vent for a while - even put him into a coma to do it. This would let dad's system rest and recover. Mom said that had been considered and rejected, partly by the docs, partly by Dad himself.

At this point, my questions revolved around the numbers. How low is too low for sats? At what point are we talking permanent damage to organs? Isn't 14L oxygen an awful lot, not to mention 21?? In short, was dad dying? Nobody would say.

I asked Mom if I should head down there (you know, to say good-bye). She didn't know. She and Dad didn't say no - but they put the question to all my siblings, too. We could come if we want. They don't want us to miss work. I'd feel like a fool if I didn't go and the worst happened. I did see him a couple months ago, but he was doing so much better then and I don't think I specifically said my good-byes.

I asked for advice on the CF list because there are a lot of people who have been through this with fathers, siblings, and children w/ CF going through this; and one woman whose own father had pulmonary fibrosis! They backed my decision to race down to Florida. I appreciated the support - it made me feel like my head was on straight. Mom tended to downplay the seriousness of the situation over the phone - or rather she wasn't prepared to accept how serious it was herself, and so couldn't express it. I flew down very early Sunday morning. I had booked a return flight for Monday because there are commitments here I can't avoid or move, but once I arrived at the hospital it was clear to me that I needed to stay longer. I rebooked my flight to Tuesday; knowing I'd move it again if I had to.

I got masked up and found Dad's room in ICU. He was in bad shape. Mom just didn't have the capability to express it concretely, I guess. The facts are, when I arrived, he was on both a nasal cannula with 21 liters of o2 AND a non-rebreather mask (not a sealed, forced-air system like the Bi-PAP, but definitely helping lower the amount of inhalatory effort needed.) His numbers were worrying: heart rate 122+ bpm, respiratory rate 30+ bpm. Sats were 90s if he was resting, but would drop precipitously to 50s and 60s if he coughed or exerted himself in ANY way, including talking, writing, etc. But mostly, he was laboring for every breath.

The docs had him on some Atavan to reduce anxiety. Unfortunately, it made him spacey, so he was sometimes lucid, sometimes not. I was there long enough while he was lucid to talk a little and he tried to communicate his major concerns to me. But the effort would quickly lower his sats and cause breathing and pulse rates to skyrocket. There were times when he was unable to communicate - just mumbling or seemingly talking to old pals, though at one point he did try to talk with me about a recent article we'd both read concerning Pat Tilman. It was just a little too random for Mom, but i understood: he's been reading the Esquire subscription I got him last Christmas.

Within an hour or two, I was convinced that dad didn't have much time left, certainly not the 6 days before Rachel was due to visit, or even the 4 days before Becca's flight. Nothing was easing his respiratory distress; the numbers were getting worse. I emailed all my siblings with a very brief and pointed email: "get your asses down here. He doesn't have much time left." But even I didn't appreciate how little. I thought several days at least.

Between 6 and 8, family can't be there during shift change. So Mom and I did some things at the house and had dinner and then came back. Dad was even worse. Breathing more labored, with some involuntary moaning and gasps. They had the o2 cranked as high as possible - and again sats were generally OK - but at this point, his body was working SO HARD to keep the sats up that he was basically working himself to death. The strain showed in his face. He signed some checks for the siblings and it took so much out of him just to do that; he even questioned the number of checks, as it was only three. "But I have four children...?" Mom and I reassured him we'll all be taken care of. As mom tried to calm dad down and get his breathing and pulse under control, she said again that "Cris is here, and Rachel, Becca, and Marc are coming."

And Dad, in one of his few clear communications, very forcefully asked "Tonight??"

And my heart broke. My brain broke. The way he asked that - that one plaintive cry - clarified the whole situation for me in a heartbeat. There was so much desperation and hope in that voice - and I knew he was hanging on to see his kids one last time. My god, it killed me. I cry now recalling it. And at that moment, I could not have hit the panic button harder or faster had it been a 6" disc installed on my chest. NO NO NONONONO.

Breathe, think, calm down. There was so little I could do. I knew my brother was already on his way, but wouldn't be able to make it before the ICU closed to visitors for the evening. But I called my two sisters immediately and made it crystal clear that they had to accelerate their plans. I believe my exact phrase was "drop everything and get flights right now or it will be too late." This is not easy for working adults w/ kids, but they promised to make it happen. Those are the hardest phone calls I've ever made.

Mom and I talked to the evening doc and plans were made to put him on morphine drip in the morning and, basically, ease his end. This was an extremely difficult thing to accept, though it is absolutely in compliance with his expressed wishes - no heroic measures, no intubation. (We talked about BIPAP, but ultimately, it was decided that would only prolong the inevitable and be exceedingly stressful for dad, instead of peaceful.) Now we were racing against time.

Mom and I left dad sedated, with the nurses doing their best to get him a good night's sleep. I felt guilty leaving. I wondered if I should turn back and say my goodbyes, because I wasn't sure he'd make it through the night.

Marc got to the house right on schedule and the next morning (Monday the 30th) we got to the hospital as soon as ICU would receive visitors. Dad wasn't any better. The nurses said he'd slept relatively well, but his breathing was even more labored. He was, however, conscious and lucid. Dad asked me how I was and I explained, conversationally, why I was wearing a mask (current lung infection, etc etc). He said, "I understand."

I picked up Becca at a nearby airport at 10 a.m., but I was worried that Rachel might not arrive in time. On the advice of the pulmonary critical care doc, we started the morphine drip about 10:30. The point was to get his distress under control, but higher amounts (by slow degrees) didn't have as much effect as we'd hoped. This was clearly a no-win situation. Dad was unconscious from about 11:30 on.

Mom left at 1:00 and retrieved Rachel (the airport is very nearby and by the grace of god and nature, ALL of our flights arrived early!) Rachel is very brave, but she just dissolved when she saw dad, as we all had. Though he was unconscious, I believe that somewhere inside, Dad knew Rachel had arrived - his heart rate and breathing rate slowed a bit, not drastically, and he seemed - well, more peaceful. Maybe I'm just reading something into raw numbers and a drugged man that wasn't there? I don't know. But his best friend from his Marines days (whom I talked to on the phone that evening) also believes dad knew it. Dad wanted his family there, and he got it.

A little time passed during which we all said our goodbyes. About 1:20 or so, the non-re-breather mask was removed and he was now breathing with only the cannula supplying oxygen. The end came fairly fast. As predicted by the staff, his breathing rate got slower and slower. We said our final I Love You's and ... that was about it. By 2:00, his breaths were 30 to 45 seconds apart. Two nurses checked for heart sounds. Though the monitors in the room were turned off, the nurses station had a readout of dad's vitals and I watched as his heart beats slowed to 20, then even lower. The only sound in ICU was that one heart monitor, sounding very loud because of all the patients vitals, this one was demanding attention. Then Dad no longer breathed and in a minute or two, his heart rate went to 0. And my dad was gone. Just like that.

He died at peace, in no pain, having done everything he wanted to do in life (his words) and quite literally surrounded by his wife and kids. I'm happy with that. I cannot imagine a better ending and will be lucky if my own is as storybook perfect. I have to say that the staff and facilities at Holmes Regional Medical Center are top-notch. I have a horror of hospitals, but this was, hands-down, the nicest one I've ever been in and the ICU was extremely clean, quiet, efficient, staffed with super nurses and docs and, generally, all I could ever have wished for Dad's final days.

Our family is task-oriented, generally, and it is helping us cope right now. I'm already back in NY, as I have commitments to keep, and the other kids are staying a few more days with Mom to tackle the long checklist of things to do, people to call, forms to fill out, etc. I have my own "homework" assigned, even. Plans had long since been made for disposition of his body and effects and those are now all set in motion.

I can't tell you how honored I was to be HIS child and his first-born. I could have been born to any piece of crap jerkwad walking this earth, but I happened to be born to him. He was a better man than most of his side of the family and certainly better than his upbringing should have resulted in. He wasn't perfect by any means, but he had a lot more credits than debits on the cosmic balance sheet.

Also, it was an interesting renewal of bond between us when he started having problems a few years ago. The diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis struck us both as ironic and we had new respect for each other. I have been privileged to watch his progress and get a preview of many of the things I will go through. For instance, this has helped me clear my head about what should be in my advanced directives, and what shouldn't be.

Many people reached out by email with support and I really appreciated it. I felt like I had a lot of experienced adults with me in that room, in addition to my family, letting me know my few decisions were the right ones and that what I was seeing was not, in fact, unusual; just hard to bear.

Dad will be buried in the family plot and ultimately, I'll be near him and my great-great-grandfather. I've already learned that his corneas have been transplanted and given the gift of sight to another man. For some reason, this makes me feel a lot better.

Rest in pleace, dad.

better than average 7 mile long run

2010-08-28T13:26:00.004-04:00

Want to get thoughts on today's long run jotted down before I take a nap.

Since last weekend's attempt at a bicycle ride, several of my joints have been in pain. I am not used to this kind of pain in these locations, and during the week it definitely affected my exercise. I took the last couple days off, hoping that rest would help. So with this pain at the forefront of my mind, I went to bed early last night, with a plan of action for this morning.

Unfortunately, I didn't sleep well. My joints hurt even in bed. (Some of this may be due to the oral antibiotics I'm on right now; I don't know.) Regardless, the run must get done. About 4:30 a.m., I woke up raging thirsty and needing to pee, as I often did before I started insulin, but my blood glucose was fine. At that time, I took two 8-hour Tylenol and went back to bed, hoping to get a few hours of decent sleep before getting up. The pain lessened and I did sleep, but not well - until about 7. At which point, I slept hard. Woke up again at 9:30, which was the time I wanted to be getting out the door, as the weather forecast was for a nice day, but too warm for comfort.

Still, I wasn't going to rush my pre-run routine. My body needs time to wake up. Needs time for two poops (sorry, but let's be honest about these things). Needs time for a banana and some caffeine to take effect. Needs time for a pep talk. I used my magic tea today (Earl Grey white from Harney & Sons), just as I have before most long runs for several years now. I filled up an old Gatorade Perform bottle with Sustained Energy - my first use of SE in this training cycle! Now I knew I was firmly in training territory. :D (I know you're not supposed to reuse plastic bottles, but the Perform bottle has the best texture for gripping since the old Tiger bottles and I like the mouthpiece.)

Hydration: check. Running clothes pulled out of hamper because I forgot to do laundry yesterday: check. Newer pair of running shoes with newer orthotics: check. Charged iPhone loaded with most recent Covervilles: check. Vague plan to put in 7 miles and not a stride more: check.

Hey! Ho! Let's go!

I began this one by walking for a few minutes, which is quite rare for me. I should do it more. I got up to jogging speed and kept it intentionally at a comfortable level where I thought I could hold on for about half a mile, maybe, before walking. I tried to keep things at this effort level the whole run. I turned off the part of Runkeeper that tells you your time and left only the distance notifications on. This way, I could just relax, enjoy the day, concentrate on doing the run the right way. (As it turns out, this was faster than I'd expected.)

Mile 1 went amazingly well, even for me. The Tylenol were hard at work and my legs felt rested. My lungs weren't having a good time, but I knew after the first couple miles, most of the junk would be coughed out and I'd be breathing better. The humidity was way down and that always helps. Mile 2 was also unexpectedly good, as the shin splints I was expecting never appeared and I was able to tackle most of a mild incline that lately I've been completely walking. I thought that was pretty nice.

Mile 3 included tackling Owl's Head Park. The easy route down along the dog run is closed for renovation, so the route takes me on a meandering few paths up and over the park - which is a hell of a hill. I walked up it, wanting to conserve energy. You can break your neck coming down it and I could see how NYCBklynGirl could have a paintful time coming down Pike's Peak, what with the quads trying to keep you from falling and all.

I finished the third mile just as I headed onto the bay-side path. My intention was to go out to almost the fourth mile before turning around so that when I did finish seven, I'd be quite a ways from home and forced to walk as a cool down period; which is another thing I'm terrible at making myself do. This plan worked out nicely. You can see in the pace and elevation chart that while along the bay, I had nice, steady, long running segments. I was able to keep up with other slow joggers and really enjoyed myself, especially after I turned around at about 3.7 miles and caught the breeze in my face.

The fifth mile flew by as most of it was returning along the bay and I estimated I'd complete it just as I topped the hill of Owl's Head Park again - and sure enough, I was only about 20 yards short of the summit when Runkeeper piped up. Right on.

Another short, steep downhill while praying not to fall on my face and I was back on the streets. At this time, I was quite warm and stuck to whatever sidewalks offered the most shade. I started to get very tired in the last half of mile 6 and especially in mile 7. I reminded myself that this is what training is FOR.

I finished up the last mile as I came alongside Costco, about six blocks from my house. Perfect! I even stopped in at Dunkin' Donuts on the walk home to get a blueberry muffin. Having just done my longest run in ... well, I think a year; I felt I deserved the muffin. I was very surprised to find out I'd done these seven miles at an overall 12:08 pace. Wow! I had thought I was jogging at a 12-minute pace, but that with walk breaks I'd be down to 12:45 miles or so.

So...good run. I'm pleased with how it all went. I've done the ice bath, the food, the Recoverite, the blog post...and now: the nap.

bad bicycle ride

2010-08-24T20:22:00.003-04:00

This wasn't how this was supposed to go, ending at 5 miles. I had intended 13.

Aside from dealing with traffic, the ride started off fine. However, at mile 3, where the long, flat, fast part was supposed to start, my blood sugar plummeted. My mistakes were numerous: I had overcorrected for a blood sugar high about an hour before (takes a while for that to bring you low); I failed to bring anything to eat, much less something sugary, like power gel; I'd failed to bring a sports drink with sugar in it, like HEED; failed to bring MONEY with which to buy a candy bar, even. And, of course, didn't have the emergency glycogen shot thing with me. Stupid, stupid stupid.

So there I was, 3 miles from home, dealing with hypoglycemia, and getting worse as the minutes ticked past and the only transportation to get me home would be my own two legs, either on the bike or not. This, my friends, is what constitutes the beginnings of an emergency.

I had to trust that with a little rest, I could continue on and get to the subway. I slowly biked the next two miles and caught the subway at 95th street and 4th ave. Getting the bike down the steps was harder than it should have been. My bike is heavy and I was getting weak. I rested on the subway car and eventually, it deposited me at 36th street. By this time, my perception of things around me was beginning to warp a little. It took me a second to realize I was walking my bike too close to the edge of the subway platform, for instance. I struggled to get the bike up the steps and out of the subway. I slowly pedaled the last five blocks home, then left it outside while I went in to find something sugary. Even though I have small cans of ginger ale and individual servings of OJ specifically for blood sugar lows like this, I couldn't remember. I ransacked my cabinets and refrigerator for anything VISIBLE that would get my sugars up. I ended up sucking down a big swallow of old Hammer gel, then some straight agave nectar (yuck). Sat and munched on some figs. Felt better after awhile.

I did take my blood sugar reading after getting in the door. 41. Way, way too low.

I hope tomorrow goes better.

Good gym workout; more photos

2010-08-16T20:20:00.006-04:00

Having done a long run - "long" run - on Friday of 5 miles, my legs were pretty blasted on Saturday, which would have been a great day to run. I am definitely training up, though, as I now have the jimmy legs at night again. Sunday, I got super busy with taking race photos in the morning and meeting playwright David Hansen of Cleveland, OH, for lunch. We found a nifty joint in Chelsea that didn't cost too much for brunch. Of course I had a mimosa; why?

So today's workout needed to be a good one, since it had been three days since my last. I also wanted to get some good lung clearance going. The humidity has been high the last couple days and as a result, I'm coughing up a lot of junk. Not fun.

Considering the benefits many runners have experienced on Jeff Galloway's run-walk training plans, I may finally take it to heart. If I time the run and walk segments I'm doing anyway, it will lend structure and perhaps even help me get faster, as the walk segments end a little before I'd naturally start running again, and the run segments somewhat longer than I can sometimes sustain. I'm guessing that doesn't make much sense. What I'm hoping is this: if I time the run and walk portions, I can s-l-o-w-l-y increase the amount of time I'm running and decrease the amount of time I'm walking.

Now, if I do this on a treadmill, I can easily keep an eye on the timer, as well as have the treadmill set a consistent pace. So today's workout was a two-fer: half an hour on the stationary bike and half an hour on the treadmill.

The 30 minutes on the bike went quickly, though I didn't get into it as hard as I would have if the workout were bike alone. Going from the bike to running on the treadmill took about four minutes. The transition is quite rough on the legs, and I was really tight in the calves. At least they didn't cramp up immediately this time. But I took my first walk break after just three minutes. After that, I extended the run periods by 30 seconds each time, until the final segment was six minutes long. Much to my surprise, the pain in my calves faded after the third walk break and the running became easier. Much easier. I had set the treadmill at 5 mph and found I could increase that bit by bit without needing to walk, until I was doing 5.5 mph. I ended the run strong and confident and feeling good, in a way I haven't in a long time. Maybe I should warm up on the bike more often!

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I took pics Sunday at the Bronx Half Marathon. This time, I was challenged twice as to my credentials. The first was from NYRR staffer Theresa, who was doing the last-minute registration table. (I know her, she doesn't really know me.) She just didn't want me taking pics of the money handling. OK, I understand that. Later, at the finish line area, an angry black man who had been told to get behind the ropes challenged me. He had a point - namely that if I don't have press credentials, I should be behind the ropes, too. However, a regular volunteer (possibly staff, I can't remember) told me I could stay where I was if I wanted. There are advantage to having good equipment and knowing what you're doing. However, there weren't any good angles to be had by anybody, so I didn't push it.

The best of the photos can be found here.

I brought along a reflector this time in an attempt to broaden and soften my flash. In many photos, it worked nicely - but timing is critical, as the area affected when outdoors is very small - it will work better at night or on very cloudy days.

Direct flash is more obvious (and can be seen in a couple of the Picasa posted photos), but is almost too much. On the other hand, using the flash from about 30 degrees off the centerline (to the subject) results in good overall modeling and pulling the subject off the background by virtue of a contrast in color temperature. The runner looks slightly warmer than the runners in the background, without being obnoxious about it. (I do color my flash.) He's also a a few degrees brighter. This provides focus. In other situations, I had it at about 135 degrees off centerline - kind of an angled backlight. This is truly epic and you can see the effects of this on a runner and a bicyclist in the album.

One of the things I can do in Lightroom that is difficult even in Photoshop is widely manipulate greyscale. I can command the greyscale conversion to affect ranges of color to a lesser or greater degree. I can set where the highlights and shadows are divided and how contrasty those are.

In these two photos, I have manipulated how the primaries and secondaries of the first image get mapped to greyscale ranges. Yellows and greens were set to be as light in greyscale as possible, along with purples/magentas. Reds/oranges were left alone, but blues and aquas were pulled way, way down, to almost black. This gave me great contrast in the bib number and brought out some texture in the sky that can't be seen in the original greyscale conversion. On top of that, in Preview of all programs, I added a light sepia tone and some text. I could have done the sepia in Lightroom, but it's actually easier in Preview.

And in these two photos, with similar manipulation of greyscale first, I brought magentas, reds, and oranges (the building tones) to full, completely supressed yellow tones, left green alone and suppressed aquas, blues, and purples. Contrast was bumped a bit, as were blacks, resulting in a nicely dramatic sky and depth of building detail that, again, isn't present to the eye in the original image. In Photoshop, I did a little bit of distort and warp to bring verticals back to vertical (countering perspective) and used a Warming filter to add the warm tone. I don't think I like it as much as the sepia I used in Preview on the runner. But... still, I ended up with a very dramatic view of a couple of frankly boring and ugly buildings - pretty much encapsulating my view of the Bronx as a whole.

Difficult 5 miler Prospect Park

2010-08-13T17:35:00.002-04:00

It's interesting how the route is traced in red, like the blood I feel I've left behind.

This one didn't go well. I thought that with the lower heat, I'd do OK despite the humidity. Such was not the case. I had difficulty breathing well for most of the run, but especially the first mile. The new shoes are far from broken in and felt like lead weights. It was a pleasant day, with a good breeze and that was my saving grace I think. The second and third miles were pretty rough and I just knew I didn't have enough in the tank to do the full five miles, but by the time I'd finished the third, the shortest route home was to finish the five.

I fueled well the night before and had a decent breakfast, so I don't think that was the problem. But I only brought water and that WAS a problem. The last long run (4 miles), I'd brought HEED, but that sat in my stomach like a lump and caused problems, so this time I thought I'd try water. Not helpful at all. It may be that I'd mixed the HEED too weak to be easily absorbed (i.e. incorrect osmolarity). I'll keep working on it.

I may also have to start in on the pre-run and during-run gels, since this measly five miles took me over an hour and I was definitely hurting for energy by the end. I mean, within sight of where I'd end my run I had to drop to a walk for a bit. I also got a bit loopy, starting to comment on people how I liked their dog, or their shirt, or their identically-dressed kids that all looked like ducklings following their mother. A man should keep his mouth shut about such things.

Also, a man would not complain about how hard the run was. Fail, fail, fail.

In other insanity, I've officially signed up for the Staten Island Half and will shortly be entering December's Las Vegas Half, which I will run somewhat behind my sister and her friend. I'd love to be able to run with Rachel again like the Houston Half, but the stars aren't going to align like that again. My training would have to go phenomenally well from this point on and Rachel would - frankly - have to be injured or untrained. I don't want that.

micro-brick workout

2010-08-09T23:54:00.003-04:00

The triathletes have a name for a workout where you go from swimming to biking or (more specifically) bike to run: the brick. So-named, apparently, for how your legs feel at the transition.

I'm having a hard time getting motivated to train, even though the clock is ticking. I look at the numbers on the thermometer and all my will to exercise drains away. It's OK if it's not humid, but...

So today, I went up to the gym for some stationary bike work. If I'm not going to run 4 or 5 miles, I should at least get my heart rate up for a while. I jogged a bit on the way up there, just by way of warming up so I wouldn't feel dead on the bike. Once in the gym, the 42 minutes of stationary bike went well, with an average heart rate of 141, and the equivalent of more than 14 miles traveled. This is getting me thinking that I need to air up my tires and get out on the roads for some real bike rides. I have a nagging fear of traffic, though... not fear, really...annoyance. I just don't want to DEAL with it. Well, anyway, I should start working more bike rides in - great cardio and I handle it well.

Back when I took pictures of the sandpainter in Union Square I ran into a man who'd just the previous weekend finished the NYC Tri. He and I talked quite a while (much to his wife's annoyance) and he was convinced I should train for a tri. He recommended following bike workouts with some running - "even just five minutes" - to get used to the heavy, dead-legs sensation. So that's what I did. Oddly, I found it easier to run a 10 minute per mile pace on the treadmill (1 degree incline) than I would have before the biking. I guess with a fully warmed up system, only the legs object.

And boy did they! Within seconds, my calves were cramping. I had to walk for a minute or two, then returned to running. Next time I do the bike, I'll bring the post-workout treadmill portion to 10 minutes. And keep trying to progress this pattern. It may turnout to be some of my more quality workouts! This is not to say that I'm interested in triathlons. But I am interested in finding some more variations in my workouts and more success in the running portions, especially.

I also took time stretching and foam rolling, something I seem to be more disciplined about at the gym than at home, which is stupid. But there it is.

Finally, I'm fixing to transition to a different gym. Blink Fitness is opening three locations shortly, one in the old Tower Building. And memberships are $20/month. Much more reasonable than most other places. And by putting in your email now, on their website, you get signed up not only for notice of advance sign-ups (when they start those), but also enter the contest for a three-year membership. That'd be nice!

What a RAW file can do for you.

2010-08-08T18:30:00.006-04:00

Had a couple of real turkeys in my shots from yesterday. But because I shoot in RAW format, which retains all possible image information, and because I use good software, I can save shots that, in the past, would have been unequivocally unusable. For instance, the overexposed shot on below is the original, while the one below that is the "saved" version.

Those are YMCA team members, BTW.

A professional application's tools go a long way toward enabling this resurrection, especially using built-in macros like Lightroom's Auto-Tone preset. That won't do the job 100% (and can sometimes make the image worse), but will do a lot of the work here. Color temperature and fine adjustments to color curves are still needed. Often the software will boost the contrast too much and lose detail in the blacks and whites. This can be recovered, though usually at the expense of a slightly "greyer" look. In over- and under-exposure cases, though, some areas simply can't be recovered, as those pixels have been recorded at a full 16-bit black or white.

Here, the process is used to bring up a hopelessly underexposed image to something of at least documentation value:

H

Had it not been for the ability to extract fine gradations of "black" from the RAW file, this photo would have been dead and buried. The only reason I didn't automatically delete it was because I could see just enough that I knew I liked the composition. Not all pictures can be resuscitated this well. And were I shooting in JPEG format - where the camera is set to save only high-res JPEG copies rather than the RAW file - I wouldn't be able to do this at all.

Another break-in run

2010-08-03T08:07:00.002-04:00

These new shoes are not working out as well as previous new pairs of shoes have.

Going to keep trying.

Back in training; first long run

2010-07-31T23:38:00.002-04:00

I know. 4 miles doesn't sound like the world's longest "long" run. But consider that it's been a couple months since I've run that distance. Also consider that I managed a 13 minute per mile pace - only a little slower than my regular runs now - and I'm off to a good start for my half-marathon training.

This wasn't easy. I don't have the fitness or lung capacity like I used to. The heat didn't help, but that's my own fault. This run, in my old pair of running shoes, was much more comfortable than the last run in my new shoes. Got to get those broken in.

And still I'm put to shame by my friends, such as MichJoy, who'll biked 40 miles today and who'll run 14 miles next weekend. Or my friend the Running Laminator, who will be running 20 or more tomorrow morning.

Speaking of which, I want to get up and go shoot that run, the first long training run that NYRR sponsors for the marathon trainees... but I should've been in been two hours ago and still have hiccups... :(

I have installed Disqus comment moderation - please give it a whirl and leave a comment.

getting going again

2010-07-29T21:00:00.003-04:00

It is so hard to get going again. After my long layoff from running in late May and mid-June, it has been hard to restart. I'd be lucky to get out once a week. The heat and humidity combo here has also been hard to stomach.

But the Staten Island Half looms and I need to get on the stick. I've got shoes to break in and miles to burn in.

Today is the third time I've been out this week. I had a pretty good run Tuesday and was hoping to recapture that today. But shin splints have been haunting me and I just took my new Brooks Adrenaline 10s out for a spin. Wow are they stiff. And I can tell I'm weak in all the areas runners are often weak in. I have such a long way to go.

As motivation, I've been watching some races recently. Actually, I've been photographing them, simultaneously exercising my investment in camera gear and and renewing my interest in racing. I want to have a good October, if not dazzling, and part of attaining that is getting excited about being part of a group event again.

I've put up some photos of the Queens Half and the NYC Triathlon on Picasa.

From NYC Triathlon July 18, 2010

From Queens Half Marathon

Tour Part II: Italy

2010-07-16T17:06:00.001-04:00

Note: Part I of the tour, Israel, is written up in this blog post.
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So in my previous email, I wrapped up with Shabbat in Jerusalem. We played two performances in Jerusalem, Saturday night and Sunday night, and things were nice and relaxed between them, including an evening I sat out on the hotel patio with Bill, Janet, and a few others and we all drank wine and did not talk about performance, dance, theatre, or anything remotely related. Very nice.

Load-out again went smoothly, though we somehow tore a very small hole in our opera drop; not where light hits it, but still, very aggravating, considering the care which Kyle and the crew take with our few softgoods. I loaded some gear into the tophat roadcase to go back to the US, as these particular roadboxes were done for the tour. We had another set waiting for us in Italy (it would take too long to get the equipment from Israel to Italy economically). Finally, about 12:30 a.m. we were all loaded out.

At this point, the day of hell began. The crew split into two groups. Kyle, Sam (sound), and Laura went to Haifa for a different Bill T Jones show, where they'd literally load in, do the show, and load out in one day. Meanwhile, Eric and I went ahead to Italy to begin work there, as the show we were doing in Venice was a special performance put together just for that festival. Eric and I had three hours at the hotel before we hopped in a cab for the airport. I napped, Eric chose not to. We hit Ben Gurion airport at 4:30 a.m. for a 7:30 flight - and we'd need almost every minute of it.

I won't go into a blow-by-blow, but the upshot is that our luggage was searched in minute detail - not only was luggage opened, but so was the toiletries kit...and the cans, bottles, sewing kit, etc inside. Literally every single separate item was examined. Twice. All of our baggage (and we were carrying some company baggage, such as costumes, to be used in Venice) was x-rayed twice, searched visually twice, and given THREE chemical sniffer tests. Some of this was due to sheer boredom on Israeli security's part, some of it due to change of shift happening in the middle of the first search, and some of it due to the red flag that the projector lenses threw up. The security people could clearly see they were lenses, but the attached motors and heavy duty pelican roadcase freaked them out I guess. For some time, Eric and I were separated from all of our belongings and parked in a secure room. We were very nearly separated from our clothing, too! I believe we were about to be strip-searched, but something or someone intervened and we were called back. The head of security for the shift (note: not airport security, no airline security - ISRAELI security) decided we could continue on, but they were confiscating the projector lenses. Though they did give Eric a claimcheck, they said he'd have to file a missing luggage report in Venice and ultimately he'd get the lenses back. It was purely coincidental that we wouldn't need the lenses until Ravenna and that Venice was a week-long stop. (Eric got the lenses back the last morning of our stay there, literally hours before we left for Ravenna).

So you'd think that would be it, that we could check in, get our boarding passes and go, right? Oh, no no. First, the airline (Aegean Air) decided that our checked luggage was over the weight limit. Turns out their weight limits are 20kg (44 lb) per bag - we'd packed 50 per bag and one or two were definitely over that anyway. Overage fees, we were prepared to pay -- we thought! Our carryons (well, mine) was also overweight - yeah, there's a goddamn weight limit on carryons, too, of 8 kg (17 lb)!! I transferred about five pounds to an already overweight checked bag and even though I was still over by a couple kilograms, the counter agent let it go. After all, the airline was already charging us 475 for the overweight checked bags. At first, we thought that was sheckels, since we were in Israel, and 475 sheckels is only about 125 dollars. But then she corrected us - 475 DOLLARS! Yeah, no mistake. Eric and I nearly had a heart attack. There was no choice but to find an ATM, withdraw money, and pay the fees. Keep in mind, we're under armed guard all throughout this.

Now, fees paid, bags checked, boarding passes in hand, we get to regular airline security screening. Here having been searched two (three) times already paid off - we were skated through that security area. But our journey was not yet over! Now, we're down to about 30 minutes before takeoff and we still have to clear customs. I went through fine, but then Eric hit a snag. Customs computers showed that Eric had arrived with three bags to check, but only two had been received by the airline. (Remember, security had our lenses and those would fly later.) This is a red flag for them and Eric was detained by the police. While being marched off, he ordered me to make the flight no matter what, since at least one of us had to be in Venice on time. Fortunately, things were straightened out quickly for Eric and he made the flight, but barely.

On to Venice.

Longer flight than I thought, but quite pleasant. Aegean Air may rape you on overage fees, but they do serve plenty of hot meals. Unfortunately, they don't shut up loud, talkative assholes partying it up in the rear of the plane. Eric and I were now both of us up beyond 24 hours and had a full work day ahead of us....

Upon landing, we were met by the festival's rep and we took a high-speed water taxi to Venice, where we then lugged approximately 200 pounds of luggage (plus our own remember) through the narrow streets and up and over bridges to get to Hotel La Fenice, a hotel known for being the place for visiting artists to stay. (And it was certainly pleasant enough, though every room was different. For instance, I was graced with a shower - Laura had only a bathtub. Shoshanna had the smallest room every, but also a whole terrace to herself. Etc. I recommend it!)

After dropping off our crap, we lugged the 200 pounds of luggage back through the streets and again split up. Eric had to go to the shipping port and get our roadboxes from the shipping container (which took most of the day) and I was on my own to find the theatre. Teatreo de Tese was WAY the hell out there in the Arsenale. So a water bus ride to Arsenale and a kilometer's walk later, I found the theatre, where the technicians were already moving trusses into place.

Teatro de Tese has the neatest truss system I've ever seen. Situated in an 800 year old building - a sail factory (the oldest factory in Venice) - the converted space was as unmangled as possible in the process of making it a theatre. There is a great deal of excellent scenic trickery designed to look like more venue that fills windows, hides cable, etc. Very nice. The trusses (there are six of them) are mounted on a rail system, with the rails bolted into the center of three halls. This allows the trusses to be moved into place at will and very, very easily. Technicians then get up and walk the tops to place circuits. Hanging, final circuiting, and focus is all done from a rolling ladder that has a small work platform at the top. My goal was to have the positions nailed down and all the lights hung and cabled before Laura arrived the next afternoon. This was ambitious. Things don't happen FAST there, but they do happen WELL. As I was dealing with lighting, Eric showed up on a boat with a crane and moved our road gear into the space and then dealt with the positioning of the extra stage sections we were having built.

It all turned out very, very well. This huge stage with a runway shooting off into another hall house left, a smaller platform for Sam (as musician) upstage left, and a separate entre-acte playing space in the hall house right that the audience would pass through to get to their seats. It was a fully fleshed out performance that INHABITED the space. It provided some technical lighting challenges, in that Laura couldn't use more than X amount of power and getting up to the lights to hang or adjust them (if they weren't directly over the stage) was accomplished with driveable personnel lifts. These yellow things were GREAT. I've seen them on construction sites here and would like to see more of them in theatre.

At this stop, we took our time and teched a lot and ran two performances. It was here that I learned how to make coffee Venetian style, which I grew addicted to. I also made sure I ate something new and different at every meal I ate. I had the most creamy lasagna - fantastic! As we used the back wall instead of cyc and translucency for this performance, our load-out was actually pretty quick. We packed up our fluorescents and mini-tens and dance floor and that was it. I have to say, I liked the entire festival crew the most at this stop. Again, there was friction and not the best spirit of cooperation between the people in charge and our two females in charge (Kyle and Laura). They kept complaining they'd get "no" answers to everything, yet if I asked or Eric asked, it would generally happen. Different approaches maybe?

From Venice to Ravenna, the entire company took a bus. LONG bus ride - three hours. We actually stayed in Marina de Ravenna, on the coast and it was a fine hotel to stay at, with little private balconies, which I took advantage of by getting some doses of Vitamin D where I don't normally get doses of Vitamin D, if you know what I mean.

The theatre, Palazzo Mauro de Andre, is a converted sports arena, which we think was for either volleyball or basketball. It is ceiling with a giant glass pyramid, similar to something at the Louvre, and this is covered in a translucent white fabric. The effect is of dazzlingly bright cloudy daytime - at all times the sun is up. The place was used for sports exactly once. Then it was converted. There's a big RAKED stage, huge hanging ugly sound baffling, and a slightly raked truss roof system. The hang itself was quick and mostly complete by the time we got there. Laura and I made a lot of adjustments to their hang before the roof truss rose, because getting to the lights was by scaffold only - a long process involving five electricians, since four of them were required to keep the damn thing from rolling off the stage! Once the roof was up, we got to work on the ground units and the booms. Their usual booms were flat steel truss pieces, held up with long triangular legs. This would prove to be unsightly and potentially dangerous for the dancers. Laura and I convinced them to cable-tie the trusses to the far side rails and then we figured out how to get our four lights onto these "booms". It was not the best looking setup ever, but it worked well enough - as long as nobody leaned on the railings (as the dancers tended to do).

Focus, of course, had to wait until 9 p.m. for it to be dark enough to work. So call that day was fairly late and we enjoyed a really long cookout dinner watching futbol with the crew until 9. The crew went to great lengths to get good reception, including drafting the services of, in sequential order, a metal cart, a wheelbarrow, and a 12' aluminum ladder. Quite enjoyable! Once we got to work that night, focus took forever, and it wasn't all the technician's fault. Laura had a timetable to work within and she went over it by two hours. Don't get me wrong - I think she's great. As a lighting supervisor, she is exacting and her standards are high, which is exactly what is needed in that position. But she was definitely futzing with details that Eric and I (from the tech table) couldn't see differences in. Still, it's her show, so it's her call. We got back to the hotel about 5 in the morning and had a 9:30 a.m. lobby call.

We rehearsed all day, including a dress-rehearsal with Laura running the light cues to absolutely zero effect, then one performance at 9 p.m., then load-out, which unfortunately took longer than any of us thought. It boiled down to the fact that we couldn't retrieve our one truss-mounted lighting unit and our two softgoods pieces until the truss roof could move - and it couldn't move until everything else was struck. Yikes. fortunately, the long wait left plenty of time for Kyle to dry out the sweaty costumes under the heat of two 2K PCs backstage. Finally, with the rain starting to come down, everything was in road cases and well-packed for the trip overseas. Last step was a very rainy loading of the shipping container which, because the theatre has no proper loading dock, involved lifting the cases on one truck's hydraulic tailgate, then manually heaving them over to the deck of the shipping container, situated 90-degrees to the first truck. As some roadboxes come in at about 600 pounds, it was quite interesting to see four or five men managing this feat. But they were used to it, I guess. Finally, as the rain turned into a wind-whipped storm worthy of Lear, Eric sealed the shipping container and twice read off all relevant seal, container, and lock numbers to Sam, who wrote it all on the shipping manifest.

And thus the tour was over. The next morning, the whole company took another three-hour bus back to the airport near Venice and Delta took us home. After a 17 hour travel day following 20 days on the road, I was at last able to cook for myself, take a shower with actual doors on it, and sleep in my own comfortable bed. Laura, Kyle, and Eric had one quick show to do in Santa Fe, leaving the day after we got back to NYC. I asked about that today and Laura expressed her thanks at how quickly things happened there - how professional the crews were and how expedient everything was. Didn't have to ask for a tech table, it was just THERE, for instance. And here I thought Israel and Italy crews did pretty good; but then I've done a lot of unsupported theatre in crappy little NYC spaces. It's all about a sense of scale, I guess.

I learned a lot on this tour and would definitely go again. As for the joint pain, it is still present, though very much dissipated and more easily managed with naproxen. Recent bloodwork shows high sedimentation rate, so I'll soon be seeing a rheumatologist. If this is what my uncle thinks this is (PMR), then it could be a couple of years before its all cleared up. At the moment, I'm able to type and am in no pain, though water bottles continue to be difficult to open.

And now, on to the the normal program of Christmas windows, dance lighting (of my own), giant multi-media international workshop performance (IMPACT), and a little wedding photography on the side.

Tour Part I: Israel

2010-07-16T17:03:00.003-04:00

Following is what I wrote the Stagecraft list summarizing my experiences in Israel on tour. It has little to do with running or health - those notes are already in older posts on this blog.
Accompanying pictures.
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I recently finished a short tour with Bill T Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company, making stops in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Venice, and Ravenna. Every single day was a full work day, with the exception of three travel days and two off days. What follows are my observations and thoughts on doing dance performance in those locations.

Let me first say that the flight to Tel Aviv was, mercifully, a direct flight. Even still, with a three-hour delay for takeoff, it was a very long travel day. We (the crew) got off the ground about 10 p.m. in JFK Friday night, and landed at Ben Gurion airport about 3:45 local time on Saturday. The cast were scheduled to arrive the next day, which was an off day for the crew. While waiting for Monday to roll around, we all took advantage of our hotel's location in the beach resort section of Tel Aviv to frolic in the Mediterranean and stuff ourselves with local restaurant food, including a great fish place the first evening and a very different sort of meal at Pie the next night, where our company took up the entire restaurant.

We loaded in at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center, which is a very large, very modern, well-equipped theatre where a lot of opera is done. This theatre had a massive standard plot they use for their own opera productions (indeed, the scenery for the next opera was loading in before we loaded out). To accommodate our plot, they simply flew their electrics out, flew empty battens in and the entire plot - including booms - was hung, circuited, and patched in about two hours. The rate of progress slowed considerably once we hit focus. I was learning the focus of the show and Laura Bickford (BTJAZ lighting supervisor) and I were learning enough of the language to communicate with electricians. So things went slowly at first, as they tend to do at focus. It doesn't help that our focus is very finicky, with razor-sharp shutter cuts on a white floor, which have to align with the next unit in the system, etc. Fortunately, color was never a question - the entire plot, save for one sidelight system and one special - is L201. Oh, that Robert Wierzel!

The units we used in Tel Aviv were a mix of the familiar Source 4s (rented specially for us, BTW) and PCs and ENT zooms. Laura had some experience with the European units, but maybe not enough - we ended up refocusing the plot and adding a few units to make up for certain problems, such as an inability to get an even wash out of the zooms and an inability to control the light coming out of the PCs, even with barndoors. These are problems we'd deal with the rest of the tour, developing strategies to make the lighting look as good as possible. (For instance, with the zooms, we had originally 4 of them to create a downstage box on the floor. However, it was unevenly lit, and I argued that in the middle of that box, we weren't getting the dancers right. So we added two more units that used to be in the plot anyway, plus refocused each zoom at a wider angle to cover as much of the box as it could - thus each unit overlapped the next quite heavily, and intensity came from multiple overlapping sources in the same area.) I also note that the zooms don't concentrate light when you make the beam angle smaller, as you might expect. Oh, they may do so to some extent, but the effect I observed was much closer to using an iris than actually gathering the light.

The booms were box truss style, on wheels, and were all Source 4, as were our high side systems. Some of the lights were ours - fluorescents used upstage and mini-tens used downstage and on the first electric. We travel with Shuko adapters, which take care of most European houses, but here we needed an additional adapter to fit the Israeli lighting pucks. The first of some tensions arose here. Madai, the hosting production manager for both Israel stops, sometimes didn't deal well with the women. So Laura's request to obtain some adapters went ignored and Madai's insistence that we modify our own adapters (which would involve cutting off molded ends) was not well received. Eventually, the rental house was able to send over enough of the needed adapters. I guess sometimes it just comes down to one little issue like that; on this stop it was adapters. Go figure.

Tel Aviv turned out to be the only stop we couldn't use our own board at - we travel with a HogPC that outputs one DMX universe. But Tel Aviv needed two universes to run the whole system, so Laura ended up dictating all the cues to the house board op who programmed their GrandMA. This was frustrating for her and I can't blame her. It also left her with little to do when showtime came so one of her more annoying habits came to light early: given time to futz, she'll futz. Endlessly. I can't tell you how many times I adjusted our fluorescents and the gels on the music stand lights just because everything else was done and Laura was not good at just relaxing while she had the chance - at least not while in the theatre.

The crew in Tel Aviv was as professional as you'd expect anywhere with the usual divisions of duties. Much of the load-in crew came via the lighting rental house, which I found interesting. The rental houses act as informal agencies for a lot of the country's crew labor. The schedule can be grueling - they don't take breaks. They work 'til lunch, take an hour for that, then work 'til dinner, take an hour for that, work 'til end of call. When someone from our crew inquired about breaks, it was meant with Madai's response that "only American babies take breaks." This turned out to be true in Italy, too.

It was during the Tel Aviv stop that I contracted some kind of problem with my joints, which came on suddenly and severely, feeling like total-body arthritis or something. I quickly ran through my supply of painkillers and it was like throwing stones at a battleship. I went hunting for more painkillers. This turns out to be difficult, as painkillers are by prescription only, though for low-level ones like ibuprofen, the pharmacist himself can print up a prescription. But pharmacies were few and far between with short hours incompatible with touring theatre schedules. Life pretty quickly became hell for me. But I did get some and by downing about 1200mg of ibuprofen every four or five hours, I remained functional.

Load-out was smooth and quick, as one would expect. Our TD, Eric Lowner, is very good during load-ins and load-outs and his professionalism made getting it all packed up and on the truck practically a breeze. It is notable that there are no basements in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. The theatre and its loading dock are actually on the second through fifth floors of the PAC. They have two vehicle lifts for getting trucks up to the loading dock.

The move to Jerusalem was by bus and I was hurting badly by then. I knew that whatever was going on with me would have to be addressed by a doctor while we were there. We had a day off scheduled, though, with the entire company going on a mini-tour of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. I learned a little bit about the country, especially the kibutzes. At one stop, the whole company went on a two-hour hike up in some mountains while I stayed behind, being in no condition to walk for two hours. At that stop I discovered the delicious Magnum Gold ice cream bar. Then we proceeded to the Dead Sea where three things of note happened: one, once in the water and floating, I was finally out of pain for the first time in a week. Two, it's nice to have a drink at the World's Lowest Bar. And three, if you think dancers are good-looking with their clothes on, you should experience the site of them all standing knee deep in the water smearing black mud all over themselves.

The next day, I managed to get through load-in at The Jerusalem Theatre (Madai's home space, it turns out). This load-in was also quite smooth, though of a somewhat lower-rent quality to some of the equipment. The biggest frustration came in that the lines from the dimmers, which were parked squarely in the middle of the wing stage right, to the electrics was up and over a flown truss stage right. Anytime this truss was moved, it moved the cables, which moved the electrics, which threw our focus off. There came a point where Laura and I parked our asses until the scenic crew could finish up with projection screens, cyc, blacks, etc because it was a useless endeavor trying to get shutter cuts before the stage right truss was locked in position. In Jerusalem, we left the crappy ENT zooms behind and used ETC zooms instead, which was a far more pleasant experience, but as with all ETC, the edges are very hard and it is hard to blend beams together. Back to massive dispersal overlap technique. We used PCs for most of the floor box systems this time and while they blend well, controlling their spill was a nightmare - the barndoors don't have the additional hinged wings on the small flaps. So we used quite a lot of our precious blacktak supply blocking off stray light. This is a technique Laura was apparently quite used to and I admit allows for trapezoidal barndoor configuration - this is the one technique that may bleed over to my own focus methods.

This particular BTJAZ show also uses Littlelites on lecterns for our narrators and singer, which in Europe must be run through a transformer. But that transformer must then be on a dimmer, for board control. And even though Laura changed the cues to bring the Littlelites up and down in 0 time, we kept frying transformers. There were no relays or non-dim modules available and as it turns out, the transformers weren't getting a full 240 volts - only 208. So this stop was frustrating in several ways. But in others, it was much more relaxed. For instance, Madai fixed us all a lunch that we had on road boxes end-to-end family style. That was pretty nice, compared with the usual habit of everyone going their own way for meals. The dressing rooms and green room were all fantastic and I was able to get laundry done during our second performance.

The load-in was interrupted, for me, by a trip to a doctor. As it turns out, I was not the only one of our company needing medical services. Our executive director sprained her ankle teaching a class. We happened to meet at the facility our tour escort, Michal, called a "pre-hospital". This is a facility for urgent care, though not outright emergencies; but unlike a clinic, you don't need an appointment. The both of us were seen very quickly and, as it turns out, by the same doctor, Dr. Fred Carroll. I had blood work and urinalysis done and the results showed a high white blood cell count. The doctor couldn't diagnose what was going on with me at the time, but gave me a prescription for a different class of antiinflammatory, Etopan. This, in combination with more ibuprofen or sodium naproxen, allowed me to at least function.

Now, this was Friday and sundown was approaching. Madai had already warned us that at 6:00, the day would end, whether or not we were where we wanted to be with focus. Contrary to popular belief, the entire country does not shut down for Shabat, but quite a few things do! There are Arabic quarters where businesses remain open for Saturday and Madai generously offered to stop by a an Arabic pharmacy and fill my prescription on Saturday, before the late call (yes, the crew did break the Sabbath a little bit, but not by much. Madai himself came in during the day Saturday but merely made sure we didn't get ourselves into trouble. Laura had managed to get 95% of focus done before 6:00 the night before, so she spent the day futzing with cues until such time as we had enough crew to touch up the remaining focus). But, yeah, the Sabbath is taken seriously in Israel and especially in Jerusalem. The streets were practically deserted.

I'll wrap up this first half of the trip by saying that I spent my Friday night in Jerusalem hobbling through the Old City, and making my way to the Western Wall. The Western Wall plaza on Friday night is....ALIVE. Singing, dancing, etc etc. Though I'm Jewish, I'm a poorly educated Jew, so I don't claim to understand most of what was going on, but I said my prayers and left. I had dinner at the hotel, a Shabbat feast led by a Rabbi, as it would turn out. My next post will detail the hellacious escape from Israel and the great stops we had in Italy.

difficult 2-miler

2010-07-14T18:11:00.001-04:00

Intended 45 minutes of elliptical today, but screwed up: forgot shorts. Back to house - decide to run 2.

totally sucked. Humidity way too high for any evaporative cooling and I was oh so tight in IT bands and shins. Need to get my training back on track.

Video!

2010-07-12T21:51:00.005-04:00

My exercising now comes complete with video.

Me on stationary bike at the peak of workout. Is this what other people see and hear when I cough? Christ, that's awful.

Cut and pasted rants

2010-07-10T15:31:00.003-04:00

Running lately has not been often, but each one is going moderately well. yesterday's 2-miler went better than expected and I'm determined to do 4 tomorrow. It's time to start pre-training for the Staten Island Half; that is: get my body to being able to do 3 miles 3-4 x week easily. Also, time to get back to weights and stationary bike as cross-training. As much as I like the elliptical, Runner's magazine recommends non weight-bearing aerobic exercise as cross-training, to give the joints a break. The weights will be targeted for core strength, not mass.

So. I realized I often write some pretty good things in emails to other people or in forums. I've decided that now and then, I'll cut and paste those here; mostly for posterity, but also because I think the discussions they're culled from are quite thought-provoking. Over the next couple days, I'm going to write up my experiences touring Israel and Italy, using cut-and-pasted forum posts as a basis, but expanding them for this blog.

As a teaser to those, I here present a response I wrote to some complaining about the TSA. Enjoy.
---

On Jul 10, 2010, xxxx wrote:

They randomly choose people, so that the next 4 or 6 people quietly suffer the rest of the indignities, since they can see that you got it worse than them. It's job justification... "Look how hard we're working!" Next time this sort of thing happens, calmly ask them how many terrorists they have captured.
If you're really bold and can afford the time, hold up an ordinary Q-Tip and ask, in your best fake-stage-villain voice, "Did you know I could put your eye out with this? Mom said so." Your life should get more interesting, right after that.

Bullshit. Stop this. I expect better from professionals.

I'm no fan of the TSA - their workers are, as a group, lazy, undereducated, and don't care much about their job - only that they HAVE a job.

HOWEVER, without exception (in my personal observation across the country), these people do a mind-numbingly boring job with consistency, expediency, and are unfailingly polite. They do make mistakes now and then, such as missing the Leatherman I boarded my flight to SC with two weeks ago, but those are few and far between.

I can't explain the variability of "random" searches. At times, they're sticking to the script (supposed to be every 20 persons or so) and at other times (red-eye flights) are either hyper-vigilant, searching every other person, or are content to just screen for liquids and sharp objects. I've been told by the mean ones (in the holding area of the airport) that there are written procedures for everything and that's what they follow, even if it doesn't make sense to the worker on the line or the passenger. Those procedures include detailing the proportion of passengers selected for extra screening.

yyyyyy wrote:
Please do NOT crack jokes or "hold up a Q-tip" as XXX suggested. While airport screening in the United States is an ineffective joke intended to pacify worried passengers, the TSA screeners DO have authority to confiscate and detain, and mixing a wisecrack with a scolded inspector will delay your trip far worse than heavy weather at ORD or ATL.

Exactly. If you were a TSA screener, especially during busy, stressful periods and when your bosses have raised the alert level, how'd you like some smartass cracking jokes? Well, guess what? There's written procedures for these cases and you will end up in holding and you will miss your flight.

I write this to make two points:

A) If you want to change the system, do so from the top-end - get to the people who make the policies. Nothing you say or do at the airport will affect TSA policy or procedures and can only lead to further trouble for you. So keep your yap shut, put your laptop in the grey bin, and direct your hate at the idiot tourist types who show up in their pajamas and have a gallon of shampoo in their bags. But if enough citizens voiced their opinion, wrote to their congressmen, the president, the FAA, and Dep of Homeland Security; assuring them that we would accept increased risk in exchange for less invasive and more expedient measures, then those agencies would eventually listen. They do, after all, work for us, for our communal safety. ( I'd urge a boycott of airlines as a "stick" measure, but have learned that modern jetliners get better gas mileage than almost any vehicle on the road. The 767s I was on get 50+ miles per gallon!)

B) Next time you chafe at America's current form of air travel security, remember three things:
One, that security screenings existed well before 9/11, seeking to catch any explosives or other materials unsafe for air travel or obviously a weapon.
Two, hijacked aircraft were MORE prevalent before 9/11 - I remember a time when it seems like there was a hijacked aircraft every couple of months or so. Hijackings are DOWN.
And three, airport security in other countries is often far more stringent than America's. In my limited experience, it looks like most countries have followed the FAA and the TSA in establishing the basics, but often take restrictions and body/baggage searches to a much higher degree. I've already posted about my experiences with Israeli security, and Italian TSA pulled me right out of screening and all the way back to check-in because of my insulin pen needles. They wanted the gate agents written authorization to allow those on the flight -- and SHE wanted proof that I do, in fact, have a medical need for these items. She wanted a letter from my physician confirming diagnoses of diabetes and prescription of the needles. After a 10-minute Mexican standoff, she grudgingly satisfied herself that my multiple prescription labels (which I carried just in case something like this happened) were proof enough.

Some thoughts on health

2010-06-21T00:35:00.002-04:00

"May you live in interesting times," goes the old Chinese curse. It should be noted that this phrase's earliest appearance is in a 1950 sci-fi story. The Cold War was definitely an interesting time.

This post is not about yesterday's run, nor is it about tomorrow's. This post doesn't cover the mechanics of running, the psychology of exercise, or have any sweeping complex of metaphorical chutes and ladders expressing deep thoughts on life. This is just a few thoughts on health - mine, my family's, my friends'.

Tonight I attended Broadway Bares 20, a fundraising event started by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, which came into being for a very specific purpose and has since expanded its scope and mission to become an outreach program that helps over 400 smaller programs, somewhat like the United Way. It has not lost its focus, but in this decade where AIDS is now, largely, a manageable illness (given access to good healthcare and medicine!), BC/EFA has enlarged its embrace to tackle more problems.

And right now, RENT is on the TV. Deplorably, it suffers from its transition from stage to screen, even though the cast and the music is exactly the same. More importantly, it also suffers from the passage of time. It was written, remember, in 1994, a time before most of the drugs, a time when people were still dropping like flies. We'd only just figured out how AIDS was and was not transmitted, in fact. And Broadway Bares had been around for just four years. RENT has become a snapshot of an interesting time. Since then, we have made so much progress.

So what of it? Well, I see strange entanglements with many diseases; CF among them, of course. We, as a nation, have made so much progress in the last twenty years medically! CF is now talked of, in murmured conversations among older patients and some doctors, as a chronic but manageable illness. We don't yet say non-terminal, but...

Twenty years ago, the CF gene had just been found, giving rise to a lot of hopes for cures (which I won't comment on that topic right now). I was 18 and in my first year of college. My lung function was just over 100% and I had yet to experience a hospitalization (aside from the one when I was 4 before diagnosis) or a course of IV antibiotics. My few inhaled medications were purely maintenance. Pulmozyme, the Vest, aztreonam, and compounded TOBI did not exist. The grand CF drug pipeline did not exist. We have made so much progress.

It is hard though. The struggle against these permanent illnesses, the ones which will kill us, is never over, no matter how manageable they become. I can't really speak to the fight people w/ AIDS have to fight, though I imagine it is similar to the fight against any other terminal illness.

On a personal note, my health concerns came to the forefront recently - well, moreso than usual. I had been worried this trip overseas, being my first significant trip with diabetes, would result in out-of-control blood sugars or a massive lung infection (because of course I don't travel with the Vest). I was afraid that, as a litmus test, it would show that travel was not a good idea for me anymore. However, it was generally to the contrary. For the record, my lungs felt great the whole time and my cough was minimal. I didn't get out of breath moving road boxes or anything like that. My blood sugars remained in the low end of normal very steadily. All of my health problems receded.

Except for one. This new thing, this joint point, which is still not quite gone and which I know little about. This popped up the second day in Israel and made the entire trip one long miserable slog. I hate to say that because, sans joint pain, the trip was a wild success for me and I had a good time. I can travel with CF and I can travel with diabetes. No problem. But where did this joint paint come from and what the hell is it exactly??

My fear is that it is a new facet to my overall health picture. I know we all get a few problems as we get older, but I'm nowhere near old enough for something like this! To say the picture of my health has become interesting is to put it mildly.

And then there's my family. Mom on tomoxifin, dad on prednisone. They did nothing to deserve their health problems; like the rest of us, I suppose. But I don't know that so much progress has been made on the fronts they need as has been made with CF and AIDS. It seems unfair somehow. We've made so much progress...but not enough. On any front.

Jerusalem

2010-06-07T03:24:00.001-04:00

The below was written earlier than this posting and I have much to add since then and before, but don't have the time at the moment to go into a long, long blog post. I'll try to play catchup in a couple nights and split it up over several posts.

Jerusalem, Saturday June 5, 2010

Since last Monday, I have been suffering the effects of some as-yet undiagnosed affliction, which feels very much like what rheumatoid arthritis must feel like; or perhaps the flu but without the fever, chills, or cough. In fact, other than this persistent, awful pain in my joints, I feel great. My CF is under control, I've been doing the inhalation therapies, and my diabetes is also under good control. In fact, I use less insulin with the food here than back in the States.

So why do I feel like I've been beaten with all over with a steel pipe and left to die?

After enduring our first entire tour stop with this pain, I had had enough. Yesterday, just as lighting supervisor Laura Bickford was beginning focus, I went to a local hospital. Actually, not a full-blown hospital, more like an acute-care ward that is for stuff less urgent than an E.R., but for stuff which needs attention within a day, i.e. for shorter time frames than when you make appointments for stuff. Our translator, Machal, called it a "pre-hospital". (I will have to look more into these; sounds like something America could and should use.)

Anyway, there was an American-Israeli doctor there, Dr. Fred Carroll, from Philadelphia. He looked at me and also one of our company members who had sprained her ankled while teaching a class. Dr. Carroll couldn't make a diagnosis, but could rule out a bunch of things from the mostly-normal urinalysis and CBC panel. He put my fears of a parasite to rest, so what is going on is probably a bacterial infection of the connective tissues, I think. He prescribed a different anti-inflammatory, Etodolac, which our guide/translator recognizes and says is good for the chronic pains.

Now, I wish it were as simple as just going to get this filled and be done with it, but I guess things are never that simple. First of all, Dr. Carroll is concerned about one of the CBC results, an elevated creatinine level. He wants me to check in with my doctor before using the prescription. Problem is, my PCP, Dr. Horowitz, probably doesn't have any previous creatinine levels to compare to. Dr. DiMango does, I believe, and I've sent her an email and left a voice message. Unfortunately, my internet connection here is spotty, so I don't know yet if DiMango has answered.

That partly doesn't matter because by the time I'd gotten back to the theatre, helped finish focus, and asked about finding a pharmacy to get the scrip filled - they were all closed for Sabbath. Fucking great. Our host at the theatre, a technical director named Madai, graciously offered to try filling it at an Arabic pharmacy on his way to work Saturday morning, so I gave the scrip to him. I hope he is successful and that I can start on the Etodolac today, because my current pharmacological method of coping is 800mg of ibuprofen every 5-6 hrs, which surely will not be good for the kidneys. Come to think of it, that may be why my creatinine level is up!

I note that the admissions chart shows my pulse at 74 bp, temperature at 36.7C/98.1F, O2 sat 95% and BP 126/86.

Part of the problem with this pain is that I cannot exercise. Even walking is somewhat difficult, stairs much harder. Last night, with a little time off and with the rest of the crew doing their own thing (and probably not wanting to drag along the dead weight I represent right now), I walked through the Old City to the Western Wall. The Old City itself is beautiful, amazing, and frightening. It would be easy to get lost. It was, however, very clean; and I was surprised to find that it is still "just" a city - it is not government property, but mostly private and people live, shop, and go to school and work there just like anywhere else. It must be amazing for these privileged few to be able to settle in at night in a 500 year old (or 5000, I don't know) within pissing distance of the world's holiest of sites and relax to a nice evening of Seinfeld on the tube. Bizarre.

I should have expected to find the Western Wall more easily than I did, though I enjoyed meandering through the Christian and Armenian quarters as I wandered slowly downhill. It took me a while to cotton to the fact that I should just follow the orthodox jews that mostly seemed to be progressing in one direction. This was just after sunset, but not quite night, and so more and more people were streaming downwards toward one area. I began to hear fireworks and the sound of a large, jubilant crowd of people. Finally, I came around a corner, down some steps, past a very large Menorah (built and readied for the Third Temple whenever that happens) and beheld the Western Wall plaza - filled from corner to corner with a mass of Israelis celebrating the Sabbath. Towards the Western Wall itself, crowds of young girls and soldiers gave way to a black crush of uniformly dressed orthodox jews, many of them rabbis, no doubt. Here and there a more adventurous young man was pressed in among the black coats to pray at the wall.

Studying the situation, it became clear that there was a section of the Wall reserved for women and that among the men's section, most of it was for the more consistently faithful. However, there were parts where layfolk came and went on a circulating basis, to leave their prayers and give thanks to God.

I had my own prayers to leave. I'd written them on some paper in the hotel. I came down the last steps toward the guarded entrance to the plaza, where there are metal detectors. I found this somewhat odd, as easily half of the soldiers in the plaza and even some civilians were carrying rifles - nasty-looking modern weapons of war that mean business and convey the message that modern Judaism isn't going to take shit from everybody else anymore.

Entering through security, I was challenged by one of the guards. "Where are you from?" This was not a friendly query. "Brooklyn" I answered. It seemed to pass his test. Perhaps non-Jews are not allowed in the area? I didn't see anybody identifiably non-Jewish, though there were a few, like me, who were not well-equipped with their yarmulkes.

But this I could remedy - and must before approaching the Western Wall. They have cardboard yarmulkes ready, which I availed myself of, then entered the crush near the Wall.

I am unprepared, given my poor Jewish education, to say the proper prayers. Maybe that is not critical. I slowly moved through the crowed and when the opportunity came to touch the Wall, I did so, said a prayer the best I knew how, left my paper in the wall, and left.

The Sabbath really is a special time in Israel and especially Jerusalem. Best not to mess with it. I hope the presence of so many old men can whatever necessary mojo is needed to boost my written prayers to the ears of God. And no, none of them were for myself.

Tel Aviv run

2010-05-30T16:21:00.002-04:00

I managed to put in a 30 minute run today, though there were a lot of walking bits. I found it very hard to get going. It doesn't help that I was coming off a very long previous day of travel and didn't sleep well the night before. My right knee was killing me, probably from having twisted it while running around in the sand and surf nearby.

So today's run required the last of the Tylenol I brought with me. The fact that I forgot to stock up on the Tylenol 8-hour before leaving worries me.

I ran from my hotel, the Grand Beach, toward some distant power plant tower. It was quite a ways off and I think the total run was probably 2.25 miles or so. I'm not sure, because RunKeeper couldn't acquire GPS signal.

We're staying in the hotel beach district, which is pretty much like any hotel beach vacation area anywhere. The city reminds me at times of San Diego, Florida, and Las Vegas. I like the boardwalk, where I ran. It's clear that different stretches were put together by different organizations at different times, but it all flows together and is all in good repair. The public beaches are also very good, nicely maintained, with chairs and umbrellas and the like.

So after a very long day of travel that stretched from 3pm Friday to 3pm Saturday, with a plane that took off 3 hours late, today was a scheduled day off, which I think all of us crew really needed, to reorient ourselves. Tomorrow is load-in for our first stop. The schedule seems sane enough, with plenty of time to get the job done.

3rd annual IPF run-walk-hike, Central Park

2010-05-22T16:15:00.003-04:00

After a short run Thursday and half hour of elliptical Friday, I was primed to put in a longer run today. The IPF run I'd signed up for some weeks ago is an organized event, but does not break my "no racing for a year" vow - it was more like a guided activity. This was fine with me.

It was set to begin at a decent hour, 10, instead of the insanely early 7 a.m. of a certain other race (Brooklyn Half), so i was able to get up at 6:30, take my time leaving the house, and still got to Central Park by 9. I hopped off the subway at 59th and trotted up to 86th. I had worn the baby blue PF support shirt my parents had sent and was relieved to exchange it for a dark blue shirt, though the run shirt was also cotton and today was warm enough that tech material would have been more welcome. Still, it doesn't have a shriveled, blackened lung on the back, so its all good. (Not that I object outright to the shirt, mom, but...it's more than a little in-your-face in its message.) I used the baby blue one again after the run to change into, as I'd sweated through the dark blue one. :(

Anyway, the run itself was low-key. There were about 200 particpants, which is amazing, since this began two years ago with 25 people, according to the organizer Terrance Hale. His dad, a transplant recipient, was also there, looking hale and hearty. Neat. The event was split into a 5K run, a 1 mile walk, and a kids' hike over to Belvedere Castle and back. It felt nice to run again with a group of other people, especially as so many of them were my speed. It was nice to fall into a steadier, comfortable pace and even tackle a couple of hills. My first walk break came at Cat Hill. I walked more after that and was soon alone. I finished up, helped myself to an apple and water and left soon after, though I made sure to thank Terry for putting the event together.

Devil's Run

2010-05-02T13:58:00.003-04:00

What on earth possessed me to go a whole mile longer today than I did last weekend? And on a fairly hot day, too?

Let's start with a list of my mistakes, starting with the tex/mex cuisine Friday night. It was good, but bolloxed up my digestive system something fierce. So I didn't run Saturday - that made three days in a row without exercise. I wasn't feeling too hot this morning either, after a week of late nights and last night's sleep being poor due to a building alarm that went on all night. I kept my window closed, which made it too hot to sleep well. I wanted to be up at 7 and running by 9, but instead got up at 9 and finally made it out of the house by 11:25. I tried to go earlier, but... the thing is, I know my body. My morning BM comes in two waves, two hours apart. That's just how it is. I have learned that if I leave the house before the second wave, I better be going somewhere with a bathroom. There are no bathrooms on today's route - so waiting for a complete emptying is important to a successful run. Sorry to be gross, but that's the way it is. So I left the house at 11:25.

It was 80 degrees and about 55% humidity. Really close to my old go/no-go line, but I figured I could hack it if I slowed down. I just had no idea how slowed down that would wind up being.

In the time before I left the house, I somehow managed to do two stupid things: I failed to take an Endurolyte and I failed to mix up some HEED, so I attribute a rapid salt depletion during my run to how difficult the fourth, fifth, and sixth miles were. To my credit, I did have my homemade sushi last night - a pre-race meal that has always stood me well. Plenty of carbs, plenty of protein, plenty of salt intake. I had no GI troubles on the run; not that I usually do, but still, on a first hot run like this, the stomach is the first thing to revolt.

So it may be coincidence, it may be subtle psychological influences, but it often seems that the progress of my long run parallels the progress of Steve Runner's recorded run as I listen to his podcast. Today was the podcast of his running of the 114th Boston Marathon. This was not a good run for Steve. His GI troubles waylaid him and nearly took him out of the race. He was having trouble by mile 4. If it'd been me, I'd have DNF'd. No question. But Steve is a tough man, stubborn, and a highly experienced marathoner. He determined to finish the race, and he did, though over six hours. I know -- I KNOW that misery. I know the misery of having the sag wagon pass you. I know the misery of arriving at a finish line that isn't there anymore. I know the misery of a long, long run gone bad, but the shortest route home is to finish (Nashville, for me). But I also know that unique feeling of accomplishment - not just having finished, not just for having done it, but for having completed the mission when it seems like everything, including your body, is working against you. I know the feeling of being so grateful to the last few people still cheering you on, even after everyone else has gone home, because when THOSE people are encouraging you, telling you that you can do it!, it is at a time when you really need someone to tell you that, because late in a bad race, you begin to think maybe you can't do it.

Today I nearly cut the run short. And I know that would have been absolutely reasonable. I could have wrapped it up at mile 5, bought a cold Gatorade and relaxed a while, then strolled home when I was good and ready. But I don't call that stretch from Prospect Park to my house "dessert mile" for nothing. Being almost all downhill, it's hard not to go ahead and tack that 1.7 miles on. After all, there's always room for Jell-O! Which...is exactly what my legs felt like at the end of my run.

I chatted with my neighbor a bit while I stretched my calves, then did a good post-run routine, complete with Endurolyte, Recoverite, Hammer nutrition bar, cold-water bath (can't quite stand ice yet - this was a killer as it was), shower, and now--sodium naproxen and a short nap.

Oh, and why call it Devil's Run? Well, "my standard 6.7 mile loop up to Prospect Park, around, and home" is quite a mouthful. It came up on Facebook that two loops of Prospect Park is 6.66 miles and my up, around, and back run is just a hair longer. Besides, what else would you call a run that BEGINS with a mile of uphill, with 184 feet of elevation gain, includes another significant hill mid-run, and ends with going downhill that 184 feet on tired legs? In 80 degree heat? Sure, downhill is easier, but I'm aware some runners quads hate extended downhills. I don't have a problem with that, but I know it would be considered part of the challenge this late in a long run. So, now I have a new name: Devil's Run.

Can we prevent a world-wide depression?

2010-04-28T17:32:00.002-04:00

No talk of running in this post. Just some thoughts about where I see us going. If not interested in armchair crystal-ball-gazing, skip it.

This recession is not getting better, despite what few Wall Street indicators are ticking upwards. Real indicators - unemployment rates, housing starts, median incomes, income to debt ratios - are universally getting worse. It is not just a problem in America, it is world-wide. Have you read the newspapers lately? The financial parts and the world news parts? They look extremely similar and the outlook is bleak. In short, we are headed for a world-wide depression.

I'm not an economist, but the basics I was taught in college seem to be proving themselves correct as we watch the shenanigans of Wall Street bring down the global economic system. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, and Congress is surely getting pissed about what happened, but are doing and can do very little to prevent it all again. I have a solution: keep your bucks local. I'll come back to this in a minute.

Read the headlines again and realize that when the global economy tips, things are going to get very bad. How can we survive? Keep your bucks local.

Like a food chain, the linked economies of the world, from your local neighborhood all the way up to international financial empires, all derive from the power of the local dollar. You spend money. If that money is spent locally, it supports the local economy, which in turn supports you. If you buy something from a national or international corporation, you're supporting someone else's economy, not yours. Chances are, the jobs generated by those international companies are not in your community. And if they are, then your neighbors two towns over aren't getting the benefit.

Use your local banks. They do just as good a job at keeping your money safe, often have better customer service and a wider range of options. Use your local lending institutions where possible. Use your local hardware store and keep the money of its profits in the community, rather than the big box stores - which represent a net outflow of wealth from your community. Buy your clothes and toiletries at the small local shops, rather than the big box stores. Sure, the prices may be higher, but perhaps you'll learn how to take care of your clothes a little better and you'll benefit by keeping your bucks local.

Eat locally. You don't need to spend $5 for a Starbucks coffee fix and another $5 for one of their crappy pastries. Your money is going straight to the CEO's new Mercedes and fourth Malibu mansion (or whatever). But you can spend $2.50 at the sidewalk cart in the morning and walk away with an excellent cup of coffee and a muffin the size of your cat's head. And this money stays local. Don't buy those crappy pre-made "bagels" in the chain grocery store, but the fresh-made bagels from the corner store across the street, which, incidentally, will toast it for you, put a giant amount of cream cheese on it, and pair it with a large coffee. Lunch for three dollars. And the bucks stay local. That bodega owner takes his profits and hires the local painter to repaint his store. That local painter then hires you to do his taxes. Or whatever.

Some of it is karma, some of it is luck, but a lot of it is just willpower: willpower to keep the local economy revolving, willpower to pay a little more for some things, willpower to force the micro-economy to survive even in the face of a disintegrating - or rather transmogrifying - global power and economic structure.

Things are going to get worse - a lot worse I think - before they get better. But communities that band together and use each other's services will do better and recover more easily faster than communities that know only how to send their money outwards.

ONE MINUTE. GO.

2010-04-27T17:55:00.009-04:00

It is not in my favor, but I have embraced the social networking of Facebook. It has proven to be a nice tool for staying in touch with people I never talk on the phone with (old school compatriots, sister, etc), adding a more social dimension to some of my work relationships (which helps us define each other as more than just "that asshole who screws up our shows"), and making tenuous re-connections with people I used to be intimate with and whom I'm interested in keeping tabs on but without the intimacy. Facebook makes that viable in ways never before possible.

It is also a nice place to fart around when I need some downtime.

To wit: while sick, under-employed, or both, I like to play Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook. Some days: I'm not so good, others: I get lucky. And right about now, you're wondering what the hell an online flash game that encourages sedentariousness...uh, sedementation... uh... sitting on your ass has to do with running? Well, it comes down to how the game starts: One minute. GO.

This short phrase is delivered in a deep, even, almost forbidding masculine voice. There is no warmup. You have a set amount of time and you work as fast as your mouse hand and brain can to achieve the best score possible. There are bonuses to work toward and pitfalls to avoid. Along the way, this same voice gives encouragement in the same even, emotionally distant tone: "Good." "Fantastic." "Blazing speed." "A new high score."

There are no exclamation points.

Today's run was very much like playing Bejeweled Blitz. Oh, it started out normally enough - stepping out the door in my spring/summer running garb. Start iPod on Pheddipidations, start up RunKeeper, wait for signal to acquire while doing high knees and waiting for the light to change, then when all is ready, hit the big green button and listen to the female voice say Activity started while hitching my giddyup to a slow trot (or a fast trot if a car is trying to turn left in the same volume I'm occupying).

But today was different. The wind was angry today, my friends! And I knew, five steps in, that this run was going to be a test of a different nature.

I immediately ditched my plans of a 2.25 mile jog, as there was no way I would stay warm enough on my route. I was underdressed. Also, by the time I was up the next block (an uphill segment) and turning onto the new sidewalk next to the cemetary, I could feel my lungs were working better than in many, many months. My legs weren't as fatigued, either. Good, I heard in my head.

But could I keep this going? Could I make it up to the next turn without dropping to a walk? Amazing, I did. Surely I would have to walk up to where the buses turn into their depot, wouldn't I? But it was cold and even windier in the shade of the MTA bus maintenance depot and I kept jogging. It is a medium steep uphill, so my speed dropped, but I did not walk. Fantastic.

I reached the half-mile point - a concrete post painted bright yellow so the myopic bus drivers don't plow into the 14 foot green fence next to it - and turned around. Now it turned into a downhill run the rest of the way except for a two block uphill segment. I think I could manage to not walk any of it, but was already feeling tired. I have lost so much fitness!

I did have to pause maybe 15 or 20 seconds for traffic before getting back on the sidewalk next to the cemetary and maybe that helped keep me from walking any of the rest of it. My pace was good and strong on this return journey, I felt good. I was even breathing a two-two rhythm when needed. Without coughing! Blazing Speed.

I made the final turn, with one long block left to go, dodged three dog walkers, and finally made it to the end of my one mile continuous run. I almost couldn't believe it! I haven't run a continuous mile like this - at the beginning of a run - in over a year; maybe two. I've had other continuous miles - few and far between - like the last mile of last weekend's long run. That was good, but understandable since I was well warmed up and it was all flat and downhill. But the first mile? I honestly cannot remember the last run that started this way. It also happens to be the fastest mile since I began using RunKeeper, as far as I can tell. A NEW HIGH SCORE. Yay, me.

I'm going to go out again tomorrow - this time I'll dress appropriately and will concentrate on a loop of the cemetary, 3-plus miles, almost four. There will be walking, but maybe I can keep it to a minimum. Maybe I can do it a little quicker than usual.

Great LSD on a sunny Saturday

2010-04-24T17:10:00.002-04:00

Exhausting, unhappy week behind me. Slept in the morning and got up when I felt like it. A couple hours later, I got out for my run. I intended to go five, but with the route I planned being 4.5, would probably just end there (at the grocery). Would be happy getting to 4 without drama.

The first mile was tough. I didn't drink last night, but felt hungover anyway. Very tired, very slow. Maybe it was that I got warmed up or the advil was kicking in, but during mile two I started to feel better. Getting into the park was great - everybody was out there and getting some sun and exercise. This is the nice side of New York and it's been a long time since I enjoyed that! The park looked so beautiful and it was neat seeing all the little babies in strollers and on leashes toddling around. Even though the loop was quite congested, for some reason the dodge-the-other-people game didn't get frustrating or difficult, didn't turn into dodge-the-damn-idiots game. :)

And man what a perfect day for a run! 70 degrees, sunny, light breeze. My sunlight-starved body appreciated being out there. I took off my shirt at the top of the slope, a mile into my run, and tucked it into my waistband. Like a hungry solar cell, my skin was just gulping in the photonic Vitamin D. Maybe that's what made me feel better soon after?

Everything about the rest of the run was so familiar, so comforting. It was nice to feel my body responding a little better than I'd predicted; nice to feel my legs working and not getting too fatigued too fast. Nice to feel the sweat and the slow build-up of salt on my arms and legs. Nice to feel the weight of my iphone and folded up shirt bobbing on my waistband. Nice to return a stray soccer ball with a little sideways kick; nice to smell the cookouts; nice to hear people laughing instead of grumbling or cursing. Nice to hear the different music being played on radios or snatches of the Mets game. Nice to hear the slap-slap-slap of my feet on the pavement; so very nice to hear the hu-hu-wh-wh-wh of my pursed-lip 2-in-3-out breathing pattern.

I didn't think about much on this run. I have a lot to do with weekend, but am happy putting my run first and waiting for tomorrow's rain for anything involving my desk or my computer. I did have a random thought, though, that so much of what people use religion for is not necessarily a direct derivative of religion. For instance, spirituality can be had without subscribing to any particular religion, or even believing in God. It may not be the same kind of spirituality that the Orthodox Jew or the devout Catholic next door have, but it can be had nonetheless. And since it is not a proscribed spirituality, it may, ultimately, be a more meaningful spirituality.

Similarly, morality is not somethign that requires religion in order to exist, to be held as a value, to be acted upon. Morality is quite a separate thing and can be derived from our inherent sense of right and wrong; and refined by the teaching of our parents and mentors. While some people choose to use priests and the church as one of those teachers, and to use the religious texts as their blueprint to their morality, the result is still very individualized, as far as I can tell, and always a derivative of the prime example being followed.

So perhaps this explains why some people have high moral standards or are quite spiritual yet have no ties to organized religion. This suits me fine, actually. I wish I knew more about these subjects, because I suspect that this line of thinking has already been well hashed out somewhere and has some kind of label. Is this what it means to be Humanist? Uh.... paging Lisa Simpson....

So my run went. I had an amazing long, continuous section of running once I reached the top of the big hill in the Prospect Park all the way down to the grocery. Not fast, but the kind of continuity I'm looking for more of. Just as I was exiting the park, RunKeeper announced I'd hit mile 5. Really? Then I realized that it was right, that my math of the intended route had been wrong. Well...I was already moving and moving well, and since it was downhill, I'd just keep going 'til I had to stop for a light or hit Chase, where I needed to get some cash - so half a mile later there I was - a 5.48 mile run for the day. Completely unexpected going that long and a nice surprise that I could even do it without collapsing. Still, I recognized that I probably should have taken more than a bottle of water with me. This run should have had some HEED in it.

2010 turning out less than stellar

2010-04-20T18:52:00.002-04:00

WTF, 2010?? You were supposed to be better than this! You were supposed to by the antonym of 2009. You were supposed to be the light at the end of the tunnel, the pineapple upside down cake at the end of the bad Chinese food, the money shot year at the end of the decade of amputee porn . You were supposed to be everything 2009 was not: cleaner air, more work, better health, and - quite significantly - less death.

But you're letting me down, 2010. You're not even in full spring yet and you're becoming a very disappointing year. You're the son I want to disown, the tenant I want to evict, the pet I want to put down. By February, I could not have been more disappointed in you, I thought, yet daily you continue to astound me with the amount of fail and suck that you embody.

Need you ask why? You know why. I don't think I need to list all of your minor failings, the ones that everybody are shaking their heads in shame about. The piss-poor winter weather that followed no known approved Winter plan, the complete suckage in movie offerings, pinacled by the most expensive movie ever that turned out to be a rather dull tale of Smurfs and Marines. Or how about the continuing job losses, the blows to the local economy that's keeping any of us from recovering, the wholesale erasure of Poland's rulers, or the damn volcano that's bankrupting the world's airlines, again?

Oh, to be sure, you sometimes have grudgingly offered up a ray of hope. Sometimes I think maybe you might turn out OK. Such as today's run:

This was pretty good. But let's be honest; this was more me, than you, wasn't it, 2010? I'm the one doing IVs and Prednisone and suffering the jimmy-legs in order to obtain, what?, a faster pace by 15 seconds?

No, 2010, your failures are resounding. From divorces to closed theatres, from shitty tenants to a shittier Department of Buildings, you seem to excel at failing. Worst of all is that you seem to delight in jerking me around, giving with one hand and taking away with the other. For instance, you held off on the lung infection 'til mid-March, but then give me incompetent home nurses, limited doses of IV antibiotics because of renal function dangers, and - the cherry on this particular cake - my first-ever yeast infection on my fucking lips that made little kids on the subway cry!

And it gets much worse, don't deny it! Just how many of my friends are you going to kill this year, hm? Last night I find out one fellow CF warrior fell, then mere minutes later found out another one, this time an actual friend, Mike Laird, also passed away. Back in November 2009, you promised me you'd do better. Your whole campaign was run on the promises of less death and more work. Well...I'm still looking for more work and you keep killing people. Just now I found out that my neighbor Tony, a fine man of 76 years, passed away just after Easter. I really liked that guy, asshole! Who's next? The Fat Man? Oh, you'd just love to break some more hearts, wouldn't you?

I'm sick of this. I'm going to give you one more chance, 2010. I'm well aware you have more shit lined up, such as the end of the entire shuttle program - and with it the space age, at least in my lifetime. I'll let you share the blame on that one with years 2004-2009. But seriously, if you can't shape up, if you blow it, then I'm moving on. I'll start ignoring the very fact that you're running your course and instead start putting my stock in 2011. 2011 may not be looking too pretty, but at least it doesn't have a fucking rap sheet! Oh, and in case you're wondering, it's not me, it's you.

(Read this as Baby New Year instead of Cupid, m'kay?)

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

3.7 mile cemetary run

2010-04-18T17:40:00.001-04:00

Not bad. Pleased I went; feeling tired, but pretty good. My fitness is way down from what it used to be. Long way to go, but with my lungs finally feeling better, I can see me getting better at this eventually.

Mellow 2.2 miles

2010-04-17T16:26:00.002-04:00

Feeling pretty good today after a night of drinking. I didn't mean to drink so much, but we were having a good time and before I knew it, the bar staff was turning on the lights and putting chairs on tables. WTF?? I couldn't believe how late it was! Woke up feeling GREAT this morning!

After some breathing treatment and tea, I got out in the cloudy chill (50 degrees) with the hybrid running outfit - winter up top, summer on the bottom. :)

Not a bad run, really. Slow first mile, of course, but better than I thought it would be and the second mile was really nice. Again, I was able in the last half mile to keep running at a slow pace where I'd have been walking a couple weeks ago. I'd like to keep this up and extend up on it - probably extend my distance. Maybe tomorrow, I'll go all the way around the cemetary. 4 miles seems like a long, long way right now!

Another rock near another hard place

2010-04-07T12:49:00.002-04:00

I have a new dimension to my continuously-expanding structure of CF care: yeast infection.

For the last five days, I've had very sore, cracked upper lip and roof of my mouth. At first I thought it was inflammation in reaction to one of my antibiotics, and that's what my doctor was afraid of, too. My upper lip felt and acted very much like a rapidly chapped lip - but this problem is localized, it's not over my whole mouth. So WTF?

After seeing a dermatologist yesterday, I now know that I'm dealing with a yeast infection. Now, yeast infections are nothing new. Anyone with athlete's foot, jock itch, or another feminine problem knows all about this. In fact, I've come to accept that one of the side effects of going on antibiotics is that I end up my mild jock-itch, easily taken care of with routine applications of Lotrimin. After the initial burning, it yields to a gentle warmth in the crotchal region and really keeps the itching at bay. Paired with a lighter, it also doubles as a handy method of killing zombies. A couple weeks after antibiotics, the jock itch will go away completely.

But I digress. Thrush is also a known problem when people go on antibiotics, so it surprises me that I didn't make the connection between my lip and mouth problems and yeast.

I've got some medicine now which, if nothing else, seems to numb the affected areas for awhile, but it will probably take a while to really work. In the meantime, eating is fairly painful and I've started choosing soft foods or letting things like cereal really sit in milk before eating. Even still, my mouth ends up quite sore. I never would have thought that my CF would affect what I can physically shove down my gullet.

Bunny Hop

2010-04-04T16:15:00.003-04:00

Oh, what a difference a day makes.

If the Turkey Trot is the gateway to the winter running season, then surely the Bunny Hop, the Easter run, is the throwing open of the doors of the summer running season. In honor of the masses hitting the streets - and in deference to my own health - I went out for another run today. Been a long time since I ran two days in a row.

It wasn't a long run, but it was of significantly better quality than yesterday's. The weather was a major change and I can't tell if it helped or hurt. I wasn't cold, there wasn't any wind to speak of. On the other hand, I was overheating in mid-70s temperatures. In the middle of the first mile, I peeled my shirt off and that felt really, really good. (It's probably a good thing I didn't plan to go long, as I would have sunburned quickly, I think. My tan from last year is so gone that the paint manufacturers are using my belly as "reference white".)

After the first mile, instead of simply turning around, I trotted over another block, consciously extending my run; maybe making up a little for yesterday's shortage. I stopped quickly to buy a water. The look of bemusement and horror the other bodega patrons had as this sweaty, smelly, unshaven, shirtless, ugly, arm-wrapped runner stepped into the store and frantically looked for water was priceless. (Arm-wrapped: I keep my PICC line site and tubing concealed underneath a cut-off sock cuff at these times.)

The trot home was better than the trot out, since most of it was downhill, but I still had to take several walking breaks. I was not only trying to catch my breath, but also trying to take in some water. After my iPhone announced I'd crossed the two-mile mark, I strove to keep my legs moving and put in a good finish and almost managed a 10 minute pace for the last third of a mile.

After the run, I had to hook up immediately to meropenem to stay on schedule. When this is done, I need to take a quick shower to get the salt off, then go pick up laundry and some groceries. Got to finish grading midterms tonight and prepare for tomorrow's classes. Tomorrow will be a very busy day for me.

High Five!

2010-04-03T13:18:00.004-04:00

I'm experiencing something new that hasn't happened on IVs before. My mouth and lips are incredibly sensitive. They feel chapped or injured. My lips feel like they're cracking though they're not. Edges of spoons feel like razors and hot liquids are intolerable. I don't know if this is a component of the Vancomycin reaction or an effect of the Benadryl used to counter the Vanco.
As for that particular reaction, I am desensitzing to the Vanco, I think. This morning I took only one Benadryl and though I slept through administering the dose, I don't recall getting the level of itchiness I would have expected. I'll do the same tonight, and then try going without Bendadryl completely tomorrow.

I've got class to teach this upcoming week and am trying to nudge my IV schedule to match up with that. I've also got all kinds of rehearsals to attend, too. Dance concert coming up shortly. Oh, well. We don't get to pick and choose when we get sick or when we need treatment.

So my run today was my first in a week. I can't believe how fast a week can go by when you don't feel good. Or even if you do! This run was brutal. Honestly, I only have runs this hard, this bad, a few times a year. The high winds didn't help, but more than that - I'm just out of shape. I am getting to be what they call "skinny fat". I can't go lift when there's a PICC in my arm, so that's out. I've got to get more exercise in and stop being so lazy about it.

I couldn't quite make it to my intended turnaround point today (though it was in sight about a half mile further along) and I didn't make it to my intended ending point, calling it quits a few blocks short. Still, the iPhone says I went more than two miles. I can certainly believe the slow pace it tells me! I walked large parts of this one. And the cooldown walk home didn't slow my breathing or heart rate any. It took about twenty minutes at home to get my heart rate under 90. I was also dealing with dry heaves. :( But it was bright and sunny and, in the wind-shadow of buildings, warm. And after the cold, grey days of late, that was awesome.

And I had a moment with a fellow runner. Now, I'd chosen a route that most runners simply don't follow - out along 2nd ave in the warehouse district between me and Lutheran hospital. I've written of this route before, with its run-down warehouses, broken sidewalks, even worse streets lined with old railroad tracks, and trash everywhere. But its about the only flat route I've got and I needed that change of pace. Seeing another runner out there is very rare - people usually stick to 5th ave, Greenwood Cemetery loop, or Prospect Park. So I'd already stopped my run and was walking home and just passing Costco when another runner came toward me wearing a very recognizable t-shirt - one from the Healthy Kidney 10K, which I've run many times. This guy looked comfortable and trotted along at about a 9:30 pace I guess.

We passed before I crossed the street, as he was crossing in between cars. On impulse, I threw up my right hand in the universal gesture for "hi five!" It took him a moment to recognize it, but then managed to get his own arm up in time for a messy hi-five. I heard him laugh as he continued on. And I walked home smiling, despite how bad my run went.

There's been so many times I've wanted to hi-five other runners. It's OK if you're cheering along a race route, but out on the road it may be weird. On the other hand - maybe we really do need to encourage each other during these unexpected encounters. It's a little recognition that someone else knows what you're going through, and thinks you're brilliant just for getting out there. It's a sign that we are not alone in a sport that is essentially the antithesis of team sports. That little bit of recognition and camaraderie goes a long way with me; I'm sure it resonates with others, too.

So if you're reading this, and you're a runner, and you got in your weekend workout on this blustery day, consider yourself hi-fived!

Feeling better

2010-04-02T13:00:00.005-04:00

So I'm on my 2nd day of IVs. I'm feeling a lot better today than I was yesterday at this time: you could have run me over with a city bus and I'd have felt no worse. It was all the aches, pains, and fatigue of the flu without the fever or chills. But today, I'm about halfway back to where I want/need to be for right functioning.

I don't know why the first day knocked me down so badly. I've had all three of these medications before by IV. I've had the Benadryl before, too. But I was just so out of it. Except for breaks to start and stop my IVs, I slept 'til 3 o'clock yesterday! Today, I stayed awake through the morning IVs, lounging in bed watching episodes of Modern Family on Hulu.com. I'm kind of getting going now and it's almost 1 p.m. Well, better than yesterday I guess.

I'm still not going for a run, despite the beautful weather. Experience has taught me that until my PICC site feels "fine" again, the periodic swing of my arm as I run will only aggravate the site. Hopefully, I'll be ready to run tomorrow and that my PICC site will be a lot less tender. I'm getting some flexibility and usefulness out of that arm now anyway, so I have high hopes.

Coram called this morning, in the middle of my IVs and while I was making a string of phone calls to help facilitate a large donation to the Boomer Esiason Foundation. Coram wanted money. I can't blame them. I automatically put their statement aside until several months have passed from the dates of service, because it takes that long for them and insurance to agree to what I actually owe. I checked my bank account and was able to pay what I owe Coram in full. Well, there goes any hope I had of going to the movies anytime soon. Still, it feels good to get that bill off the table.

Another thing that gives me hope: as I wrap up my taxes, some of what I have to add up for the past year includes mortgage interest. My taxes got a little more complicated this year because I refinanced from a 10/30 interest-only ARM to a 30-year fixed, standard. As I punched numbers in from my statements to my financial software (I know, I know - I should have done that months ago!) I was pleasantly surprised. Whereas before I was paying a flat amount towards principal every month and paying X amount in interest, now I'm paying 10% more toward principal every month than I was, while paying significantly reduced interest - to the tune of a total monthly payment that is $500 less than what I was paying before. Each month I can see the numbers change: principal payment slightly higher, interest paid slightly lower. Very gratifying. Now if energy bills weren't so freakin' high, I might actually feel like I'm getting ahead.

A few things to chase down on Monday, since my primary doctor's office is closed 'til then (Happy Passover guys and gals!). I need to renew my referral to my CF specialist and I need to see the doc or a specialist about my nosebleeds. I went all winter w/out a single nosebleed and now I have blood gushing out my nose every time I cough hard and it takes 20 - 45 minutes to stop. That can't be normal. It makes me suppress my cough and that's not good, either.

PICC line in

2010-03-31T21:01:00.003-04:00

I am a pretty princess.

Okay, not really. I am gowned and all ready for PICC placement. I was gowned and ready for close to four hours because the doctor was really, really late. However, I can forgive that, as he was super fast and super efficient placing the PICC. It was literally a five minute process by the time he got started.

The problem with processes like this is that while the actual procedure is fairly straightforward and uncomplicated and often quick, there's a lot of BS surrounding it and leading up to it. I had to be at the hospital by 9 for check-in and have my vitals taken and all that. I had to do the full gown thing, even though it's a waste of time taking one's pants off for a PICC line. They also wouldn't let me keep my cellphone either, which proved to be quite unfortunate when the doctor was running late. Next time, I'll make more of a fuss about what is and isn't reasonable for a PICC line procedure.

I had to have blood drawn because apparently the results from my blood draw two days ago hadn't been faxed over to the hospital. And, of course, the staff keyed in on my diabetes right away, so they had to do a blood glucose test (124, a little high). THEN I had a two hour wait while the coagulant test did its thing. (At least, they tell me that's what the wait is for.)

Finally, about 12:30, the doctor arrived and the nurses started to prep me and the local area with all the needed equipment.

I had a guy named Dr. Huntz Liu, a very professional, nice guy about my age. As he was running late, he got right to work. (I noticed he didn't apologize for keeping everybody held up, nor did he take time on pleasantries after the procedure, but scooted off elsewhere.) I did take a moment to explain to him that while I would prefer my left arm be used, it may be difficult due to scarring from previous PICC lines. I do most things needing strength with my right arm, so it is more natural and easier for me to have the PICC-handicapped arm be the left one. I also want to sort of reserve my right arm as scar-free territory for when it is really needed and there's no other options left. I explained all this to him and then allowed that if he had trouble placing the PICC in the left, he had permission to switch to the right arm. I didn't want to be stuck too many times, nor did I want to be there all day for multiple insertion attempts. The doctor suggested we could try placing another IV - a peripheral - and using that to inject contrast so he could visualize my vein better than he can with ultrasound. Hell yeah! And why hasn't that ever been suggested before?

So after getting strapped to the procedure table and all wired up with heart and pulse ox monitors, and having my arm strapped to a board to my left, the nurse quickly placed the peripheral. I was draped and tucked and generally feeling a lot like more major surgery than this really is, but I know it's all precautions against infection.

When everything was truly prepped, the doctor did his thing. I felt two stings of lidocaine and a few seconds later the doc says, "Ok, a little pressure now" and that's literally all I felt as he put the introducer in. (Introducers are big - and they hurt like hell if you're not numbed up.) He must have evaluated the vein w/ the contrast medium (there's a continuous x-ray going on) and knew exactly where he was going, because one stick was all it took. He VERY quickly threaded the catheter in. This I could feel. It is not painful, just uncomfortable and I'm glad he made short work of it. By the point where other practitioners would be starting to feed the catheter in, he'd already pulled the guide wire, verified placement on the x-ray monitors, and was stitching the base to my skin. Less than a minute later, he pulled the sterile drapes off from around the site; the nurses dressed it, including a new little antibiotic pad I haven't seen before, pulled out the peripheral, and I was on my way out of the room and out of the hospital.

This was VERY neatly done. As far as I can tell, no blood spillage; extremely quick; the dressing is about perfect, and I have a lot less of the residual soreness I'm used to feeling.

Still, I'm very tired. And after having had only one cup of coffee all day (after the procedure - can't eat or drink before it), I have a medium sized headache. I'm now waiting for the home nurse to come so I can do my first doses of my antibiotics: meropenem, tobramycin, and vancomycin. She has to add an extension to that little part dangling down in the picture; and somebody needs to be around while I do the vanco. Despite the Benadryl I'm about to take, I will have a reacting, and she'll need to be on hand to ... I don't know, call an ambulance or something if it gets too severe. Wish me luck!

One last thing: I grabbed that coffee and a muffin at the Dunkin Donuts near the hospital, right after I walked out. Having to dose for the carbs, I found a corner for some privacy, but there was someone else already there. He seemed interested. Turns out his little brother has been using insulin for many years. We talked a little about diabetes and diet and then topics turned to the MTA, Bloomberg, and the like. We must have talked like that for half an hour. It was nice, but ended with me excusing myself for a coughing fit.

fresh air; fresh start; fresh run

2010-03-28T16:24:00.002-04:00

Two miles this afternoon. Slept 11 hours last night, still tired. Got out for a run while it was still raining, cold, and windy.

Not the fastest I've ever done this two-mile route, but it was good to be out. Halfway through the run, like literally at my turnaround point, the wind died away, the rain stopped, and the sun came out, all in about four minutes. All of a sudden I went from being underdressed for the run to overdressed. Weird.

Fighting the lungs. Legs stiff, too. But right now, during this short post-run grace period, I feel really good. This is my reward. I'm going to go get some coffee and muffin while the sun is still out. I've been working on cleaning off my desk, which is generally a depressing slog through old paperwork, old bills, and piled up medical statements. I have tons to get done tomorrw and Tuesday and would love to start the week with a clean house and clean desk.

catching up

2010-03-27T18:15:00.004-04:00

Well, been a while since my last post. I'll warn you: this post is long.

Part I: my last run.

A week ago, I did a four mile run down to Ft Hamilton park. This was my first time taking 5th avenue, instead of 4th, and I almost regret it. If you'll recall, the day was beautiful, warm, and sunny. Everybody was out enjoying the sunshine and taking up room on the sidewalks. And 5th ave is all sidewalk - filled with busy businesses all the way down. So the whole run turned into a game of dodging pedestrians or traffic. Fuck me. I don't usually enjoy thsi game, but at least I kept my temper. I wanted to shout and scream and tell these idiots to get the fuck off the sidewalk with their ten-person families and three strollers and snail's pace walking. I wanted to suggest forcefully that if you have to stop and talk to your friend, that you do so to one side of the sidewalk, out of the goddamn way. But I didn't. I kept my calm, concentrated on getting some miles in, and chalked everybody else's rudeness and stupidity up to them being fat, lazy, stupid Americans. Except that a good portion of them aren't fat, lazy, stupid Americans, they're actually fat, lazy, stupid immigrants. OK, I shouldn't be calling anybody fat, lazy, and stupid when I don't know them personally, but it helps me keep my temper.

The run itself was better than I thought, overall. The first part was all uphill - a gentle mile-long rise that I thought was going to kill me. The short breaks afforded by waiting for traffic generally meant I could keep my walking breaks short. And by the end of the run - a mile-long downhill slope with less pedestrian traffic, my overall pace was really very good. There were times I was traveling better than 9:30 per mile and my run ended up averaging just a little over 12 per mile. I was shocked, really. I need more good runs like that.

I also had no pain. Perhaps it helped that I had taken some Tylenol, but there were no shin splints or anything. Nice to run without pain!

Part 2: exhaustion.

So why haven't I run in a week? Well, to be honest, work has caught up with me. I got called in to a local design-build firm that does a lot of display work for NY stores and public art projects. Interesting work and my part was to help produce some renderings for an overseas project. So I worked a solid 40-hour work week, even taking into account leaving early Thursday for a doctor's appointment. In addition to work, I had the appointment to take care of plus two nights of teaching. So by last night I was dog-tired. I went to bed just before midnight and didn't wake up even to go pee. I slept 12 hours. And I still feel tired. So I'll be in bed early tonight again and hopefully make tomorrow more productive than today has been. That should include putting in a run, cleaning the house apartment, and clearing my desk of a pile of receipts.

As tired as I was, I need more weeks like this, where I'm fully employed and earning what I'm worth. Thursday was a $500 day, part of that earned for rendering, part of that for teaching. I wish I made that a lot more often! Well, I'm off Monday from all work and am filling it up with other appointments, such as eye doctor (can you believe I haven't been to the eye doctor in five years??) - and then it's back to work Tuesday, though the work is more holding-the-fort while the company regulars are out of town than it is using my special skills. I'm not complaining! LOL

Part 3: Health.

One of the appointments I need to make - and hopefully actually see the doc before going to Israel - is my diabetes appointment. I thought I had one in April, but can't find it on the calendar. At this point, I've been upping my Lantus dosing on my own, in order to keep my blood sugar under control. I'm not sending in sheets weekly to the diabetes center, so we're not in constant contact. I *am* tracking what I eat, all my carbs, all my medicine, and testing BG several times a day - so I'm on top of it; just not the way my center wants, and I know I'll hear it from them. Perhaps I can work out a compromise and send them screenshots of my tracking charts weekly.

Anyway, it's funny how often diabetes comes up these days and funny how people just don't seem to notice when I'm testing or injecting. Is it so common?

I was watching this show on ABC: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. I was simultaneously grossed out, fascinated, horrified, and enamored (of the host). (Go watch the video at the link...) This Brit is stunned by how badly British and Americans eat. He's not trying to bring gourmet food to Americans, he's trying to get them to put down the processed foods and reach for ... well, simple, whole foods. The very kinds of things I prefer eating.

One segment showed a Southern family (typical, I'm sure) at the doctors'. The pediatrician was examining the 6th grader - the 250 pound 6th grader. He pointed out the signs he sees of impending diabetes. They tested his HbA1C and he's not diabetic yet, but the doc told the parents that with their family history, their current lifestyle, and the signs of excess insulin production he sees in their kid, that he's almost certainly going to become diabetic. He then outlined the effects of diabetes and the possibilities of blindness, heart disease, kidney failure, and death. I was... well, I've never heard it put so bluntly. "Diabetes is fatal," he said. True, if not treated. With treatment... maybe not. I know some who have avoided even minor complications and have had good control for fifty years. But... how is it my CF doesn't scare me that much anymore, but diabetes is starting to, now that I've had it for a year? Is it because the animal in me is realizing this is something that's not going to go away?

So my health is not great right now. I'm been worse, but I've also been a lot better. I've been on oral antibiotics for two weeks. For the first few days, they seemed to have great effect, but I have returned to frequent productive coughing and having less energy than normal. My PFTs are exactly what they were two weeks ago. My weight is good, though: 128.6. I'm just a pound and a half from weighing as much as I ever have! And believe it or not, some of it is fat! :D

So we're getting the process going of getting me on IVs. Part of Monday's task list is to get my primary on the line so I can get a referral for a PICC line. I don't understand why this process is so fucking complicated and drawn out. I've been told by Tricare that my specialist can request this and have approval within a day - why is her office so stupid and slow about this? Why must I get my primary's office involved? So first thing I'll do is get on the phone with Tricare and get the procedure straightened out! Hopefully by Wednesday I'll be getting the PICC. My doc offered to have me admitted to the hospital and spend a few days there and get the PICC there right away and while that is an option, it is not one I want to use until absolutely necessary. Even one night in the hospital is horribly expensive and I don't see a clear benefit to speeding this process up by a couple days, especially given that I'll be isolated and damn near starve to death on that hospital's food!

So, yeah, I'm going on IVs again, that's all I'm saying. The timing is good. If I'm on the IVs three or four weeks, I still have a month after that before going to Israel and my experience is that I need that recovery time. Hm. It's been four months since the last round. Not bad. Not great, but not bad.

Part 4: Healthcare.

I see a lot of vehement arguing about the healthcare bill and a lot of frankly crude reaction. What I don't see is a lot of intelligent discussion. Politicians use scare tactics baldly. So do campaigning patients and doctors - on both sides. Now that the bill is passed, people continue to scream and shout.

I will say upfront that I have not read the healthcare bill. I've reviewed some articles in the New York Times and on the Wall Street Journal that sum up key points; that's about it. I also don't know exactly how to feel about this bill.

What I do know is that I am tired of the illogical and invalid rhetoric spouted by both sides. Let's get a few things clear: The sky is not falling. This is not communism; it's not even socialism. This is not free health care. It *is* a requirement for more Americans to get insured, balanced with the government's help in obtaining that insurance, where necessary. This is not going to be easy; change never is. It is not going to be smooth; change never is. But with more people *insured*, we should see fewer uninsured people getting healthcare in emergency rooms, with the taxpayer picking up that bill. We should see a shift where the ER is used for actual emergencies (!) more than not and preventative care being more attended to, which may ease how many costly surgeries and medicines people and insurance companies pay for later. I can't say for sure if these things will come to pass or not. But my point is that, *neither can the politicians*. All the people who stand up and say, "this healthcare bill WILL result in..." are just spouting bullshit. They can't know! There's a lot of "might" and "maybe". There's some "probably" and "possibly". That's all. If the rhetoric were more reasonable, I might be willing to listen or even get involved myself.

Happy first D-day to me

2010-03-13T21:44:00.004-05:00

I guess I can blow out the candle, but I'll pass on the cupcake.

A year ago today, I had the first clinical indications of my diabetes, in the form of high BG readings in routine pre-IV bloodwork. I have to say that I think I have handled it well and have made the adjustment masterfully. It helps that being overweight is not a part of the problem, as it is with so many other diabetics, and that I was already quite active, so I didn't have to start an exercise habit that was brand new. And, too, I was already used to daily therapy regimines; so adding a little more wasn't too burdensome. I basically just had to start counting carbs, checking blood sugar, injecting insulin, and avoiding mega-doses of sugar.

The only real qualitative change this has made in my life is that now Aisle 13 is a no-go zone, and except for relationship or religious reasons, Halloween, Easter, and Valentine's are non-participatory holidays - just meaningless squares on the calendar, now. Feels a little bit like Lent all the time.

Aside from that, I'm not avoiding sugary foods - I'm dosing enough insulin to control my blood glucose. This is more or less successful, depending on what foods, and how much exercise I'm also getting.

I find it interesting that a year ago I wrote:
This is killing me. It's just fucking killing me. I feel like I'm on a carnival ride and about to puke and all I can do is ride it out, because I have no control over the situtation.

I don't feel like that about diabetes anymore. I've been given the tools of control and the basic training. But I do feel like that about this post-tussive syncope. As I remarked to a friend last night at Apple Bar, I'm concerned about this phenomenon because I have zero control over it, other than trying to remember to, what, stand up slowly? Not stand up when coughing? That's not a positive control. And unlike a temporary low or high in BG, which can be felt and treated quickly before things get dangerous, this syncope sneaks up on you and turns you off as with a switch. Then the switch turns back on a little bit later. I'm not thrilled with that.

On the other hand, this latest episode has made me unafraid of transplant surgery and a little less afraid of death. I mean, if I can get hurt like I did and not even remember it or feel it happening, then surgery should be OK - it'll just hurt AFTER. :) As for death...I only hope it is that sudden. It will be very peaceful.

Syndicated syncope

2010-03-11T16:22:00.003-05:00

Check THAT out! A near-perfect ECG (as far as I can tell after a couple hours research on the web). All the numbers at the top of the chart are spot-on. And a resting heartrate of 62 isn't too bad, though I've posted as low as 52 at checkups before. (And nothing like The Running Laminator's 37!)

So... WHY did I have an ECG today? Funny story...

You're aware by now that I have some roughness in my lungs that I haven't been able to purge. It comes and goes. I am not bringing up an astounding amount of phlegm, or even a "normal" amount (normal for me, that is.) And what I am bringing up is small amounts and fairly light-colored. I'm also not, for once, suffering from the kind of asthma that causes tightness in the chest or comes on suddenly. Two or three albuterol nebulizers a day is keeping me on an even keel and I feel like I'm breathing fairly well.

However, at last weeks PFTs, my numbers were way down. The nurse wasn't happy, so today I blew again and saw the doctor. My PFTs are improved over last week (at least as long as I have albuterol in me) and my weight is up. All good. However, whatever is going on in my lungs is cause for concern. There are times during the day - or night - when I'm short of breath. I've been sleeping poorly and even waking up breathing badly.

I thought I was going to end up on IV antibiotics again after this doctor visit, but that has been put off in favor of giving the old orals another go. It's been a long time since I've been on the orals - over a year at least - and it's quite possible I'm culturing something very different than I usually do. Time will tell. (Speaking of cultures, it was almost impossible to produce even a sputum sample for the lab today, though yesterday I could have filled a dixie cup.)

But that's all lung stuff. Again, why did she send me for an ECG? Longer story...

I slept very poorly last night, a combination of going to bed too early (for a 6 a.m. wakeup), too much food, and poor breathing. In fact, I only got about 4 hours of sleep total. Now, you may recall me posting a little over a year ago about how I had passed out while coughing in front of the computer. This episode of post-tussive syncope has proven to not be unique. I had an episode in a restaurant last October, during which I didn't quite go all the way out, or rather did, but only for a second - coming to fast enough to catch myself falling on some tables and chairs.

This morning, I woke up at 6:10 a.m., sat upright, starting coughing, took two steps toward the bathroom... and then woke up again at 6:15 a.m., wondered why I was staring at my radiator and the legs of my bed, realized I was sprawled out on the floor (quite comfortable, really), and after ascertaining I wasn't dreaming, got back in bed for half an hour trying to figure out just what the hell had happened. See, the combination of getting up out of bed quickly while coughing hard triggered another episode and I passed out good this time. I mean, this was a full-fledged double chokeslam, with me hitting things on the way down (being unconscious already I didn't actually feel the hits) and staying out for a few minutes.

The aftermath is not good. I have a sizable bump on my head at the hairline on my right side, a bump half that size on my left (from hitting the floor I think), a stiff/aching neck, a scratch on my right arm and thumb, a bruised hip, and a twisted or bashed left knee. Taking stock of my injuries and comparing to a) where I was facing when I passed out and b) my body position when I woke up, I can't quite reconstruct *how* I ended up facing away from the bathroom, on my leftside, with injuries on both sides of my body.

These things will heal. I'll have some Tylenol with my early dinner, get a nap, then go to rehearsal. But there are longer consequences. My doc sent me to get the ECG just in case a heart problem was contributing to this. With that ruled out, the most obvious cause (besides my CF coughing) is the diabetes, which my doc says causes the body to not adjust as well to drops in blood pressure, which occur when a person gets up quickly. And as I noted in my blog post of a year ago, this kind of thing makes me concerned about my safety as a driver, especially if I'm not going to recover in a matter of seconds.

I do not see the situation resolving itself anytime soon. The diabetes isn't going away, unfortunately, though I may be able to control it better with more exercise. The cough isn't going away and isn't going to become predictable; not until transplant (and probably not even then). And let me tell you, I've had some doozies while driving. Another few episodes like the one today and I may have to voluntarily remove myself from the roads. I may sell the bike. I just don't know yet.

So *that*, dear reader, is why I was sent for an ECG. And before I go, I'd like to say bravo to Columbia for the renovation of their labs and x-ray center. Blood-draws, especially, went from waah to wow. And now blood draws, ECG, and x-rays (as well as a few others, I'm sure) are all done in the same area. The labs area is clean, spacious, well-lit, with lots of window space and desk space and the flow is really good. They even have loveseats in the waiting area and pagers!

weekend workouts

2010-03-07T19:34:00.003-05:00

Did 4 miles around Greenwood cemetery yesterday. Didn't go so well, even though the weather was perfect. Lungs were pretty rough and I was coughing up quite a bit. Legs, too, were tight and sore. So the run was slow, with lots of walking. I was disappointed.

Today's workout was in the gym, with 25 minutes on the elliptical and about 45 minutes lifting weights. The elliptical was normal until I saw "pedal backwards" flash across the readout. So I tried that. Immediately my heart rate shot up and stride rate dropped. It's pretty hard! Very interesting. But I didn't want to do a long, intense cardio workout, just a short one, so that was only 25 minutes. I moved on to weights - haven't lifted in two weeks. I've been concentrating on my upper body and have developed a routine with the machines and free weights that I like a lot.

There is a certain degree of difficulty to some of the machines, like the one pictured above, that's unexpected. Even though they restrict to one axis of movement, the arms move independently, rather than each side being tied together. This increases the difficulty as each arm has to do its own work. (Picture is 40 pounds each side. tried 45, but couldn't quite handle eight reps with that.) Got a real lesson today in just what each arm's realtive strengths are. By the end of my workout, my hands and arms were shaking and I could barely hold my water bottle. When I reach that point, I'm done.

I need to start working some more abs work and some legs work (any at all) into my weights routine. There was a time I could do 45 situps with a ten-pound weight held across my chest on an inclined situp - not anymore! Maybe I can get back to that. I need more core stability for running.

So now I'm sitting here finishing up this post, listening to Academy Awards red carpet dog and pony show, drinking a scotch, and worrying about my Vectorworks class tomorrow. We're a little behind, but not as bad as I'd feared. Given that, I'm not going to move on to the next project yet. I'm going to drill them on some exercises with some 3D commands, demo how to finish their homework for the week, and assign them the last touches to the course titleblock.

Starbucks' Via

2010-02-28T18:10:00.003-05:00

Well, I'm back from Florida and I'm already swamped. Taxes, photos, bills, lesson plans, etc.

I didn't run today, choosing to sleep in and make some grocery runs. One of the things I picked up was a packet of Starbucks' Via at Costco. The price was reasonable and since I've been reviewing other kinds of instant coffee, I thought I'd like to see how this one stacks up.

Via is OK; not great. Similar to other instant coffees right now, it is a mix of instant coffee and micro-grounds. The first half of the cup was pretty good, but the second half got bitter, and the bottom downright nasty, as the microgrounds stay down there and leave a bitter, unappetizing sludge. I will relegate this to backpacker's coffee, because it is very portable, but if you have access to a coffee maker or a Keurig, stick with those.

Second Satellite Beach run

2010-02-26T15:31:00.003-05:00

"Cancelled," I told the elderly French couple in the line ahead of me, waving my hands side to side, flat, low, to emphasize the point. Their looks of confusion turned to dismay; they didn't understand much English, but they understood that. Between my gestures and an Italian woman's rough translation, I tried to communicate that though their flight to Brussels wouldn't be going through New York today, they would probably be re-routed through Atlanta or Chicago for a connecting flight to France. They would be on their way with only a few hours' delay.

I was not so lucky, myself. Or was I? With all three NY-area airports socked in by snow and slush, flights to the area were dear. My flight was cancelled, something I'd known had I bothered to check the web before leaving Satellite Beach. I was booked on a flight for 6 p.m. the next day. So I called my father and wandered over to the food court while waiting for him to turn around and come back to the airport. I, fortunately, at least have a place to stay tonight and good company; other New York bound travelers are not so lucky, I am sure.

And, after all, it's one more day in sunny Florida, in gorgeous 50-degree weather, rather than a day in frigid, snowy, slushy, grey, gloomy New York. Can't really complain about that.

Once we got back to the house, dad prepared to go off for physical therapy and I prepared to head out for a run - which included taking some Tylenol. My joints ache - ankles, knees, hips. Maybe it's the change to the new shoes - too much all at once. And unlike Wednesday, I had shin splints today. But the coughing was much, much less and I was able to get some longish stretches of running strung together, sometimes throwing in some strides. I'm happy to see improvement, but I am still very slow overall.

Also, at the end of my run, while stretching out my legs against the school fence opposite the house, I got taunted by a couple kids. They had passed me a couple minutes previously, one on a bike, the other walking, and way, way down the sidewalk, they paused to turn around and shout something at me, but I have no idea what, other than "kiss the fence". I'm still a little puzzled.

Now I'm doing therapy, having a rare soda, and munching on leftover edamame. I could get really used to some edamame after a run. Flank steak tonight for dinner; that will be nice. :) Tomorrow's dinner will be something from the food court. Then it's the red-eye for me. No rest for the wicked, I suppose.

rough lungs; 2 miles in Satellite Beach

2010-02-24T15:29:00.002-05:00

This 2.25 miles was super rough to do. I guess the change from cold and dry to warm and humid all at once was too much for my lungs to handle? Or maybe it is that this roughness that is in my chest, and which has been a growing thing for many weeks now, causes coughing fits to go on and on even after they aren't productive? I don't know.

I do know the first mile took 16 minutes - I probably could have done it faster had I NOT run any part of it. :( The second mile was better, about 14 minutes. Slightly less coughing, a lot less walking for sure. My last quarter mile was much closer to the pace I'd like to be at all the time, almost a ten-minute-per-mile pace.

The environment is interesting. I hope Florida gets much nicer than what I'm experiencing, because despite the mild weather, this just isn't my cup of tea. The lawns are uniformly bad, even the good ones are filled with a rough kind of grass that looks more like a home protection system than a place to play. The sidewalks are a joke, where they exist at all. (I understand this problem is endemic through most of America these days, but still.) And right now the weather is calm and humid. It'd be suffocating if it were ten degrees warmer - and it's not yet 70 degrees! I was not built for this kind of tropical "paradise", I don't think.

Still, the drivers are mostly sane, the people are friendly, and their lazy eyes aren't overly creepy. Everyone says hi and smiles at you and most of them even have most of their teeth still. I was even passed by a pretty girl on a bike with a leashed dog trotting beside her - she would not have been out of place in Prospect Park.

The roughness of my cough - the little irritation in my chest that is not phlegm, but isn't going away - is beginning to get annoying. It extends my coughing fits so much that it begins to seem it would be more productive to walk and not get my breathing to the point where I cough so much. But that would actually be counter-productive for me, wouldn't it?

I am here visiting my dad. I'd be visiting both parents, but Mom is off in St Louis doing her parenting thing, so I guess I'll have to wait for June to see her. Dad seems OK, but I am getting a lesson in the mechancis and logistics of being on oxygen. Interesting preview of my future, I'm sure. He cooked us pot roast last night and I loved it. I can't for the life of me figure out why I don't do this myself at home. I even have a crockpot!

Last thing: American Airlines, your pilots are the best, on par with United's. But if you guys think I'm paying you more money, beyond the price of my ticket, to check a bag, you're nuts. Think I can't pack clothes and medicines and therapy equipment enough for four days into one Hammacher Schlemmer hard-sided rolly carry-on? Think again, hosers!

not the best february for running

2010-02-20T17:05:00.003-05:00

Haven't gotten too many runs in this month. I've got more gym workouts than runs, actually. Even last Thursday, I did a gym workout at Blair Academy, where I was lighting a show. They have a really nice fitness room, with good equipment. I even tried a few minutes of barefoot running while I was there. Definitely can run faster and definitely puts you up on your forefoot, but I don't think it's wise to run barefoot for very long.

Today's run was OK.

I meant to do four miles, but a loop around the cemetery is just as good, especially as it has hills. The first mile was very slow; I just wasn't feeling it. Only reason I went out was because the weather was great and I really needed some lung clearance. (Speaking of which, I kept passing other people's spit - looked like mine. They need to see a doctor!) Second mile started to get better - of course it had a long downhill and a lot of flat to it. The third mile, with a big uphill, was much slower again, but felt better. Shin splints were mild and went away for the last 3/4 mile, where my pace was the best of the whole run. Not fast, not even close to my target pace, but better than nothing. Coughed my head off pretty much the whole way, though, and not bringing up very much. I felt better after the run than before it, but still not fabulous.

Baptised new running shoes in the slush. I'd begun to wonder if part of my shin splint problem isn't that my shoes are fairly worn - after all, with such reduced running, I've been wearing the same pair for both running and walking around town. This may be a mistake. The new shoes felt softer, of course, and my footfall was different. Much nicer ride.

I passed several other runners, including one guy in a t-shirt and shorts. Nice to see. Another few degrees warmer and I can lose a layer myself and maybe go back to shorts.

Really don't have a lot to say right now. I'm pretty stressed with the renovation plans and dealing with the architect; not enough paying work; too many things people want from me that aren't bringing in money (meetings, etc.); stupid fucking tenant that I'm regretting having leased to. Winter. Just got back from New Jersey and I'm leaving again for Florida this week for a few days.

Slow evolution

2010-02-09T20:13:00.002-05:00

I know running two miles at a time isn't making me a better runner. It's really only lung clearance. But it's also all I can manage right now. It takes all my willpower just to go out and run. I look foward to boring elliptical more; I don't know why.

So the good news is that the last run was better than Sunday's and I nearly got down to 12:00 minute miles. My resting heart rate is starting to come down, too, from the cardio of the elliptical. My lungs feel OK; neither good nor bad and I can live with that. I'm coughing up green stuff, but not a lot of it and I don't cough at night that I know of. And I'm getting stronger. I was able to up the resistance on the lat pulls from 70 to 80 last time and it didn't feel too hard. I'm starting to work with weights that move in more than one axis, so am developing all muscles around the targeted structures. (i.e. most machines are single-axis movement - no stabilizing muscles need come into play; some machines are dual axis so you have to use more muscles; and then there are free weights) I am getting stronger again and getting some muscle definition PLUS PUTTING ON WEIGHT. Not a whole lot yet, but there was a time back in October when I stepped on the scale and it read 117 lbs. Now it is consistently reading 126 or more.

I'm going out to New Jersey for a week starting Thursday. Supposed to be waist-high in snow, so running might not happen at all (running on their roads facing traffic is dicey enough without snow). But I think the school I'm designing for has a gym. If so, I intend to hit it hard while I'm there. Lots of cardio, lots of weights (at least twice), and lots of food.

Not so good, actually.

2010-01-31T15:30:00.002-05:00

Pitiful monthly total: 19.8 miles. Even for me, that's way below normal. At a minimum, I should be doing twice that. Had I not substituted several runs w/ workouts at the gym, perhaps my mileage would have been closer to 30. But it should be there anyway, including gym workouts.

Today, the shin splints hit hard. I did a little warmup around the block, stretched well, then got going on the run. I thought it was going well until the shin splints came on. Jeesus. It hurt even to walk. It means I need more stretching, more often. This is pitiful.

I have nobody and nothing to blame but myself. I've certainly had the time this month to make a meal of it, instead of a snack, but I shy from the cold and shirk my conscience. As I search for something to pin my lack of progress on, I begin to wonder if the last round of IVs - four weeks' worth of antibiotics - haven't made my tendons rather more brittle and less stretchy. It's a known problem, after all. But then I think I'm just using that as a scapegoat - no one can sit around all of January and do nothing more than 3 miles at a time and not detrain, not get tight, not have some kind of shin splints or IT band problems.

Speaking of which, I decided to double up my nebulizer meds so I did them before I ran and am doing them again now. I just spent ten minutes stretching while doing Pulmozyme and am now doing Aztreonam while I type. And now that that's done, I'm going to hit the foam roller for a few, then probably pop out to the grocery before showering.

Hope to work out tomorrow, but it looks like I'll be rushing to finish my syllabus before teaching begins tomorrow night. Yeah, it's true - I STILL haven't solidified this semester's syllabus; mostly because it isn't just a matter of changing dates, but updating the course content to match the new software, ditch some old exercises, invent new ones, etc. Some of that I can put off for later, but some of it has to be done now so it can be in the syllabus for tomorrow.

getting BG under control

2010-01-17T13:14:00.002-05:00

My blood glucose readings have been consistently 50 points higher than I'd like to see. For a while I suspected my meter was off - but why would it suddently stop reading correctly? Now I suspect that the Lantus I'm taking is not really getting in. I'm prescribed 3u Lantus daily. Do you know how little that is? It's like one large drop of fluid. The plunger travels very, very little to produce this. But this fluid must be forced out against the pressure around the needle - and frankly I don't think enough pressure is made inside the insulin pen to force enough lantus out into the fat. Also, I've observed that the pen will weep after an injection for some time - more Lantus comes out of the needle. So if its coming out after, then its not coming out during. I suspect that I am not, in fact, getting 3U Lantus. So this morning I'm trying 5U Lantus under the assumption that at least 2u just aren't getting in. We'll see what this does to blood sugars.

The other thing I could do, admittedly, is cut out pudding at night before bed. But I had that accounted for and under control - and now its not. I guess I'll call my nutritionist Monday or Tuesday and check in with her about this.

Patrick Hayes memorial run

2010-01-16T16:21:00.002-05:00

Back in 1998, I spent a good part of my summer in Las Vegas helping Grandpa take care of my newly-disabled Grandma, Harriet. I recall one conversation we had one night in which my grandmother grumped that life wasn't worth living anymore; she'd done everything she wanted to do and most of her friends were dead and the last few were dying. I vaguely understood her position, but didn't understand why she didn't take more joy in her husband, children, and grandchildren.

These days, I understand some of that much better. Since November 1st, I've lost four acquaintances, three of them from CF. Now, in the world of CF, very few of us actually know each other in person - contact is discouraged because of cross-contamination issues. So we make our communities online and in emails, newsletters, and pictures. We can become very close that way. So losing both Tom Hubin and Deron Arnold in November was quite a shock.

This morning I found that a fairly close internet friend, Patrick Hayes, passed away last night while waiting for a transplant. To be sure, the picture was grim, and the dry run earlier this week raised everybody's hopes for a moment. His passing isn't altogether unexpected, but a lot sooner than anybody thought. He was a great voice in the Great Conversation and I'll miss him.

So is this what life is? What getting older really means? That you make fewer and fewer new friends each year, but lose more and more old ones? This isn't getting any easier. I'm glad it's not! Because if it became easier, what would that make me?

I've been staring at this post for 15 minutes. I don't know what else to write. Things just feel a little useless right now.

After I read about Patrick and the responses to that news on the CF list, I went for a run. Great weather; just...perfect. Absolutely perfect running weather. This was a pretty good run, for me; though still full of walking and ultimately very slow. I'm never going to be happy with that. But for now, it's better than the alternative. I gotta keep it up so I don't end up like Patrick; and I know Patrick would be encouraging me to keep going out there and clearing out my lungs and invogorating my entire body. Maybe this is why I'm not racing right now - trying to find the real motivation, the actual reasons I should continue to run.

Patrick was younger than me. He was 36 years old.

elliptical again

2010-01-15T21:16:00.001-05:00

Good 30 minutes workout: 5 minutes on the treadmill to warm up, 20 on the elliptical, 5 minutes on the treadmill cooldown. stretching, foam roller, pushups.

Improvement

2010-01-14T15:59:00.002-05:00

Much better run this time. Sunny, 38 degrees.

I did a gym workout yesterday. I tried the elliptical for the first time ever and did 15 minutes. Continuous! It was ...hm, well... a lot harder than I'd supposed. No wonder the women who are dedicated to that type of exercise are in such good shape. More importantly, a lot less impact. I didn't think it would make much difference, but it does. My shins didn't hurt, my joints didn't hurt; nothing. A little burn in the muscles, but that's to be expected. And my heartrate! I wasn't sure if I should believe the machine or not. 160 bpm didn't seem right; maybe next time I'll stop and jump on the stationary bike and see if it corroborates. iPhone needs a pulse ox/heart rate monitor plug-in thingy. Any inventors out there? Oh... I know one who has medical patents, maybe I'll drop him a line.

Anyway, I then lifted weights for 45 minutes after the elliptical. So I got a good workout and really felt it today in my obliques. Hopefully I can find the willpower to keep this up and hit the gym twice a week or so.

So today's run was following that and it felt a little easier than Tuesday's run, which was an awful, miserable mess. The shin splints are still haunting me, but maybe getting a little better. I didn't go as far today, but will endeavor for a complete loop of the cemetary on Saturday. I need to get my distance up past three miles on a regular basis or I'm never getting out of the "warmup zone."

worse and worse

2010-01-12T16:14:00.001-05:00

I'm very unhappy with this.

Coffee

2010-01-08T22:44:00.002-05:00

This is the winter of coffee. I have been introduced to the awesome Keurig machine and the lines of coffees available for it in K-cups. While not as cheap as standard drip coffee, it is perfect if you only want to make one cup. I could never get a decent one-cup brew out of regular coffeemakers - you have to do at least half a pot. The Keurig is nice and the cost ultimately is slightly less than bodega coffee - with a lot more selection. For the record, I am definitely a fan of the Newman's Own extra-bold. I don't usually like extra-bold coffees (i.e. Starbucks), but it works here.

Up to this point, I've been using instant coffee. Now before you all start wincing and gagging, I want to advance a couple ideas; namely that a) instant coffees have advanced a lot since the early days of Folgers Crystals. (Hell, even Folgers instant has gotten better.) b) Instant stays at its quality level damn near forever in the freezer; beans don't. and c) instant coffee now comes in many more options, flavors, and styles than before.

The kind of been using most is the Maxwell House singles. They appear to be a mix of instant coffee and real grounds in a teabag-like sack and if you follow the directions, they make a pretty good afternoon cup of coffee. Not too strong, not weak at all, and takes the lightener and sweetener like a real coffee will.

Now of course Starbucks - or Whorebucks as my inner monologue refers to the chain - has gotten into the act with their Via Ready Brew. I have not tried this, but I've asked people who have and they all shake their heads. Of course, these people are all addicted to the crap Whorebucks passes off as coffee and most of them are getting the five-dollar Diabetes Specials that are so full of sweeteners, flavorings, and milk that to call it coffee anymore is really kind of a joke - so it's not a surprise that Whorebucks fans don't actually like the instant coffee version - it's just too plain and they don't own the equipment or materials to tart it up like their favorite whoredrink.

There was a feature on the news where one of the reporters went onto the street and invited people to do a taste-test. Results similar to what I've outlined above. Only one guy like the instant more.

This leads me to think that giving Via might be worth it for ME to try. However, it is very expensive. I got to wondering how much more expensive, so I put all these options into a neat little list:

Via Ready Brew instant | $34.95 for 48 ct = .73/cup (equivalent of a Tall)
Whorebucks real | $1.40/cup (Tall)
Newman's Own Keurig | $10 for 24 (macys) = .42/cup (best at 8 oz)
Maxwell House Singles | $4.39 for 19 = .23/cup (best at 8 oz)

Clearly, MH Singles are the most economical, outside of brewing your own. Keurig makes a good choice if you don't have to have a giant cup of coffee every time and want something you can actually finish before it gets cold.

Still, nothing beats dollar-a-cup bodega coffee for comfort factor.

25 minutes stationary bike today, instead of running. Maybe run tomorrow.

haiku

2010-01-08T01:16:00.001-05:00

Cold, clean winter air
instigates a coughing spell.
Green phlegm dots white snow.

torturous new year's run

2010-01-02T20:20:00.002-05:00

Okay, not exactly on the New Year, as I was very busy Friday trying to get too much done before everybody went home for the weekend... but for the FIRST RuN of the NEW YEAR - certainly every run after this will be better. Have to be better.

This was one of those rare runs where I underestimated the weather and consequently underdressed. Since it was overcast, I thought it was warmer than it really was (26 degrees) and didn't notice the wind until I turned onto 4th ave. The windchill was easily in the single digits and I was dressed only in one layer, with thin gloves. Bad mistake.

I forged ahead, trying to keep going. I didn't expect the first mile to be anything great, but I was hoping for better than a 15:00 minute mile! Coming back was not much better, even though downhill: 13:00 mile. :( What the hell? Well, I was walking a lot more than usual, as the wind was so bad I was trying to hide behind vehicles between gusts and also losing time collecting what I was hocking up. The phlegm was the only productive part of this run!

Well, by the time I stumbled into my house, I had lost feeling in my fingers and most of my toes. The next hour was spent with hot tea in the tub trying to warm up again. The pain in my toes as feeling returned was tremendoius - been a LONG time since things got that bad. I've run races in single-digit weather, but not with wind, and didn't have the problems then that I had today.

Did make some progress on my hackintosh. I installed tiny7 - a version of Windows 7 and will play with that for awhile. It may be lacking some components that Vectorworks needs, though, so this might not work. I did get Leopard 10.5.8 running on the 10.1" netbook and that's a step forward. I'm not going to try for Snow Leopard yet - this netbook's getting sold soon so I can move on to the next model. Well. This is what winter and unemployment is for: learning new things. Considering taking a class in Flash or javascript programming at FIT. Need to inquire on Monday. In the meantime - Macy's stike!

Participating in studies

2009-12-26T16:16:00.006-05:00

There were many things I didn't mention in my last post that contributed to my busy year. One of those things is that I am participating in a few studies. One study has me on aztreonam lysine, which was denied FDA approval in the first round. As a study participant, I get the drug free, even without it being approved yet for general use. It is a great help! I very much like the months when I am on it. (Every other month is tobramycin.)

Another study - and another one of those things that contributed to my Year Of Suck - has to do with CF and GERD. In order to qualify for the study, you have to have GERD (gastro-esophegeal reflux disease). It does not have to be severe, just measurable. It's the measuring that was torture. Apparently I don't tolerate having ph probes snuck down my throat very well. That was a miserable 24 hours. The results were that I do indeed have GERD. So let's get started on the study, which is to see if proton pump inhibitors can be helpful in reducing exacerbations by reducing the amount of acid coming up and being inhaled into the lungs, especially during sleep. I am on some little blue pills. They're either Nexium or they're not. This being a double-blind study, neither I nor the researchers know - I am assigned a number and that number was assigned the drug (or the placebo) randomly. But I can tell you this: I've been doing this for six months now and I have only had a minor case of heartburn ONCE. My giant bottle of Tums is sitting in a cabinet unused. Nice to know what's going on and how to treat it, but...yeah, another fucking pill, another fucking thing to keep an eye on.

The third study I participate in is off and on. Rather, I provide samples of my phlegm for a researcher in Virginia. She's working on measuring viscosity and figuring out different ways to break it down. D-nase (Pulmozyme) is one drug which does this, though not like a magic wand. I think she's searching for the magic wand. So, anyway, periodically, she sends me a pouch of collection tubes, and I fill them up. It is rather gross, catching all ones phlegm and keeping it.

Click the grinch to see what I coughed up in just three days, including taking the collection tube with me on 2 runs. Warning: gross.

End of the year wrap-up

2009-12-25T21:46:00.003-05:00

I can't believe it's been more than six weeks since my last post, but the fact is, I have very little to post about. I pretty much stopped running for all of November and the beginning of December. Oh, there was a Thanksgiving Day run, but that was about it. Without the pressure of being in training and with work becoming overwhelming in November, running was just plain not happening.

As much of a black mark as that is, there was a silver lining: my lung function at my last checkup was the best it's been in three years; FEV1 at least. I was very surprised!

And I needed that bit of good news because this year has not been a good one. There was very little to celebrate and a lot to be worried about. I will try to keep this recap short and will wrap up with the good things, so as not to end on a downer.

You may recall that I was sick in January and on IV antibiotics. That lasted three weeks. Then, just as I was beginning to feel good - and had gotten a call at Spaeth to start working on a possible Lord & Taylor set of windows - I got sick with the flu. The windows proposal was finished up by some colleagues and it didn't happen anyway: the entire creative team there was let go and a few months later I was introduced to the new people. (This because L&T was purchased by new investors.) Long-time people got let go and with them any hope of a new set of Christmas windows. They had last year's set refurbished for this year - and by April I knew that that chunk of income was not coming in this year.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. So I got the flu in February, which lasted about eight to ten days, then rolled itself over into outright pneumonia. So by March, I was once again on IVs and was very slowly recovering. Three weeks of IVs did what they could and I spent much of April and May trying to get back to my baseline, both in terms of lung function and physical fitness.

About this time, it became clear that of the three stores I do Christmas windows for (via Spaeth), I'd only be doing one set this year - and that based on a concept for the windows in a different city. There was less budget, too, which means that I would have no assistant; so now not only was I the associate designer on a set of windows that the chief designer (who made the concept renderings) wanted nothing to do with, but I was doing it without the support of the creative team the other designer gets... OK, I'm going to stop right there. I'm proud of how I handled that project, what I came up with, and the fact that, frankly, the bleed-over between the various cities' windows (all coming from the same concept) was a great learning experience - lots of creative growth there. So, if you live in Chicago, go see the Macy's windows while there's still time. You can look and say to your friends that someone you know was the scenic designer, even if the basic concept was not his. And ... they turned out OK. Better than last year's.

So. We're rolling into summer, which was fairly quiet. One of my recurring gigs actually increased my pay, which is great, but meant that I now had a clear priority there - and so cut short my motorcycle trip drastically. Only three days of riding instead of ten. I guess that means it was the budget vacation.

However, on that trip, I got to see some historical sites I've never been to and really enjoyed the few days I had. Made some new friends, renewed relationships with old, and generally had a blast. And Roxie didn't burp once the whole trip! Now ON that trip, as I've already posted, I found a pencil case that perfectly fit my newly acquired glucose meter and insulin pen.

Because, yes, that was part of my Year Of Suck, too. Becoming diabetic is far from the worst thing that can happen to someone with CF, but it wasn't good news, either. I can handle this; but it is more time each day devoted to health maintenance, more thought having to go into my meals, more things off-limits to me, at least not in the amounts I used to eat them. Basically, this year I had to say goodbye to Easter and Halloween. I feel I've been very strong regarding that, though I have gone back to pudding every night. I just have to take enough insulin to cover it. It's still probably not good for me...but if I can have just that, then I can resist all the other sweets.

My first trip with diabetes was to Charleston, where I ran the Cooper River Bridge Run. That was a pretty good run; would do it again. It is important to note that I was interviewed by the local ABC station at that time. (All my TV interviews have been posted on my website at dopher.com. As I rebuild the site, I'll make various links active; the Other link has to do with anything not related to my career, including the Health stuff.) That was neat.

So summer rolled on and I was doing pretty good. Still couldn't get my training where it needed to be and fell behind in the schedule. I was going to run the NY Marathon... but training went downhill and by September, I had to consider dropping out. I used the disastrous Queens Half (which I will never run again) to guage my fitness and decided in the middle of that race not to run the marathon.

Unfortunately, things were getting worse in the lung department and in October, for the third time this year, I went back on IVs. This time, they didn't have the punch I expected, even after a benchmark-setting 4 week course of treatment. But then, I started on them before I felt like complete crap, so maybe I was ahead of the game.

Things heated up at work. I missed spectating the marathon or volunteering for it because of a work commitment that Sunday. The top of November was particularly bad, as three friends died in the space of a week. Two, Tom Hubin and Deron Arnold, were CF patients whom I knew over the internet. We'd emailed often. Tom was over 60, so I remain impressed, but Deron deserved a better shake. He was waiting for the call and it just never came. Tacked on to that was the death of an acquaintance - a carpenter at Spaeth and an FIT student. Hit by a bus. What a stupid way to go. Sorry, kid.

I found myself in the middle of November feeling pretty good physically, and opening two shows on two consecutive nights. Well, one was a dance show, the other was the Macy's Herald Square Christmas windows, which I lit this year. That has been a hell of an experience! What I lost in physical fitness over October and November, I gained in strength in other areas.

Now it is deep into December and I am trying to get my fitness back on track. I've put in a whopping six miles this week - the most in two months. I'll keep working at it; try to build it all up again. The speed, the strength, the endurance. I should get back to climbing and lifting - God knows I haven't had time for either gym since early October.

I am about ready to file plans with the city for a renovation that will consume my life for most of next year. I'm already on thin ice financially, but after this renovation I'll be completely broke and in debt up to my ears. But this one is worth it: 1/3 of my house is uninhabitable right now and rehabbing it will result in me having a large, airy, sunny, clean apartment to rent out that should pay about 2/3 of the monthly nut. Part of it - the boiler replacement - may even qualify for a tax rebate from the city.

I can't promise that I'll be blogging much this next year. I am not racing until the next Staten Island Half and my running in the meantime is targeted at my health. I hope to keep the blog updated, sure, but daily runs will probably just get posted to runkeeper.com, which then posts a link to my Facebook account. It is enough for me, as I can see routes and mileage that way.

Well, I need to go. Regular routine: therapy, eat, bed. Have to get up early tomorrow and go maintain the Macy's windows. I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving, is enjoying their long Christmas weekend, and will ring in a new year that is better in every way.

Doh!

2009-11-03T09:46:00.002-05:00

I just this morning realized that not only did I not use my entry for the NYC Marathon, but I also forgot to officially CANCEL the entry. I missed out on my t-shirt at the expo and automatic entry into next year's race.

Considering this, I could get my 9+1 done still this year. I'd have to attend a couple of races and do my volunteer stint, still. I wouldn't mind doing the Midnight Run as a volunteer thing again. That was OK.

I don't know why I'm concerned. I'm not going to race again until next year's Staten Island, and even training for that will not have me in shape for NYC Marathon a few weeks later. And if my work schedule continues the way it has this year (and I hope it does), I'll have no time for the marathon. A spring marathon in 2011 is really my best bet. So why bother earning the qualifier for a race I won't run, right?

On the other hand, if my summer and fall go really well and I do want to run NYC, I suppose I could raise the money for Team Boomer and run with one of their bibs. That would be good, too.

28 Days Later...

2009-10-31T01:27:00.004-04:00

...I am de-zombified. PICC line was pulled this morning.

First day:

And the line after it came out this morning:

The line was pretty bloody under the dressing - After 26 trouble-free days, I really bled two nights ago. Have no idea what caused it. Thought I'd torn a stitch out, but that turned out not to be the case. Funny thing is that there is no bleeding when the line comes out. The vein simply collapses behind the retreating line. Unfortunately, this means that after a few PICCs in a certain vein, that one's no good for several years. I am going to have to press a little harder for a Port. I'll talk about it with my doc next month - she wants to see me on a monthly basis for a while. I have to admit that it's a good idea.

And so it goes. I have spent 10 weeks on IVs this calendar year so far. The long seven month period of good health between the March IVs and the October IVs was nice and makes that one-fifth of a year seem like a lot less.

It's nice to have the line out. I'll get an extra hour's sleep each night, can more easily get back to running and biking, and have full use of both arms again. Just in time, too. I have a fast and furious three weeks' of work left before things dry up and I'll need all my physical capability as well as mental.

Been on prednisone this last week, too. The IVs didn't have a huge impact, though I do feel better than I did and am coughing up a lot less gunk. Of course, I wasn't terribly sick when we started IVs - didn't want to get that way - it's kind of the point, right? But still...what a long road to mediocrity.

Detroit kills three more people

2009-10-18T19:33:00.002-04:00

Detroit half-marathon sees three dead.

A very unfortunate occurrence. I wonder why things like this happen? I know with more people participating in races, more are going to die (I'm assuming the overall percentage remains the same, but perhaps I'm wrong). But I can't help but feel bad for these guys and their families.

As for the writer of the article, please to not be confusing a MARATHON with a HALF-MARATHON. Be clear with your terminology. The two terms are not interchangeable, asshole. You're a disgrace to the reporting establishment and to writers in general. Hopefully, the next time you report on people dying, you'll do a little more than reorganize the wire feed and run it through a spell checker. I like to engage in a little exercise called "proofreading"; perhaps you've heard of it.

Random thoughts for the day

2009-10-15T22:48:00.003-04:00

In place of a report on running and health, I bring to you some random thoughts not appropriate for Facebook.

1) "When you prick us, do we not bleed?" -Shylock. "Well, no, not always. Sometimes you have to prick a second time, or even a third. Kind of a pain in the ass, really." -Cris

2) Bye-Bye Birdie, the only musical during which I root for the death of the main character, is a well-known standby of small, amateur acting companies worldwide. Having first been mounted in the 1950's, this tired old nag is being hauled out of the stable once again, as Broadway producers continue to fall into the "re-tread, re-mount, re-envision" artistic trap. Yup, nothing says $$$ like failing to contribute to the development of original American theatre. HEY, BROADWAY: MAYBE THE MUSIC INDUSTRY CAN GET AWAY WITH TROTTING OUT COVERS AS ORIGINAL WORK, BUT YOU CAN'T. YOU'RE NOT FOOLING ANYBODY, FOOL.

3) I <3 Carrie Fischer. Still.

4) Go Bloomberg.

5) What the hell? Two weeks ago, it was summer, last week, fall. Today it's winter already.

6) Doctor: let's extend IVs to a third week. Architect: Here's some groundplans, what do you think? Lawyer: it's not so much a question of to whom you will leave your assets as it is to whom you leave your debts. Welcome to real life.

7) You named your kid Falcon?? Jesus, no wonder he does stupid shit. I hope the state sues you AND your ancestors.

Staten Island Half Marathon

2009-10-11T21:56:00.003-04:00

*turns on lights, starts clearing away cobwebs*

Well. Well, well, well. Haven't been here in a while, have we? Too much time spent at work, not enough spent running. Nothing to report, nothing interesting to blog; until very recently, that is.

To catch up: In the last three weeks, I've logged a grand total of 4 miles. Yeah. It started as an intentional week off. After the Queens Half, I was digruntled and needed a break. Well, work and weather turned it into two weeks off. Then a run last Tuesday turned into a suck-fest, literally - I was sucking down air and still felt like I was suffocating. So I cut that run short.

I went to see my doctor right after the Queens Half and we decided to put me on IV antibiotics again. It's been seven months since the last round, and that's pretty good for me, and we both wanted to arrest this lung infection before it got too bad. Unfortunately, the process of getting a PICC line, of getting insurance approval and scheduling this thing, turned into a terrible ordeal in which I felt extremely victimized and in no way being taken care of by any of the offices involved: my primary care physician, my CF specialist, my insurance, or the interventional radiology department I was referred to. Getting a PICC line after one is ordered should be a one-day process, two at the most. I still don't know exactly what went wrong or who wasn't doing their job. I have my suspicions. I am still very unhappy about the situation. But as of this writing, I have been on IVs for nine days and will see my doctor to do PFTs on Wednesday.

I have a feeling the tests will show improvement. While I have no felt like things were improving, there was an amazing change today. During the race, I was able to breath freely and easily. This may be due to a combination of tackling the infection, doing nebulized albuterol before Beast picked me up this morning, doing two puffs of albuterol half an hour before the race, taking Advair in the morning, and consuming the caffeinated gel prior to the race. All combined to give me one good breathing day at last.

So: race report. With detrained legs, questionable lungs, and a PICC in my arm, I determined to do this race anyway. Had the completion of the Grand Prix not been at stake, I probably would have skipped it. I just couldn't see any part of this that looked like a good idea, other than this would ensure I got some exercise at least. But I arranged for a ride with Beast and we got rolling. I brought with me some warm clothes (48 degrees when I left the house), some food, hydration for the race, and my IVs I'd need to start right after the race. Beast arrived and I met Jess, whom Beast was going to pace in an attempt to set her a new PR (successful, BTW).

Before the race, I had a large coffee and while I needed the pep of the caffeine, it would come back to haunt me later as by mile three I had to pee badly. Before the race, I changed out of my warm clothes and put on a trash bag to keep warm. I've done this every year I've done this race; this was the fifth year in a row. I waited in line for the portajohns, but they were moving to slow. I joined the corral as it was beginning to move up and happened to notice a willowy young woman ahead of me dressed like a clown. Well...not really, but she did have a bright orange Fred's Team shirt, bright yellow patterned arm warmers, bright colored shoes and a bright colored cap. Quite colorful. "Hey Marci!" I shouted. She was happy to see me and we chatted a bit as we walked toward the start line. Once across the line, she was off and running a pace quite a bit faster than I, so we said good luck to each other and ran our own race.

I was amazed at how easily I was able to draw breath. For the record, my walk breaks this race had nothing to do with my lungs, really - my legs simply weren't ready for what my lungs could have handled today. In fact, I was running sub-12-minute miles for a good portion of the race, stringing together longer and longer distances in between walk breaks - until mile 11 when cramps started to hit. Not enough electrolytes, I guess. I spent the last three miles walking quite a lot trying to ward off cramps.

Probably the most difficult thing to deal with was my coughing. Oh, not the coughing itself - I'm used to that - but I was bringing up quite a lot. A mere half-mile in, I spat on the ground and (as usual) noted the color - some green phlegm, some clearish phlegm, and red. Quite a lot of red. More than spots or streaks, and bright red, not brownish. My lungs were bleeding, though it wasn't yet full free-flowing hemoptysis. The thought of stopping right away crossed my mind. Was my last race also to be my first and only DNF? Did I get my ass out of bed at 5 a.m. for nothing? Well... let's see how things go; see how I feel at mile three or four, eh?

So went the race. Jog, cough, spit out phlegm and blood, walk, repeat. The weather was fine - absolutely fine. I remember promising another runner a month ago at Queens that the Staten Island Half would have perfect weather and I was right. Would not have asked for anything different. I was even enjoying the refreshing breezes off the water. It was quite cool and once I got warmed up, I lost the trash bag and was comfortable in shorts and long-sleeve running t.

Towards the end of the race, still coughing up blood and once the cramps hit, it was all I could do to keep up with Billy, the old black lady I see at every single race. She's always way back here at the back of the pack, but she's never last. She's very, VERY consistent. Today, she became the one I had to beat. And I did - but not by much and I think she may actually have a better net time than I. And how does beating a woman twice my age make me feel? LOL

There were so few people coming in by the time I finished that the announcer had time to look up every single person's name by his/her bib number and announce their finish. I heard my name and where I lived and even what team I run for (remember, I've signed up under the Cystic Fibrosis Running Team for about three years now). I contemplated the irony in finally getting to hear MY information out loud at my very last race.

So. 61st road race, 20th half-marathon, second-worst half-marathon time ever (second only to the 3:05:00 of the very bad Manhattan Half 2006). And yet I'm satisfied with my performance. I expected to be coming in at 3 hours exactly, or maybe just a couple minutes under, but I was able to do about a minute per mile than I expected. I didn't do this race for time, anyway, but rather to finish the fifth of the Grand Prix. And THAT feels good - I said way back in December that I wanted to be able to do the whole Grand Prix this year and I finally did it! Not even Beast has finished all five in one year. (No fault of his own this year - he helped an injured woman at the Bronx Half and gave up his race.) And I did this today despite bleeding from the lungs the entire time! Ta-da!

After donning warm clothes, I sat on the grass near the finisher's chute and proceed to hook up my IVs. Another person resting on the grass noticed and was trying not to stare. I met his eyes briefly and he gave a curt nod. What must he have thought as I then pulled out my diabetes pack and tested my blood sugar and injected insulin in prep for my post-race snack (about 75g carbs)? Munching away, I reflected that, as far as racing goes, I'm through for a year. I will look at Staten Island as my comeback race a year from now - I really do love this race. In the meantime, it has to be about shorter distances, better time, better running, less walking, more quality, less quantity. More quality, less quantity.

I finished eating, packed up, and prepared for the long journey home. As I was getting up, the man from before was passing by and our eyes met again. Another nod and this time, "Good job, man." Then the moment was over and he was gone.

Queens Half-Marathon: the Penultimate Race

2009-09-20T17:16:00.006-04:00

For 60 races now, I have begun my run by listening to Garth Brook's "Standing Outside The Fire". The lyric "life is not tried, it is merely survived, if you're standing outside the fire" has been my motto, my creed, my spur. But what happens, Garth, when the fire turns to ashes?

Ah, the Queens Half: vaunted favorite of several runners I know and, until now, a complete mystery to me. Second to last in the Grand Prix line up, I have never had the chance to run it before; it was about time.

Some course, huh? I'm not going to editorialize, like I did with the Bronx course, but I think everyone agrees this is a perversely convoluted route.

I am also not posting a race report. I wrote one, but am keeping it private, as a draft. To me, it is simply a laundry list of my failures as an athlete and as a man. You can see my Runkeeper times if you click the link in the map above and you can see my NYRR official results here. [I do want to note the extraordinary measures NYRR afforded us back-of-the-packers this time around. I have zero complaints about NYRR's performance and give them props for managing such runners with grace and aplomb. The value and committment of the NYRR staff and volunteers has never been more apparent.]

Now, early in the race, while I was pondering actually dropping out, I came to a decision - and a realization. The Queens Half is not only the next-to-last Grand Prix race, but it is MY next-to-last race. I came to this one intending to use it as a litmus test to see whether I should continue training for the NYC Marathon. Some time in the first quarter of the race, I decided I will defer my entry; and further events and re-examination of that decision during the race and after have only assured me I'm right in making that choice.

I further realized that I am no longer interested in racing at all. There are many reasons for this, beginning with a distinct lack of desire. "But you've got be tough when consumed with desire, 'cause it's not enough just to stand outside the fire," Garth wrote. But I am no longer consumed by desire - or even tickled by it. This was race number 60. I have been racing for nearly five years without a real time-out from it and I may just be burnt out.

More immediately, I am tired of spending my few "me" hours in extended training for races that I'm doing worse and worse in. I'm tired of losing entire days to what is supposed to be just a couple of hours of running, but leave me wasted and unable to be productive. I am tired of being tired for the next several days. I am tired of the injuries that inevitably come with mounting miles. I am tired of paying race fees only to find that all the goddamn bagels are gone by the time I cross the finish line. I am tired of doing these monumental things without reward or return on my investment.

My very reasons for running have shifted. I have never run to maintain my CF, no matter how much I note the positive effects here. I really can't stand the activity. But I do have a competitive streak and knowing my sister is out there running despite her schedule and family demands helps keep me going. I have seen very good evidence that running keeps my diabetes in check, even more than it keeps my CF in check. And I have come to realize that when people say I'm inspiring, they're not just blowing smoke up my ass - I now have several acquaintances who have taken up running in the last couple of years, or who have decided to go from recreational jogging to tackling a serious distance race at least once. And I believe that I was one of the examples that spurred them to their decisions. I love being that.

I am NOT giving up running! All winter my goal was to strengthen my base - get steadier, increase the number of days per week that I run, but keep the mileage lower. And this is my renewed goal! My diabetes, my gout, my CF, my osteopoenia all benefit from a moderate, consistent running plan. So that, I think, wants to be my real focus for at least the next year. No more than four miles per day and no longer than my 6.7 mile loop on a weekend. I want to focus - really focus - on improving my endurance, my speed, and my flexibility. I want to run injury- and pain-free. And I want to get back to reading my running friends' blogs - something I haven't been doing because of lack of time, and suspicions (usually confirmed) that they ran a particular race better than I. Petty, I know; but I'm human.

I'm not ruling out races completely. There are fun runs that support great causes, and I'll most certainly be at next year's BEF-sponsored race, provided that comes to pass. These are things I'll decide on a case-by-case basis and probably at the last minute. I'm also not avoiding attending the races. I want to do more race photography and I want to volunteer more.

So, that's it. My mood as I slogged through Queens was somewhat buoyed by this decision and I think I'm making the right one. I will take at least the next year off from racing and hopefully rekindle the fire.

Dazed & confused

2009-09-11T22:14:00.002-04:00

This post has nothing to do with running. Really.

I remember what I forgot on my last post, why I had posted at all: wheezing. I had a couple days of very loud wheezing. Not when I was teaching, thankfully, but at most other times. Of course, I'd been out of Pulmozyme for a couple of days...but... am I so dependent on Pulmozyme? Yes, I think so. Fortunately, I got a new prescription sent in so that now the Pulmozyme will come on 90 day cycles, instead of monthly, which should help keep me from running out!

This has been a long, hard week. Sunday, tenant moves out, fine. Monday, fixing electrical and plumbing. Getting supplies for patching and painting (which is tomorrow's big task). Thought I had a family lined up to sign the lease. They had a couple strikes against them, but I was willing to give them a change. But then they texted that they were no longer interested: had taken a walk around the neighborhood and didn't like how close I was to a porn shop. REALLY? How could you not like being close to a porn shop! LOL Ah, never mind. I'll get someone in soon enough.

So. How many fucking meltdowns do I have to witness before I get to have one of my own? I am watching people get downright desperate. There's a hungry look in everyone's eyes and they all look to me for help or guidance. Student at FIT - complete meltdown - boyfriend breaking up w/ her by phone. What an asshole. Teacher at FIT. Was kind of drowning the first class, I thought by the second class, he'd started to get his act together, but he didn't teach the content WELL...just no experience as an instructor and no natural talent for it, I guess. Well, he's been replaced and we will have a new instructor next week, the one whom I believe wrote the course content to begin with (many instructors for different sections of the course).

Then a good friend of mine got some very bad news for his business venture and is looking at having to sue his landlord or something... he was not in good shape when I went to hand him a business proposal. OK... "here's a one-sheeter; look at when you have the time, there's no reason to rush this."

Budgets melting down and I'm trying to bid on jobs I have NO idea what their previous budgets were, much less what the "reduced" budgets are. My bids are wild shots in the dark. I can either do the job for what I am quoting, or I can't do the job. Maybe I can cut 10 or 15%, but that's it. I know what I know and I know what that costs.

Expediter finally called with some interesting history of my house, though not good news. Don't yet know what this means for my renovation.

I think I'm getting slightly sicker. If I were smart, I'd call my doctor Monday morning and say, "let's do it." I feel positive about the running right now, even though I missed today's run due to weather and working 'til 8 p.m. Guess I'll put in four or five miles tomorrow, then take it easy on Sunday's half-marathon. I think my training is generally on track, though I doubt I'll meet even last year's time in the marathon. Well, who knows? But I know I'm not going to get any faster or breathe any better if I don't do IVs between now and then.

And now: soup.

9-9-9

2009-09-10T00:02:00.002-04:00

Viewed upside down, as my world sometimes seems to be, it reads 6-6-6. Heh. I wonder where I was June 6, 2006? Let's take a trip in the way-back machine, shall we?

June 5, 2006 is as close as we get. I'm amazed; I remember that run.

So. I forgot to blog about last weekend's long run. Uh...it went. 3 hours, 19 minutes for 16 miles. Far too much time. But it got done. Next week is Queens Half and I think I'll do a couple miles of warmup first.

Ran 4 miles Tuesday after work. Today has been one long, long day. I don't even know why I'm blogging.

Me First and the Gimme Gimme MORE OF THAT QUALITY

2009-09-04T19:10:00.003-04:00

I'd meant to get up and run TO work this morning, which would have been my first time going in that direction. But the more I thought about it, the less I could remember what clothes were in my locker, much less if any of it was appropriate for a designer sitting at his desk drafting all day or having client meetings.

So instead, I emptied my pockets, took my running clothes in a plastic bag, and resolved to run after work.

I'd planned this 6-miler, to be sure, but by the time 4:30 rolled around and I'd been slowly getting tight and cramped in my legs all day, I thought maybe this would be a three or four-miler, ending where I usually do at Chambers street.

Now, my lungs did not behave. I'm coughing up a lot of junk - this is not a good sign. And despite three puffs of albuterol, I still had some asthmatic reaction, especially in the second and third miles. My lungs didn't open up after that, but I seemed to be able to go longer on what I had, if that makes any sense. Perhaps it was the playlist for today - a random shuffle of Me First and the Gimme Gimmes first seven albums. I especially enjoy "Love Their Country" (all country music covers) and "Ruin Johnny's Bar Mitzvah", which is the funniest album I've heard in a while.

So by the time I hit Chambers, with no deadline on my time tonight, I decided what the hell, why not at least go see what the Brooklyn Bridge looks like today. I ran over there, then started up the slope. Had the pedestrians and bicyclists been their usual spastic selves, I would have ended the run at 4.5 miles. But everybody seemed to be behaving as well as can be expected and I trotted up the bridge. I walked a good deal on that segment, of course, but not quite as much as I might have. And the downhill and connecting segment to the subway was a smooth, continuous jog. Not fast - I was getting pretty tired - but continuous; and I am very happy with that.

Once I got home: hm... therapy or shower? therapy or shower? I decided therapy comes first. And...I took Mable's cone off. She's been fully healed for a little more than a week, now - I was just waiting for the scratching behaviour to fade, which it has. She didn't even scratch at her head after the cone came off - she just set about cleaning her coat thoroughly. been 45 minutes and she's probably still at it.

This American Life

2009-09-01T20:39:00.003-04:00

Man, I love September. It is the most perfect month, and not just because it's when I was born, but because the weather turns perfect.

Let's back up to the weekend. Sunday I was supposed to 16 miles, figured I would just do 13 or 14, about the same as last weekend, and ended up cutting it short. I just wasn't having a good run. I wasn't in pain, though that might have been the Tylenol kicking in, but I wasn't having a good running day. The energy just wasn't there. I made sure to bring Sustained Energy, as I always do on long runs and even brought and used some freebie gels from last winter, some god-awful-tasting strawberry-vanilla caffeinated shots-o-barf. And while I had *a* level of energy, it wasn't the *right* energy. I was struggling from the get-go and was very unhappy. I think this is because I pushed too hard and had that good 5-miler on Saturday.

But few runs are a complete loss and it means a total of 15 miles for the weekend, which has got to be some kind of good training, right? And I was definitely clearing my lungs of mucous. (Unfortunately, I'm clearing more and more and the oral antibiotics I'm on right now are doing nothing but giving me cracked corners of my mouth and an itchy asshole.) I also ran into a friend of mine, Mark, whom I've sometimes seen walking in the park with his wife, but never seen exercise - until this run. I was walking and I heard my name, he was jogging and had caught up from behind. I'm very proud of him! He said he doesn't go long distance - just one loop of the park - but that's a very solid distance, if you ask me. He says his fitness right now is what holds him back. He gets his heart rate up to what he can stand and just holds it there. Consequently, his jog is slow - I actually caught up to him about a mile and a half later after I'd got going again - but he's very steady in his pace. I complimented him on that.

So. Sunday felt like a waste, mostly. I also had to wonder what kind of effect this would have on my blood sugars. Would I need less Lantus or the same? It's been hard lately to second-guess my body. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttt.

So the world turns 'round and all of a sudden, it's today and I'm determined to leave work a half hour early (after staying 'til nearly 8 last night) and do 4 miles along the west side. Probably should have gone for the six, but I didn't think about it. I literally didn't think about this run and had an actual easy 4-miler. Slow, but easy. I walked when I felt like it; I enjoyed the beautiful weather and marveled at how clean the air was today. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten to take a puff on my inhaler before I left work, so I was taking it a little easier than I'd wanted, but that was OK.

I was listening intently to my podcast, This American Life, the bad apple episode - Ruining It For The Rest Of Us. I'd JUST been talking to my colleague, Nico, about whether he'd be taking Mayor Bloomberg up on his offer to get all schoolchildren free flue vaccine this year. Nico is concerned. And then on this podcast, there was a segment about the moms who purposely don't get their kids vaccinated because of safety concerns or the now-debunked autism concerns. Nico's reasons are entirely different than what were mentioned in the podcast. The podcast was quite sobering - or that segment at least - and I had a lot to think about as I made my way past the heliport and Chelsea Piers.

Then the podcast turned to a segment with Mike Burbiglia, a comedian. I like this guy's work, but was not prepared for the laughter this time. At one point, a half-mile short of the end of my run, he said something that had me doubled over with laughter, just howling out loud. I'm sure the other joggers thought I was crazy. Of course, my laughing often turns to coughing, so I parked my butt on a bench to try to get some control over my lungs. And, man, when your butt hits the bench, your work out is over, you know? My last half-mile was a good one, but pretty much just phoned in. I had no leg pain the entire time - my stretching and foam rolling this weekend really helped.

My RunKeeper said 4.14 miles, but that can't be right. I think it's 3.9 or 4. Well, I'll let the resulting sub-12-minute pace stroke my ego for awhile. Plans are to get up tomorrow morning and put in another four or five before going to work.

2009-08-29T18:35:00.003-04:00

I have just discovered Me First & The Gimme Gimmes. What a great punk band! They take well-known songs and crank up the tempo, add punk licks, and generally barf color-me-bad all over them. It is GREAT running music. I am going to have to get more.

5.15 miles done in an hour and two minutes.

The splits are generally accurate, disregarding 'mile 6'. The route is accurate. I slept way too late, and then took my time getting out the door, because it was raining. I did make sure to take Tylenol and some tea before I went. I should have taken water with me, but didn't - that didn't seem to impact my performance any, though.

The lungs held up pretty well in the clean, humid air. With the temp in the low 70s, I wasn't sweating too badly either. A very nice day for a run, generally speaking.

The legs are beginning to have problems. Aches and pains that take days to go away, if they go away at all. I have IT band pain, knee pain, and pain on both the tops and bottoms of my feet, but nothing severe. I made a point to stretch very well after today's run. I hope I can keep up the training, though discontinuing marathon training has crossed my mind. I must still keep up after the 5 borough challenge, though.
---
So many things go through my mind when I run. Today's thoughts orbited around three centers of gravity: Senator Kennedy's passing, Bob Dillon's All Along the Watchtower, and Steve Runner's sudden, if not surprising, love affair with barefoot running.

Ted Kennedy didn't have much impact on my life. I was only peripherally aware of who he was: a senator for some New England state; brother to two slain, beloved political icons; and implicated in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. I'd become more aware of him as a powerful political force in recent years and have a hunch that it was his endorsement that propelled Obama to victory. I knew he was dying of brain cancer. That sucks, absolutely sucks, but he dealt with it nobly. He obviously left behind a legacy that few men ever could match and I wonder how many libraries, roads, and schools will be named after him. The new health care reform bills don't seem likely to pass at this point. Eventually the topic will come up again and America will figure out how to make sure everybody gets fair and decent health care - and probably it will be called the "Edward M. Kennedy Memorial Health Care Provision, Tort Reform, And Bridge Warning Signs Act of 2033".

Well, rest in peace, old man. You did a good job.

My podcast listening for today was Pheddip 202, all about Pavo Nurmi, whom I confess I'd never heard of. Fascinating history. But I was really interested in mail call, in which Steve responded to a people's emails challenging him on his latest thing: barefoot running (or, rather, running in sandals, water shoes, or barefoot - i.e.; without the support and cushioning of modern running shoes - and without the restrictions, either.) Very interesting episode with lots of food for thought. I don't think I'll be taking up the barefoot running craze, personally, but if someone is getting benefit from it, more power to 'em.

Finally, I looked up All Along The Watchtower. I don't have much familiarity with the song, but I was aware it was used to powerful effect in Battlestar Galactica. Bear McCreary's version was an amazing musical motif that drove the last two seasons of the show and was, in fact, the last piece of music, accompanying the last scene of the show. If you're not aware, BSG had a very strange ending. We'd long assumed the show was in the future, because the narration at the beginning tells us that we invented the robots, the robots (cylons) rebelled, bit battles, blah blah blah original series blah blah blah, and now we're this tiny little collection of humans trying to evade cylons who want to kill us all and find a new home at the same time. Best drama on TV. But the cyclons grew more advanced, found God, some broke away and formed an alliance with the humans, and in the last couple of episodes, we destroy the evil cylons and prophetic visions from a dying leader and someone we're not quite sure is a ghost or not, lead us to a new planet for a fresh start. This planet has only the earliest hominids on it and is obviously our present Earth. The series ENDS where our own history BEGINS. In fact, one of the characters, a child, is "Eve", the mitochondrial first homo sapiens, or something like that. It is all quite moving and jaw dropping and disturbing.

But to get to the point: I looked up All Along The Watchtower on wikipedia and then a site that explains all the lyrics. Dillon's lyrics are often derided as a songwriter reaching too far and just being jumbled, pretentious nonsense. I pretty much agree. But having gotten acquainted with the song - especially Hendrix's version - I can't deny the power of it and the chills that the ending gives. The ending is chronologically before the beginning.

Critic Christopher Rick's review is worded exactly right: "All Along the Watchtower" is an example of Dylan's audacity at manipulating chronological time: "at the conclusion of the last verse, it is as if the song bizarrely begins at last, and as if the myth began again."

Now keep in mind that Bear McCreary didn't pick up the song for BSG until the end of season THREE, yet the story ends EXACTLY as Watchtower does: it bizarrely begins at the last - and the myth begins again.

Listen, do your own research on this. I may be obsessed or crazy (I think not), but I see a powerful story whose genesis was 40 years before the telling of the tale - a story that will stand, in my lifetime, as one of the best ever told, a space odyssey so vivid and realistic as to compete with Robinson's Mars, Herbert's Dune, and even Asimov's Foundation.

Well, it's late and I hope to get up early for my run, so I guess I should make dinner, do therapy, and get to bed.

half-marathon point reached

2009-08-24T19:49:00.002-04:00

This was a 13.4 mile run that got interrupted partway through. The iPhone or the app stopped tracking. Dammit.

So much going on right now. I will summarize yesterday's run by saying that after a week of nearly NO running (heat, humidity, busy blah blah blah), I was not expecting a good run; but it was actually a very high quality run. Maybe not particularly fast, but if you look at the splits for the first 9 miles, you can see how well things were going. Those splits aren't terribly accurate, due to the error in tracking, but I was definitely averaging sub-12-minute miles for the first 10.

After that, it got hard. Very hard. I struggled through the last 3.4 miles of the run, but feel overall it was a quality workout. (And my legs are certainly feeling it today!) It was warm and VERY humid, but amazingly my lungs felt great - my untrained legs turned out to be the limiting factor. I was even able to keep the shin splints at bay. I felt well-hydrated and more-or-less comfortable the whole time, even if I couldn't get the sweat to evaporate!

The prep for the run wasn't great. I ran lights for my Fringe show due to crew staffing problems, so on Saturday I did that twice, with a short 2 mile run in Central Park in between. My dinner was a giant bagel w/ creamcheese and lox - not quite enough for dinner, but I was too tired to cook when I got home. So imagine my surprise at how well the first 10 miles went.

Post run, I did the whole ritual. Lots of stretching, ice bath, hot shower. Slept for three hours after, went to run lights for my show one last time, then came home and slept well last night. Took two Endurolytes after my run, to replace the salt I lost - it was encrusting various parts of my body.

I need to order more Endurolytes, Sustained Energy, and Hammer bars. Probably time to get some goo, too. Will probably order single shot packets, as I don't go through gel fast enough to make the big jugs worth it, and I'd like to carry around a packet or two to combat unexpected blood sugar lows.

Suck ass gym workout

2009-08-17T19:47:00.002-04:00

The workout itself was fine - high quality cardio - 35 minutes on the bike. It's everything surrounding the workout that sucked, such as the fact the gym was so full I couldn't find space to foam roll after.

Considering tomorrows "7 easy miles"... Hm.... I don't think I'm ready for that on a Tuesday. May go ahead and do a hot 4 after work, knowing I will have to be well prepared, bring hydration, and take my time. It's the 7 miles of hills the next day that really have me worried.

NYC Half Marathon 2009

2009-08-16T19:56:00.002-04:00

I didn't get to run this one, unfortunately, but was happy to get up early and go take pictures. I've put some of my best shots below, and there's lots more at my Picassa album here: NYC Half Marathon 2009.

Shin splints, heat, and exhaustion

2009-08-15T13:52:00.005-04:00

Watching track and field on NBC right now. Will take a nap soon. Will write about the run later tonight.

---

OK. I did many things wrong today, including getting up too late and forgetting to take Tylenol and salt tablets. I had three major barriers on this run: shin splints in the first four miles, the climbing heat in the last eight, and just exhaustion (probably salt depletion mostly) in the last three. In short, this run sucked. The graph is off, too, because for whatever reason, it stopped plotting when I stopped to chat to a guy on the big hill. While I have adjusted the route to show the right path and distance, the pace splits are pretty far off after mile 8.

Several things of note.

First, I'm having trouble keeping my eye on the prize. I kept wondering today why I'm doing this? I'm certainly running more than enough to boost my health and am now in the range of getting injured. The aches and pains I experienced throughout the run speak to that.

Second, running without a shirt is glorious, but probably insanely stupid, if the definition of insane is "doing something over and over and expecting different results. I could feel myself beginning to crisp in the last couple miles. I don't think I got too badly burned (thanks to the tan I've built up), but shit...this is just dumb.

Third, the run was fairly uneventful for the first loop (I ran to the park and did three loops, then ran down 9th street to the 4th ave subway station for a total of 12 miles. 13 was on the menu, but that seemed like pushing it after only 10 last week). On my second trip down the slope, on the south side of the park, I was passed by some bicyclist in an orange jersey who was leading three others in a training ride. He was quite vocal and was yelling - YELLING - at pedestrians to watch out, get out of the way, etc. While the family he was yelling at was admittedly taking their sweet goddamn time crossing the road and were certainly not watching out for traffic, the bicyclist went way overboard. We all have to share the park and his behaviour was simply out of line. I've encountered a-holes like him before and have an overwhelming desire to jam sticks in their spokes. I mean, I've had my share of problems from people not watching where they're walking, squirrely kids who can't control their bicycles, etc; but I realize that we all have to adjust to each other.

So I found some cops. I talked to them and asked them to have a word with the bicyclist about his behaviour if they see him (and how could they not with his bright orange jersey?)

Not too much later, I completely forgot about the asshole on wheels (the bicyclist, not the cop), as I encountered some people under a tree at the foot of the big hill, staring up into the branches. I'm glad I slowed to look - there was a red-tailed hawk! And in another tree a few feet away was another one, whom I presume was his mate. Now, I grew up in the country and have seen plenty of hawks, but they're pretty scarce in NYC - and to see them closeup was a real treat. Just like that, my run went from bad, to not-so-bad.

On my third loop, I realized I kept passing all these people in light blue shirts and with light blue backpacks. It was either a cult, or a walk for something, so I stopped a couple and asked. Turns out it was a walk for diabetes, sponsored by these people's clinic, I think. The walkers were almost all African-American, but not all of them patients - lots of family. It was great to see the FAMILY SUPPORT. The guy I talked to was diagnosed not too long ago and admitted he spent the first six months in complete denial, but had recently decided to get control of his disease and was feeling much better. He admired me for being young and slim; I didn't tell him that was a product of my CF, for the most part. It was a nice chat.

I wrapped up the run by changing my planned route. I'd meant to quit at Pritchard Square, thus completing 11.7 miles for the day, but at the last minute decided to exit at 9th street and use the five blocks of downhill as an easy way to tack on an extra half mile. So, 12.2 miles for the day. Not bad, but it completely wiped me out. I did all the right post-run stuff, but have a feeling tomorrow I will be in pain. Check out the badges of honor:

Those white specks above and below my eye are salt crystals.

The thin, grit line. Tan and dirt above, pale white skin below.

I'm supposed to get up early and go take pictures of NYC Half, but I'm kinda debating it. I do want to meet this guy Nate and his wife who will be handing out Team Boomer flyers at the end of the race. This promises to be hot work without shade, so I better dress appropriately.

In other news, Radcliffe, Ndereba, and Kastor will be battling it out for the women's race, while my favorite Ryan Hall competes in the men's. I don't think he'll be able to break his record (the US half-marathon record), but he might get close. It's just too hot to break records. If I'm really lucky, I'll get a picture of him!

Also, I note that tracking for NYC Marathon will be D-tags this year. Aww.... and I so loved keeping my chip last year. Guess I'm glad I did the race last year, if there aren't going to be anymore souvenir chips!

weird 2 miler

2009-08-14T20:47:00.002-04:00

Trying to forget the heat and shitstorms of the week. Fringe is fucking killing me. Now I'm running my own lights, because it became clear in tech this morning that we just don't have enough hands on deck - and with such a poor plot to work off of (rep plot, not mine), I've got to make sure even the few lights I refocus get refocused right, every time. I'm also not convinced the cues are finished. May tweak them some more. We open Sunday.

In other news, saw my endo yesterday and walked away as moderately unhappy as I entered. I brought up my concerns and complaints. I tried not to make it sound like I wanted special treatment (I don't) or that I'm a whiny bitch (you decide). But I think it's fair that the doctor knows how I feel about her, the clinic, and the process so far. She made some valid points, but also made some arguments that really didn't help. She point blank told me that she has a very large caseload and that personalized attention - even returning a phone call - was not on the table. Essentially, my nutritionist there is my point person. I'm OK with that to an extent (it is clear that they communicate with each other), but it is a kind of process I experience no where else. Is this common at diabetes clinics?

It also doesn't help that I think I simply don't like HER. She's cold and impersonal; even when I have her full attention, I feel like I'm getting the brushoff. This is not how I imagine the beginning of a possibly life-long doctor-patient relationship.

Kept my run shorter than the scheduled 4 miles because I'm moving the weekend long run up to tomorrow, rather than Sunday. So 12 or 13 miles tomorrow, early, before it gets hot; then take pictures of the NYC Half Sunday morning, hand out Team Boomer fliers at the finish (Maybe), and then open my Fringe show in the afternoon. Add cleaning the house, doing all the dishes, and trying to file six weeks' worth of receipts and bills and the weekend is looking very full.

Sushi tonight, though. :)

:)

2009-08-13T21:12:00.003-04:00

I need to remind myself more often that there's always a silver lining. Put in a second run once I got home, while my chicken was cooking, and turned out a good, quality 3 miles, especially after the turnaround point. I haven't turned in a good mile like that in a long time. Take a look at the graph on the runkeeper site and note the good pacing.

:(

2009-08-13T11:37:00.000-04:00

another day in the shitter

2009-08-12T21:50:00.002-04:00

I seem to be having an awful lot of bad days lately. Today was lousy. I missed my exercise. I'm not even sure I would have done it, if I'd even had the time, because the humidity had me panting just walking. Tomorrow is a rest day according to the calendar, but I will just have to make up my medium-length run I missed today.

Went to tech the Fringe show and we discovered Fringe LIED to us. Told us we had four hours for tech, when we really only had two. "A typo" they said. I think I did a pretty good job on the lights with what I had, but will hopefully get time to clean up the cuing before the show opens Sunday. I know Fringe isn't the bottom of the barrel, but it's close.

We then all went to a local food and drink establishment for a paper tech - basically a long meeting to get the order of the various cues figured out, without actors. We have a lot of tech on this one and the stage manager is certainly earning his pay. Well, one thing and another, that lasted until 5.

Then the D train. The goddamn MTA doesn't know what the fuck it's doing and anybody who says otherwise is either a blind fool or a shill for the MTA. I got stuck on an un-airconditioned car and it took an HOUR to go four express stops, all the while getting periodically bumped in the back by a woman with a huge purse who refused to set it on the floor or whatever. No, she's gotta be rude and keep banging people with it.

My oven is broken. Gas is going, but it's no longer lighting itself. I don't know when I'll have time to call for and wait for a repairman, which I'm sure will cost too much. In the meantime, I invested fifty bucks in a giant countertop convention oven slash toaster. At least my evening meals are back in business and I might actually go back to eating toast in the mornings, which I haven't done since undergrad. Of course, that will necessitate more insulin.

SPEAKING OF WHICH... I have my endo appointment tomorrow. I just spent most of two hours transferring my logs from GlucoseBuddy.com to the diabetes center's paper forms. By hand. I'm realizing that I didn't get everything recorded while I was on my motorcycle trip. But I was getting better at it as the trip went on. Perhaps the paper forms are better - easier to lay it all out and see trends. I don't know.

To end on a good note, I have tracked down my old band teacher, who was my first diabetic role model. Insulin and all. I have emailed him and I hope he'll write back. Or perhaps, like me, he is not too keen on voices from the past. We shall see. I'm just glad to know he's OK and still teaching music to kids.