To Hell & Back

Tonight I accompanied my wife to a yoga class at our gym.

You have no idea how huge this is.

I suck at yoga. When we first got our Wii Fit, the yoga game frustrated me beyond belief. I had very little balance. It had a great deal to do with my being overweight--it's hard to control your body when you're carrying around the equivalent of an extra human being on your back.

Tonight the class was supposed to be hot yoga, but apparently the heat in the room was broken so it was more like luke-warm yoga. Regardless, I was pleasantly surprised at how many of the poses that used to elude me I was able to accomplish in some shape or fashion. I was even able to do the higher level variations a few times. Overall it was a really positive experience.

But this post isn't about yoga.

During the quiet reflection time at the end of the class, I was almost overwhelmed by a rush of emotion. I was nearly brought to tears as I became acutely aware of the grinding, oppressive intensity of my job.

Critical care nursing is a violent, violent beast.

The inhumanity of so many of the "interventions" we implement is staggering. We often do things to our patients where the success or failure of the therapy depends solely on our determination to see the procedure through to the end. Our patients are broken, hacked into pieces and put back together, sometimes not in the right order or composition. We administer vehemently severe drugs that force the body to battle against itself to raise a blood pressure, or increase perfusion, or to be stone still when the entire body aches to thrash about in protest.

This realization caught me by surprise. Actually, the discordant nature of what I do to heal people caught me by surprise.

My compassion for my patients abounds--this isn't the issue. I feel for them; I practice from an empathetic heart.

But this is different.

This is about me. And the horrors I witness on a daily basis in the due course of my job. My career. My livelihood.

Like I'm a computer programmer, or a grocer, or an account customer service representative.

Except that I'm not.

When people ask me what it is that I do, they have no idea the profundity of question they are asking. And I reply like I change oil for a living. Or buy bonds on the stock market.

The reality is my unit is a battlefield. A desolate, bleak, derelict, forsaken, smoking wasteland. Where Death prowls like the inky darkness at the edge of your vision. Where I'll make deals with the Devil to save a soul so they can gasp a few more breaths. Or if we're all lucky, and have muttered the right incantation in the right timbre, to the right lord of medication, the patient pulls back from the brink and returns from the land of nowhere. Where I will attack, wage war, and blatantly injure a patient in the name of healing them.

And so I go, petting the hellhounds, whispering in their ears so that I might escape with one more patient's soul.

No rest for the weary.

But there must be balance.

Namaste.

The Gym Weeps For Me

Because I haven't been in over two weeks.

Lucky for me my weight has stayed stable, which is a small miracle considering my diet as of late. I can't believe how much time my job is taking from me. Right now I'm on dayshift for the purposes of orientation and the internship.

And it is absolutely killing me. I'm having to make choices like going to the gym or see my children.

I thought I'd have so much extra time when I started working. I mean, gone were the hours of studying for exams and writing up care plans of my nursing school days. I have a list of things I want to do.

• Reading, other than text books.
• Writing a novel.
• Plant a garden.
• Do some home improvement.
  
• Learn to play guitar.
• Learn to play the bagpipes.
• Learn to paint.
• Actively pursue getting my photography in more galleries.
  
• Build a tent-top camping trailer to pull behind the Jeep.
• Do some upgrades on the Jeep.

My new active lifestyle meant having time for:

• Camping/Backpacking trips.
• At least a 5K every month.
• Starting to ride a road bike and swimming so I can do my first triathlon.
• More travel: Scotland, Vancouver B.C., England, Germany, Austria.

Alas, it's not to be. At least not yet. Maybe it will ease when I come off orientation.

I Think I'm Addicted...

...to running that is.

This past Saturday I ran my second 5k, nine days after my first 5k ever. I was a little worried about the weather because a cold front was pushing through. I don't really care about the temperature, but cold fronts around here bring wind, and lots of it. When you're my size and have roughly the aerodynamics of a barn, wind can be a race killer. But a little before race time not only was the temperature in the balmy 50s, there was no wind.

I got in line to pick up my race packet an hour before the starting horn and the line was seriously long, but the people around me were friendly. The time passed quickly and I soon had my race packet in hand. I then headed to the port-a-john. And that's where things went bad.

The grass was wet from the morning mist, and so the floor of the port-a-john was a sloppy toxic mess. There was nowhere to set my race packet while I took care of business. In a flash of brilliance, I opened the door and set my packet down on the ground just outside the door. When I was done, I re-emerged to find someone had stolen my packet.

It was now less than 5 minutes from start time. By the time I found a race official, I barely had time to pin on a non-numbered bib and scribble down my name and address for them to send me an extra shirt if they have any extras. I was seriously pissed, but the starter horn was going off, so I tried to put it all out of my mind and started running.

I started near the back of the pack, and as a result I had my work cut out for me dodging strollers and gaggles of walkers. Before I realized it, I was passing the 1 mile marker. I tried settling into a rhythm but the pace that felt comfortable was way too fast, and I knew I wouldn't be able to maintain it--I was running about an 8 minute mile pace!

The 2 mile marker I was really hurting, and so I made the decision to walk a minute or two, knowing I have a real problem getting started again after walking. I walked for 2 minutes and forced myself to start running again. I pushed onward and finished in 28:44.4 according to RunKeeper on my phone. Since my race timer was in my race packet. That's the real bummer, no official time.

It's almost a 5 minute improvement over previous race. I had a coughing attack after finishing, so I'm not entirely convinced I'm 100% yet.

All in all, I'm happy. I'll take it.

The Day After

Thank you for all the supportive comments on yesterdays post. I truly appreciate them. I know I'm super hard on myself. Always have been. Fatal flaw? Maybe.

I made myself get up off my tail and go to the gym today, mostly because I signed up for another 5K next Saturday, haha! I want another shot at it!

Workout went pretty well, and it was good for me. I was able to tell that the cold really is pulling me down, as on the ultra-measurable treadmill, I wasn't able to hit hit marks I've hit before. I did manage 25 minutes at a 9:15 pace, but I've previously run 30 at that pace, and wasn't wiped like I am today after just the 25. I started coughing and hacking and had to walk the rest of my workout.

I'll take tomorrow off, run Sunday and Monday, rest Tuesday, run Wednesday and Thursday, rest Friday, and race on Saturday. Hoping I'll be much improved by then. I'm also hoping to move at least half those workouts outside. Much different running outside than on the treadmill, and I'm positive that was working against me too. Slightly different muscles I think.

My wife and I were silly and got up for Black Friday sales. We got to Kohl's by 0330 and the parking lot was full. Once we were inside we were able to locate our items fairly quickly though. Then we went to get in line to check out. The checkout ran from the registers at the front of the store, all the way to the back of the store, then doubled on itself and went all the way up front again...

Uh, no. Not worth it.

So we went to IHOP instead and had omelets (which are surprisingly large for a surprisingly small number of calories). It was a fun date. We came home, got back in bed for a couple hours until the kids got up, and then did our shopping online instead.

I love the internets.

Well That Was...Fun

We're back from the race and I've had a hot shower.

As mentioned before, it got cold. Very cold. When we left the house this morning it had dropped from 64* to 47* in about 45 minutes. Now that we're home it's currently 36*. The wind is still blowing, but only 10-15 mph instead of 20 mph, but the wind chill is 29*. There were sprinkles of rain throughout the race.

But really the weather conditions weren't the tough part. For the first mile and a half I felt pretty good. We were cruising at a little faster than 10 minute pace, and we warmed up once we were running. But then this damn cold I've been fighting kicked in and my chest started tightening up. By about mile 2, it was clear I needed to walk. I waved my wife on and walked for a ways.

My wife finished close to 31 minutes which is the fastest she's ever run a 5k, especially considering the course was 3.18 miles, rather 3.1 (Awesome job sweetie!). She did amazingly well. I finished about 2 minutes behind her, and several minutes over my fastest 5k to date (about 28 minutes).

I'm trying hard to help my wife celebrate her success, but the truth is I'm devastated, and embarrassed. Not only did I not perform very well, I didn't even run the whole course. I'm so frustrated this cold had to hit when it did. It kept me out of the gym for 5 days, kept me up at nights, and dragged me down at the race. I've been preparing for this morning for 6 months, and the only time I've been sick in those 6 months is the week of the race. I'm just really, really disappointed. I should be happy for just finishing at all given where I started, but I'm not. It puts a lot of pressure on me for the next race, because now I have no excuse not to improve my time...

It also made me realize that though I've come so far, I still have a long, long road to go--29 lbs. 29 lbs is a LOT of weight. It's more than my wife wanted to lose TOTAL. It's what I have LEFT, after 6 months of hard work. Why oh why did I ever let myself get this way?!

Embarrassing.

MyFitnessPal & RunKeeper

I've had my HTC Aria for about 6 months now, and I absolutely love it. Yes, it's a Droid, and no, it's definitely NOT an iPhone. I'm just now starting to sift through the mounds of apps and I've found a couple worth sharing.

First, MyFitnessPal. This is an amazing app, especially considering it's FREE! This keeps track of your calories, your exercise, your weigh-ins, even how many glasses of water you've had. But more than that, it has a searchable database of almost 500,000 foods including brand name and generic items, and when you add them to your meals, it adds nutritional info too. Calories, fat, carbs, protein, vitamins & minerals, and cholesterol. You have to check this out, it's very cool. Pretty sure they have a website too if you don't have a smartphone.

Next up is RunKeeper. This app does exactly what it sounds like--keeps track of your runs. It plots your course on GoogleMaps, keeps distance, speed, pace, calories, etc. Again, very cool, and FREE. There is website support too, where you can browse routes others have run. There is also a virtual race challenge where you can challenge someone near your level to a race and RunKeeper logs the runs and declares a winner.

Check them out, they've both helped me tremendously.

And I'm down to 237.0 today after running 47 min at an 11 minute pace. Hoping to be 225 by graduation, 4 weeks away.