Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

Yesterday I called the neurologist to ask about the MRI. When an actual person answered the phone, I was a bit stunned as every time I called before I had to leave a message then wait for a call back, which more often than not didn't happen. So to have a live human being answer the phone kind of threw me. I recovered quickly and asked when I might hear what the MRI showed. The woman put me on hold. About a minute later she returned and informed me she needed to call the hospital where I had the MRI completed to have the results sent to the neurologist. I'm calling BS. When I left the hospital, I was told the results would be sent to my doctor within 48 hours. My guess is the results were sent. My doctor hadn't looked at them. My call sparked a CYA response. An appointment to discuss the results was set up for next week, which is suspect to me since the first time I called to set up the initial appointment I had to wait two weeks to get in. Now, I have to wait to start PT be...

Last week I had an MRI to check my lower spine to see exactly what is going on. I haven't heard anything yet, which I figured was going to be the case as the office that I am working with doesn't seem to care all that much about letting its patients know what was found from the tests that have been completed. I was told in the ER that this particular office is bad about responding to its patients. That was most definitely an understatement. When I called to make the initial appointment, no one returned my call. After a couple of days, I called again and pretty much said I'm not impressed with their professionalism. That got a call-back within a couple of hours. The same thing happened when trying to get the MRI scheduled. I called three times, asking about when I would have the MRI. It was only on the third attempt, when I again said the professionalism of this office leaves a lot to be desired, that I received a call-back within a couple of hours. So now, a week after the ...

Since starting back to work in August, I've been cycling to work nearly every day. I've had an odd day here or there when I rode the bus, like rainy days, but usually I ride my bike. This gives me ten miles a day, five miles to work and five miles to home. Depending on how fast I go, my Garmin tells me I burn anywhere from 230 - 280 calories with each five miles, so I burn around 500 calories a day by riding my bike (and this afternoon, after I arrived home, I achieved the 1000 miles cycled for the year -- really since June 1). Also since starting back to work in August, I've stopped eating breakfast. This came about for two reasons: 1) it frees up time in the morning. I used to spend anywhere from a half hour to 45 minutes making the meal and eating the meal. Now I use that time to read or clean the apartment; and 2) I wanted to try the intermittent fasting I'd read about. I was really never all that hungry after waking, and I wanted to try to lose about ten pounds...

I arrived at the Sullivan Sprint Tri with the idea that I was going to participate but stay with Hubby for the entire event. With the whole calf issue, I had decided it best to take it easy and not risk further aggravating the sore calf. Hubby, though, kept insisting I compete at my usual intensity. I began to wiffle-waffle about the whole thing. After much debate, I did a few down and backs in the pool, with no adverse effects, and decided I would go ahead with my original plan to enter the pool at my designated time and see what happened from there. What happened was I finished the swim just fine. The calf cooperated the entire time, and even though my mind wasn't in a good spot before or during the swim, I muddled through and finished a minute faster than I did last year. I arrived at my bike and began getting ready for the ride, thinking I was going to wait for Hubby at this point as I had promised him I would stay with him the entire time. While I was pulling shorts on over ...

The afterglow of having participated in an event with hundreds of others, everyone smiling, laughing, encouraging each other on, and generally just coming together for a cause never ceases to amaze me. It's such a good feeling, and I just want to wrap myself in it for days. The Hilton: 32 Floors of Pain I was ready well before my 8 am start time, so Hubby and I went to the check-in desk. Even though my stomach was churning from nerves, I forced myself to eat a banana and drink some Powerade. I've been working on the eating and drinking before and during my workouts, and I've seen such improvement in my performance that I didn't want to let the nerves change that for today. I knew I probably hadn't eaten enough with just the one piece of fruit, but I couldn't do any more than that. I was able to continue sipping water, though, and I made sure to continue drinking the entire event. I used to be really bad about this, so I'm happy with this aspect of my st...