Grab your stress snacks. Tears are being shed here.

Not actually tears but dang close.  
I took 9 days off from my last half marathon, worked on my core, took a lot of ibuprofen and iced iced iced.  The pain is so hard to explain but it's definitely nerve pain and it shoots down the outside of my leg and making my knee hurt and down to the ankle.  It's crazy how bad it can hurt.  Sometimes it hurts just to walk.  

I went to the gym last week.  I wanted to run an easy 3 miles on a flat surface so I decided to hit the gym.  Well, within 1 step trying to run I was immediately hit with a sharp nerve pain from my knee to my ankle.  I tried stretching, running slower and even walking.  At about 10 minutes I gave it up and finished my 30 minutes on the cycle.  

SO depressing!  

Did some strengthening exercises.  
Came home.
Cooked.

Enough soup to last a week.  SOOOO delicious! 

(did not make or eat the bread)

The constant injuries are wearing on me.  The only time I ran without injury was when I took a couple of Pilates classes a week.  I'm considering finding a good Pilates workout on CD.  

I wanted to eat through my tears but I went for my new favorite snack.

Celery, cashew butter and craisins

I went to the sports doc last Thursday.  They couldn't figure out anything definitive.  If it's going down my leg then they (the doctor and resident) think it's my back but it's not my back.  There was other words thrown around but in the end they thought it was mechanical and sent me to physical therapy.  

Luckily my very favorite PT from the running clinic, Laura, had an opening that night!   She was just as perplexed.  We narrowed it down to my knee.  She did the Graston just above my knee (OUCH) then taped and iced it.  She also gave me a couple of new exercises to do.  

not my knee or Laura

It's been 5 days since then.   The tape is helping.  I'm also icing.  I went to the massage therapist and in her words, "that leg is just not giving it up".  It's frustrating but I really want to move on from this.  I haven't needed the ibuprofen and that's a big improvement.  Plus I get to share my "scrotee" with friends, family and co-workers!

Scrotee - when your knee is taped while bent so that when you straighten your leg your knee now resembles a scrotum.  

I have been keeping close track just to try and keep me motivated.  

Even added a couple of strengthening moves.

Just lifting a light weight with my feet.  I don't move my leg just lift my foot up and down.

Important Info:

Did you know that you can feel like shit after acutely stopping ibuprofen?  I really wanted to give my body a break and the pain was decreasing so I slowed way down and finally stopped today.  I've had a rebound headache since.  Hoping to snap out of it tomorrow.  Usually I just get really sore and feel every knot and creak in my body for a day and then feel better.  This time I had nausea and a headache.  I narrowed it down to stopping the ibuprofen.  

I'm a hot mess and when I say hot I'm talking about a hot flash!  


Work has been great.  We've had a couple of long flights during the day over the beautiful changing leaves.  We don't have our cell phones on during flight and I don't have a regular camera so I don't have pictures.  

It's been the best fall ever!  I appreciate living here in Utah more every season.

I also had a most excellent day in the OR.  Each team member spends one day in the OR intubating patients.  We work closely with the anesthesiologist and learn so much!  I did study before hand.  Have to know your landmarks!

High five for FOUR successful first pass intubations before noon!!

Looking for the perfect name for our Masters Ultra in February.  Any ideas will be welcomed!!  

Blog on........

Training for Half Marathon

Well, I've signed up, committed and now I'm ready to start actually training for something!!  WOOT WOOT

I actually started my training in January.  It's been a busy few months, naturally.  I found my training plan on RunKeeper. I paid for the Elite status which is 20 bucks a year.  I couldn't pass on the deal, I was so impressed with their training plans.  I like having a plan but of course I don't/can't always follow them.  They have plans of all types.  I started out with the 2 hour half marathon training plan and then moved to the 2:15 half marathon plan.   The two hour one was just a little too intense and I'm not doing this half marathon to break any records but to ease back into my running without getting hurt again.  

I'll be running the Salt Lake Half Marathon on April 19th.  Because it's a local race bunches of my favorite runners will be running it too!!!  

Here is an example of January.  The orange are the skipped ones and the red are the ones I just didn't acknowledge.  I have an app on my phone that is GPS and I can add music to.  I stopped using it as my primary GPS because I feel like it's a little fast and stick with my time/distance on the trusty ole Garmin 305.  

So far everything is going pretty well.  The usual problems have come up.  Not enough time to get in the runs and the Pilates classes I want to do, a few sore muscles here and there and general panic on my time limitations.  I have been very careful to listen to my body and rest/sleep/hydrate when it wants to and I've been very lucky.  Except this week I'm sick.  First time all winter.  This post is brought to you by my annoying head cold. 

I took off the week from running.  Usually I would just get some OTC cold meds and go about life as I want it to go.  Now that I have to fly for my job I don't want to risk a sinus or ear infection which would keep me out of work until it cleared up.  I struggle to sit around, unless I have something to do.  

One thing that is never lacking is running selfies. If there is no picture - did it really happen??

Yeah buddy!  

oh and here is a picture of me dancing

So I have that going on for me if the Flight Nurse thing falls through.

I was 2 with a saggy diaper and YES, I am owning it!

The running has been amazing for my well being.  But I don't have to tell other runners that.  It's a life saver.  I look forward to feeling better and getting back out on the road.  In the meantime I'm thinking of giving up sugar for Lent.  Just because.  Plus my friend Missy, who is an ultra runner does it.  Why not?  Now I must go get cookies to finish the last day of sugar coma!

Are you training for anything exciting?

Giving up anything for Lent?

Love running in the cold?

          I don't love running in the cold, but this year I dialed in my outfit to cover a run in 18 degrees (with little wind).  I started really liking it.  Weird.  

Blog on...................

Foot update!

Teaser!

Yes I do have an injury update.  Before I get to that, I did drag myself this morning (thank you Zofran!) to staff meeting.  During the meeting we were able to get a sneak peak at our new flying machine.  EC-145 please.

It's rear loading and so there is a crazy amount of room for a medical helicopter.  I am taking the picture at the bottom from the open back.  That is Tony in the seat, buckling himself in to see if he'll fit.  This is the Rotor that will be based at the U and when I start flying rotor (a couple of months) then I will get the opportunity to play big girl nurse in it.  Word.

Podiatrist bound I was!  I realized as I took off my sock that all the nail polish had worn off on all but one toe nail.  Then there are 3 that are missing and one purple toenail.  HAWT!!!  Plus I have very long narrow feet.  LOOONNNNGGG!! 

Lots and lots of discussion.  Dr. Preece checked for problems behind my knee that could contribute to nerve pain and he checked my flexibility, asked about my back.  We went over where the pain is (nerve pain is tricky) and where the numbness is.  I thought to myself, "do podiatrist even like feet?".  Because lets be honest - they aren't looking at great feet....ever.  

I digress.  SO...because he could not illicit (dirty!) any pain or hot spots then he's not really worried about the nerve pain causing permanent damage.  I've just pissed it off a little and when I run or do a lot of activities then it just goes ballistic.  In order to have some sort of Nerve Pain study, the nerve pain needs to be able to be duplicated.  SO..if I want to run 10 miles and run my way right into the hospital for the study that would be an option.  I think I'm going for a little less intervention at this time.  We talked about a higher heel drop in my shoe and how the mechanics of that may help both nerve and PF pain.  He looked at my inserts again, with admiration (thank you Dr. Lowe - they are magic) and we decided to pass on giving the inserts a lift.  Thank goodness I bought a sweet pair of Asics (Sorry Saucony!!) that have a 10 mm heel drop!!  

He taped my foot and gave me some of the supplies to do it myself.  With the plantar fasciitis pain and the nerve pain it's hard to tell if it helps or not at this point.  

Link to Dr. Preece website with link to taping video

It was a long discussion about healing, causes, interventions and lots of stuff that I won't bore you with.  I will continue icing, massage and ibuprofen.  I will probably pass on the compression sock that I bought for PF pain. I found that if I wear it too long then my foot starts to REALLY hurt around the edges.  Makes me wonder if that contributed to the nerve pain.  Who knows?  Medicine is a mystery.  At least I didn't get a shot.  

   

Then I tried to clean my room.  

Actually I just shuffled shit around and took out the trash.  Isn't that what cleaning is? 

What heel drop does your favorite shoe have or does it even matter to you?

Some of my problems started when I went to a 3mm heel drop.  I've worked my way up to an 8mm and will run with that and higher until my foot heals and I can strengthen it enough to go back to my 3mm.  I really like them.

Are you a hoarder, shuffler or tosser?

  (Don't be disgusting, I'm talking about your house and when you clean it!)

I'm all.  I shuffle things around and hoard stupid stuff and then I get sick of it and toss it all.  I usually do that about 2 weeks before I need whatever I threw away.

How many toenails do you have?

Honestly it's hard to tell.  I have some partials and I lost another one this weekend.  Not because of new injury I just didn't notice it was loose and boom, off it came.  I would say about 5.5 toenails right now. 

Blog on my friends..............

Yackity yack

Don't talk back!

Bad news bears - (I have no idea why I'm talking in TV talk)
The morning that Xander was born I was feeling a little queasy, but it didn't seem to last long.  Through out the day I felt great and ate good food, going to bed feeling like I was going to get a great nights sleep. 
Oh nay nay

At around 5am I woke up so freaking nauseated!  It didn't come with stomach cramps like usual, it was just nausea.  I fought it for a bit and then realized I was going to have to puke.  I don't know if your like me, but I hate throwing up.  I will be sick and miserable and lay on the bathroom floor before I give in.  Well, there was no holding back.  I'll spare the full on details but my body good and cleaned itself out...

I texted Lyndsi at the hospital and told her that Brent might have to come get Matthew since Chris had to work.  She was pretty sure she was getting discharged so they would be home later.  Luckily I was well enough to feed and watch Matthew safely and when he went down for a nap I was able to get a shower.  After that I decided that I really needed to go home.  I didn't know how but with a newborn on it's way home and Chris's son Hunter coming the next day I didn't want to give everyone the flu and have the whole crew puking and crapping all over the house.  

I packed up and when Lyndsi and Brent got home with Xander I broke the news.  We all felt horrible and Matthew even cried when I left.  It broke my heart and I wanted to stay - but I also wanted to be home where I could be sick in my own house.  

I didn't leave until 4pm so I drove about 3 hours to stay in Cheyenne.  I called around to a few hotels and everyone was full!  So I broke down and called the Little America, knowing that they are usually pretty expensive, but they had a room AND they were only about 5 bucks more then the mid-crappy line of motels.  

The room was GLORIOUS!

I even felt well enough to sip on some soup and have a couple of pieces of quesidilla that were carefully brought to me by room service.  Can't get that at Super 8!!

The next morning I had managed to keep down some juice, water and a little dinner so I ran a hot bubble bath, made some weak coffee and soaked while I read.  It was really a short bath but I felt much better.  Good enough to finish the drive home.

Now I am home, somewhat unpacked and in my own bed.  I still feel really off.  My retainers have got to go, they make me nauseated and gaggy.  

No running this week, at least not until my half marathon on Sunday.  I am still planning on doing it, for now.  I'm hoping another 24 hours and I'll be feeling better.  I'm not pushing it at all on Sunday and plan on a slow and steady pace.  

I also have an appointment with my podiatrist tomorrow to discuss the nerve pain and I made an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon for another opinion.  I can't get into the surgeon until November, so I thought I'd go to the podiatrist to see if he can give me a clue on it.  Doesn't make sense to schedule a second opinion before you have the first opinion, or does it??

Blog on............