In exactly two months from today I will have graduated. That's 8.7 weeks. Sixty-one days.
I'll spare you the minutes and seconds....
Now
instead of rolling my eyes when asked how school is going I get to yell
"ALMOST DONE" and slap the table for emphasis. I'm smelling the barn,
people!
To celebrate, a much overdue kitteh video:
The first week of my last (last!) affiliation went well. The
whole outpatient TBI (traumatic brain injury) thing turned out to be
acute inpatient rehab for stroke and TBI. Fine by me. I did not get an
actual rehab experience, so this will really round out my abilities.
For those unfamiliar, acute rehab means patients are just medically
stabilized, needing lots of therapy, and able to tolerate three hours of
therapy every day.
What is also means is that my first day consisted of aphasias
(inability to interpret and/or say words), emotional lability
(spontaneous crying or anger that was inappropriate to the context),
missed therapy due to code brown (i.e. poop), suctioning (cleaning
mucous out of a tracheotomy), craniectomies (a portion of the skull
removed due to excessive brain swelling so patients must wear a helmet
at all times when out of bed), and pushers syndrome (a patient with
stroke whose brain, for unknown reasons, very strongly pushes with the non-affected arm and leg, causing the patient to constantly lean toward their affected and often flaccid arm and leg).
And I couldn't be happier.
Well, maybe if I were already graduated, but let's not dwell on those details.
Nathan surprised me with baking stone and a sleek running jacket as congratulations for completing the didactic portion of my degree. Super sweet. Completely unexpected.
Naturally, I ran out the next day for baking supplies. The nerd in me wishes I had literally run to the grocery store wearing the new jacket, but the trial run of the jacket has to wait until the current warm spell moves on and temperatures drop below 35 degrees again. But, the baking had a plan that could not be derailed by weather. Our New Year's Eve plan included the NYRR Midnight 4-miler fun run in Central Park, with pre- and post-race spent with our good friend John. Same plan as last year, slightly smaller crowd. John planned to make a hearty soup, so my party offering became homemade soup-friendly bread and crostatas (barely sweet mini-pie looking things). I also made scones because I wanted to have a few at home but offer the rest to John, because he really is a good soul and makes a wonderful "locker room" manager. Twas my second time making bread, which good improvements on that first loaf, and my first time making scones and crust. Success! Saturday afternoon became quite a bakefest. The results:
No knead peasant bread, cinnamon pecan currant cream scones and pear crostatas, all with whole wheat flour.
The run was fun. Lots of costumes (Angry Birds, shiny/sequined/glittery folks, an Empire State Building, a Banana, mostly naked but for a loin cloth and carefully placed race bib...), way too many shuffle runners, WAY too many walkers blocking the route six abreast, but all good spirits and minimal to no alcohol-related puking/falling over. I am a very light drinker these days, and saved my one beer until after the race. Many show up sloshed, hence the shuffle runners, but that is expected and welcomed so long as people are somewhat smart about it. There are also no timing chips, no corrals at the start, and bib numbers are assigned by the order people sign up rather than by expected pace. Since John lives so close to the race's start we opted to delay leaving until 10 minutes before the race and join in at the rear of the pack. This made it more crowded in terms of runners, taking 15 minutes for us to simply cross the start line (three times as long as the longest-awaiting starter of the NYC Marathon!) what with the five thousand tipsy folk ahead of us, but it seemed less claustrophobic than last year thanks to no blizzard-mounded snow narrowing the available space.
Nathan and I were our usual simple runner selves. John dressed as a Groucho Marx-esque monkey, Kris had celebratory shiny gold tights, and Ashton ran in just his underwear, dapper socks with garters and his wing tip leather shoes. For reference, Ashton was more normal than his first appearance in the race two years ago where he wore his underwear, boating shoes and a hat shaped as a cow head.
John and Nathan at the start.
I ran with my camera and took many videos while hot footing through the crowd. Somehow the camera made it seem much less crowded than it actually was. My good friend Laura I. and her boyfriend watched from near the Met, so I got a quick hug just before finishing the first mile. After I finished I walked back through the crowds to get some video of finishers. Managed to catch Kris, Ashton and Nathan. After the two yellow Angry Birds, watch in the middle for gold tights with a dark pink top (Kris) immediately followed by a naked skinny guy with sock garters and his arms in the air in the back (Ashton), and 10 seconds later a black shirt with yellow detail and shorts in the back (Nathan). Here's my experience surrounding the race:
In retrospect of 2011, I am heartened by the many small accomplishments. I ran my first marathon in a time I am very proud of, finished two 50k ultramarathons and confirmed my love for distance pursuits, my intellectual ability to be done with school caught up to the emotional want to be done (meaning confidence in my abilities as a future therapist), realized why and how I need humor and certain types of people in my life, and developed a genuine life projection that I have never been capable of previously. All good things.
Looking forward to 2012, my only New Year's resolution is to return my fruit and veggie consumption to an amount for which I prefer. This will be easier thanks to less school obligations following me home. More seriously, I have many events to look forward to this year: hopefully running a 50 mile race in May, wearing a robe with a silly hat and having my degree placed in my hot and eager hand, hopefully passing the licensure exam in July, and relocating to Colorado next fall. Since our moving plans have been pushed back due to a handful of logistics we'll be here for the NYC Marathon on November 4th, so I am debating participating again because I can. And I'll be an aunt come February. I have crazy big aunt shoes to fill considering the example set by my aunt Meredyth while she was alive.
Best wishes to you all for this coming year and beyond!
That is, 16 days if you count any and all days between now and our last didactic final exam of graduate school. If you count only those days requiring an appearance at school, this drops to nine remaining days.
I'm definitely feeling it; simultaneously looking forward to the coming summer's life changes, and yet nervous over the need to make decisions (including financially locking myself into those decisions) for a time frame in which I don't know what to expect. The good news is that there is light at the end of the tunnel, one way or the other. Supposedly our last two affiliations will finally be posted "by the end of this week." For us that means tomorrow. For the prof in charge of assigning us that may mean Friday. I am lucky that I already know my fourth and final affil (Tejas with little kiddos!), but I would love to know where I am going for January-March (and when I start)....
Lots of studying, project completion, research smatterings, etc, are left to do. Last night I was studying for today's exam. Merus has become an intermittent lap cat now that the temperature has dropped. Sadie, on the other hand, still prefers in-your-face attention. She'll sit at the edge of your notes, then do a little wiggle-creep maneuver to sit on the corner, then another wiggle-creep to sit smack in the middle of the page. I pick her up and set her across the table. She sits on the paper. I pick her up, move her off. She sits on the paper. I move her off, onto the floor. She sits on the paper.... Intrepid, that one. So much so that it yielded this:
Congratulations to The Little One and my new sister-in-law! Couldn't be happier for the two of them. The weekend was a blast on all fronts. I think Kristin's family never stops moving or talking, and I seriously doubt that they know the definition of sleep.
For your viewing pleasure, an eleven-part series (now complete) covering events from Friday and Saturday.
My kitteh eats vegetables. Arugula, brussel sprout, carrot -- bam! Sadie is a gnawing maniac, and there was no regurgitation after the fact. Merus, on the other hand, doesn't quite get it. Not that she needs to; she makes a great background observer when confused as to the purpose of the main event. Two other videos were also posted lately -- a collection of shots from various afternoons of lazing in the chair, and Merus' attempt to eat my laptop cursor. They have become smarter as to knowing there's something fishy about a camera, and lately when I pull the camera out they stop all activity and/or leave the scene. But, luckily, the goofy and ridiculous persist if it place the camera somewhere and leave it on while I act as though nothing is different.
Bib numbers and start information was released for all runners in the NYC Marathon. If I recall correctly, there are some 47,000 runners in total.
All runners are divided up into one of three colors to determine which start path you run: blue, orange, green. Blue and orange running across the top level of the bridge and green running on the lower level.
All three colors are divided into waves according to start time: wave 1 at 9:40, wave 2 at 10:10, wave 3 at 10:40. Wave 1 will consist of a certain portion of each color, as will wave 2 and wave 3.
Then, within each color/wave combination are corrals that further subdivide people according to predicted pace according to bib numbers. 7000-7999 are grouped together, 8000-8999 are grouped together.
As a whole, those in wave 1 are faster than wave 2 which is faster than wave 3, and same goes for the early versus late corrals. The lower the bib number (closer to 1) the faster the runner, the higher the number (closer to 66999) the slower the runner. You may notice the discrepancy between 47,000 runners and the penultimate bib number; not all bib numbers are assigned, as maneuvering room is needed through the long-term organization of it all. Here is a chart where you can see it all in one graphic. The elite, subelite and local competitive designations refer to those in the first corral of each color (the super fast low numbers).
Me? I'm orange, wave 1, corral 12. That means I get to start at 9:40 instead of waiting around for an extra hour, I get to run on the top level of the Verizano Bridge, and I'm the third corral within my color/wave and thus get to avoid the zoo of a start that happens to those later in the pack. I'm incredibly stoked! The race is still 6 weeks away. Hard to keep calm in the mean time, though luckily school is at hand and eventually there will be midterms.
Did I mention how cool it'll be to run across the Verizano? There are no pedestrian or cyclist lanes, so the only time a person can cross it (without riding in a vehicle) is during the marathon or during the clusterf*** of the 5 Borough Bike Tour filled with 40,000 people who don't know how to ride their bike.
Saturday evening, gray skies and pattering rain, listening to A Prairie Home Companion on WNYC, making soup for my finally-have-a-break head cold. Earlier I sorted through my closet, purged anything that has not been used within the last year, with many memories of physical pursuits and academic head bashings from cooler times. I miss autumn. It will be here soon.
Other parts of the afternoon were spent deciphering the differences between Fort Collins and Colorado Springs. They both have my attention as I think forward to autumn of next year, when I will (hopefully) be somewhere within the Colorado front range. Told the kitties today "In a year you'll be mountain kittehs!" Merus rotated one ear, Sadie sniffed the air. Cat food needs no adjustment for elevation, but they'll probably enjoy having a larger home to sprint around and hide things. Then again, they've lived their entire 3 years thus far in NYC apartments and may not know what to do with all the space. But imagine the new smells I'll bring home on my running shoes....
The end of school is in sight enough that I can ponder decisions that will lead to life following school. It is nice to think about that. In the mean time, I am glad for these three weeks off. Camping, running, civilized time with friends, reading, researching neuroplasticity (for my own interest's sake), making videos of various escapades, taking the cats to the vet, visiting family and friends in KC, finally running the road ultra. Lots to enjoy.
This head cold has given me quite the Mavis Staple impression. Three days ago I woke to a scratchy throat, then Friday brought chunky green snot and sneezing. Last night added a pressurized head. Today the green is in full force, same with the alto voice.
Not the first time I've become sick following a long stint of stress, though glad that it is merely a head cold instead of hospital grade flu like last fall. We were similarly given no break between a 9 week speed semester and a 6 week affiliation, kind of a miniature version of the spring and summer to come. The Friday before Christmas was our last day. The next morning I had a nice long run of bridge repeats with a friend, but with increasingly sapped energy by the end. Figured it was chilling off too much drying sweat. By the time I got up to Nathan's place that afternoon I felt the achy spots along my back starting to merge.
My greeting was rather blunt. "What are the symptoms of pneumonia?!?" I begged, crawling into the fetal position on his hardwood floor.
"Hi. What?"
"What are the symptoms of pneumonia?!?"
"I don't know."
"Look. Them. Up."
So began a weekend of 101 to 103 degree fever and all the regular flu trimmings. The fever broke four days later, four hours before my plane took off for Kansas City for the holiday that became twice as long as expected due to the NYC blizzard. Fun times. Anyway, I'll take green chunks and a productive cough over that flu any day. I can still get stuff done and enjoy myself.
Here's the kittehs fighting over who gets to lay on my CPI (Clinical Performance Instrument, i.e. my final). Sadie may be at least two pounds lighter than Merus, but she still manages to throw Merus off the bed. By the time they were finished the original reason for fighting was lost. No matter, still entertaining for me. (The epic reminder: follow the YouTube link to see it without the ends cut off by formatting restraints.)
My planned route intended 14 miles by the string (measured on a flat map and thus lacking the additional mileage due traveling at an angle while gaining/losing elevation) as my run followed by a 4 mile hike out with the boys from Lake Wanoksink to the train at Sloatsburg. Nathan, who is nearly recovered from his last race earlier this month, still feels it a little. Hence recruitment of John, to pace Nathan and give him a day of slower and yet still long miles. For all parties the intention was a good time out and nothing more.
John and Nathan on the train
The Pine Meadow red trail began a mile from the train station and was relatively unmaintained until getting close to the visitor's center a mile in.
Residual from the previous night's rain helped clean the bug spray from our shins.
At the split with a yellow marked trail I continued straight while the boys headed north. Not too much later came the orange marked trail that in either direction offers nice elevation. I intended to go north, as the vertical gain becomes more of a rock scramble to lead to the top of Halfway Mountain (1200 feet). But when I soon hit the orange trail I saw this in front of me -- up! -- and the idea of checking which direction this headed never occurred to me.
Which way? Up! 'Cause up is where the fun is.
Supposedly I'd hit a scenic view very soon, once 1/3 up the side of Halfway Mountain. I found one, and felt proud of myself for remembering my directions without use of my map. At this point my map was still stored in my hydration pack, as was my camera, and since I was already taking the pack off/on/off/on to take pictures I became too lazy to take it off again for a map check. Didn't seem pertinent unless I were to encounter an unexpected turn or crossing, since thus far everything went according to plan. Little did I know that I was actually headed south.
First scenic view, believed to be the unknown view from part way up Halfway Mountain when in fact this was Russian Bear to the south.
I expected to merge with yellow and blue marked trails before continuing on blue. I didn't remember what elevation changes to expect in the mean time, and -- since for some reason I love wild grasses -- was happy to find the trail single track decline through a meadow of sorts.
Wild grass. Love it.
I kept my eye out but saw no other trail crossings. Did I miss them? Well, I thought, if so then I'll keep on until this trail hits Lake Sebago and turn northeast on trails paralleling my original route. Not so tough to miss a lake. Instead of a lake I hit another view, ten times better than before. Oh, maybe the add-on trails weren't well marked and I only now his the second un-named scenic view labelled on the map? Came a bit later than I expected. Then again, plotting via mileage by the string means you could have double the distance between two points than you expected. Okay, onward ho.
This was actually Ramapo Torne, overlooking the town of Ramapo and, in the far distance, the New York/New Jersey state line.
I continue along, but then realize that the orange seems never ending. I should hit the lake straight on, so where is it? Meanwhile I have lovely vagary to guide me between small painted markings on trees. This is when I remember how old grad school has made my eyes, as I keep having to stop at one marking and scan for the next one, because I could imagine three route from where I stand.
If you see a "maintained trail" in this, then you need to be my eyes from now on. Psha.
Soon I get an ingenious idea. My wallet items are in a ziplock type of dry bag that is likely big enough for my camera and, once folded in half again, my map. I'll swap the wallet stuff into the map's cheap plastic ziplock. Behold! I no longer have to remove my pack for pictures and map checks. True genius at times. This is when I hear my more sarcastic friends in my head asking "So, tell us the name of your blog again...?" I hit a downhill and wondered if again my interpretation of distances was incorrect and I was now heading downhill towards Lake Sebago.
Whence I came.
Whither I continue.
I head down for a good 15 minutes and then, lo! I hit the blue trail. I check my map, look at my accrued time -- slow moving or underestimated distance? -- shrug my shoulders and carefully take a right turn. I worry that it'll be a much longer day than expected should I go for the full plotted course, particularly since I started with only 2 liters of fluid. The blue trail was flat and rather unremarkable, save for a doe sighting, so I took comfort in making up for lost time. In my head I was pondering whether to take the next forest road southeast so that I didn't end up farther than I could safely travel in one day. Then the blue hit a red trail that ran perpendicular. Yes, still on course! Wait, the blue bottoms out, but the map says its supposed to continue for another mile. Oh dear. Map check.
I was still quite confused, stood there for a minute trying to figure it out. Where's the lake? This was supposed to actually hit the lake when meeting the next trail, but that's only if I was still on orange. Wait, yes, I was on blue and am now at red. I then heard cars and a couple motorcycles coming from straight ahead. Hang on, none of the roads are supposed to go through here. Ohmygoodness, have I landed across on the east side of the park by Hwy 202? No way. It sounds like a parking lot, there'll be an official map with location labelled, right?
I head up the red trail the 1/8 of a mile and, wait... wait for it... wait for it.... Synapse! I've seen this before. Could it be? Noooo, I didn't end up at the visitor's center did I? I get closer and realize that, yes, that is exactly what I did. I look at the map, trace the orange trail south past two scenic views, follow it's swoop westward, see the blue, follow that north and northeast. I did a loop. A friggin loop when there's miles of trails headed everywhere. Sonofabitch.
Is that the...? Yes, Miss Smartypants, that is the visitor's center back at the start. Think you're sooo clever, "I don't need no stinkin' map, I got it all up here" *tap*tap*. Sigh.
Well, I said aloud to the bugs and the bushes, at least I know where I am, and at least I'm still within distance of the rendezvous.
And so off I went on the same start as before. Pine Meadow trail marked red. Only this time I chose the yellow route that cuts along the north edge of the creek so that I wasn't technically retracing my steps. Yellow turned to white, which was a rock mess. The picture below does no justice to the lots-of-boulders surface requiring a horizontal rock scramble. I just didn't have the heart to take a picture of the evil stuff because I was so over that section. There's nothing useful about a rock scramble unless you go up or down, or unless you are skirting an actual body of water. Pointless judgements, but whatever. Grumble grumble grumble. Oh right, this is why I need to run with people, because then you don't wanna give up so fast once taxed. Mental note.
White trail, also not clear aside from being able to see the next white marker over yonder. Grumble.
I made it to the red trail, somehow the Pine Meadow trail that spontaneously jumped sides of the creek. The surface under foot helped my mood, and again I reassured myself that I knew where I was, and this was a good thing since I left my phone at home. I don't get service in the mountains anyways, and I sweat enough that ev-er-y-thing needs to be okay covered in sweat or needs a dry bag. But not having it made me worry while I was in trail limbo land. The first small lake, Pine Meadow Lake, should be very soon, which means the rendezvous lake, Lake Wanoksink, was very soon thereafter. I looked forward to the swim to help dissolve what grumbles I had left.
Staying positive. Did I ever mention that my latest love is a visor? Hate the logo, but it does its job well. More like a sweat band with a brim. Which is what a "sweat ball," as Nathan calls me, needs.
Within five more minutes I hit Pine Meadow Lake. Aaaah. This time landmarks appeared in an expected amount of time.
Pine Meadow Lake. Super nice to camp next to, according to John.
I find a likely looking forest road, have a good feeling about it, and pull north toward what I hoped was the Lake Wanoksink. It was, and that's where I landed. I saw two shirts drying on a bush that looked quite familiar. I saw John sitting on a log, having just come from a swim in the water. I immediately de-geared, hung my sweaty shirt out to dry after wringing it out. Twice.
Lake Wanoksink. Whew.
Nathan had gone for a running lap around the lake. Expected time 10 minutes. John saw him across the way within 5, but after that hadn't seen him for a half hour. This lake does not have a trail along its edge like at Pine Meadow, so we hoped that he didn't fall in while bushwhacking or veer too far away if vegetation was too thick. He arrived ten minutes later, having bushwhacked for 45 minutes.
Nathan pauses before a swim.
Another half hour later the boys' clothes were nearly dry. I was able to wring mine out again, but at least they were getting somewhere. John comments that I arrived looking like I had already swam through Pine Meadow Lake en route the rendezvous. Nathan calls out "Sweat ball!" My shoes are still soaked from the runoff due to gravity. The air has become cooler within the last half hour too, and we realize clouds have rolled in.
Ooooh, maybe we'll get the rain I've been hoping for all week.
Within minutes it begins to rain. We wait it out beneath the canopy of trees though of course get wet. John foresees it as a light deluge, a common northeast phenomenon of rain blowing in strong only to be gone within ten minutes. "I bet its in its last hurrah." Nathan isn't frustrated by being wet again, though does find it ironic. I'm actually grateful to feel a slight chill. This day was the tail end of the 104 degree heat wave; only a high of 92, but nevertheless 80 degree rain felt magnificent. The rain lightened up to a sprinkle. "See? Good old northeast patterns," says John. We begin our 4 mile return hike to Sloatsburg, following the red Pine Meadow trail (that I have become so familiar with) that will take us the entire way. And, of course the rain picks up again. Made me smile. "So much for your last hurrah, John."
We stopped at Pine Meadow Lake on a bit of a detour to check on an area John particularly enjoys. The rain by then let up again, proving that this was the actual end of the storm. In proper northeast fashion, this was the sky at the time, with enough of a change from left to right that it messed with the exposure on my cameras auto setting:
Pine Meadow lake. To the left, blue sky. To the right, gray misty haze and soaked boys. Straight ahead, a rock split that reminds me of front teeth (of which I forget its name). Worth viewing big.
From there we continue on, make it all the way the Sloatsburg without problem. The sun came out again, and at a point all the rocks around us in direct sunlight were steaming off the rain. Within minutes some areas appeared as though precipitation never happened.
Past the visitor's center (the third pass for me, thank you) the tree canopy was a bit thicker and thus the ground remained a little slick in places. I mainly took videos of the hike out, since I wanted to spare everyone the Blair Witch Project type of bounce-bounce-nauseating-shake-shake from running. At a point I caught Nathan on camera with a little slide/trip off a rock. He stayed on his feet, looked back at me since he could probably hear me snickering. A few seconds later I hit the same rock and, as I probably deserved, slip and fall. Caught myself with my hands, only injury a little bruise on the side of my knee. Well, and a little shot to my pride, assuming there was much of it left following a day of getting fooled by the orange trail. Anyways, my slip was also caught on film.
In Sloatsburg we had nearly 2 hours before the train, so went to the tavern for burgers.
John followed this face by saying "I haven't had beer in a while. That's really good!" I believe it was Yuengling.
We sat outside by request, especially because we preferred to not sit in the A/C for so long while still wet. Eyeing direct sun on the opposite side of the porch, we laid out shoe and socks to dry. Small town, Sloatsburg, so not many people entering/leaving the place. But the 4 groups who left during our time there were all baffled by it. "Shoes! Why are shoes there? And socks? Funny." Two people actually looked up and saw us over yonder on the porch and made the connection, though they still found it bizarre. These residents obviously were not the type to travel by foot either through town or through their local trails.
They sort of got dry. Sort of...
We left with ten minutes to spare before the train arrived, and since the platform was a mere 200 feet from the tavern we had time to stand in the sun and finish drying off our backsides since they were still a little wet.
Once home I remeasured my actual route. My loop of orange from trail head to visitor's center version 2.0 came to 7.11 miles in about an hour's time. Pretty good considering the elevation and terrain. All in all the day came to 17 miles by the string when including the mile stretch from train to trailhead each direction. Here's a summary of the day. As always, this version (posted via link) cuts off the edges. For the full, better experience follow the link to the actual YouTube video. I think the HD quality was automatically removed due to the file's size during upload, but it still turned out pretty well. I was also happy to find that my computer came with a video editing program (iMovie) and I didn't need to download some weird open source program. This was my first edit to any video, so enjoy. I hope to make more videos via editing in the future.
[Edit: Nathan unknowingly did as all males in my family do when a camera is around -- stick out his/their tongue in protest. Classy.]
Nearing midterm for the affiliation means filling out (by hand, as Hunter is one of very few school who have no converted to the electronic version) 27 pages of a 40 page packet that painstakingly dissects all theoretical elements of a student therapist's performance and abilities. My Clinical Instructor also fills out one of her own. The midterm takes place when we compare views of my performance. If your mind's response is to call the process laborious, then you've hit the thumb that is holding the nail meant to go into the coffin. I have five pages to go and have already spent about 6 hours filling it out. Waa waa, boo hiss. Whatever. There are a few things frustrating me about this affiliation, but they are not appropriate to discuss online. In reality they are probably very similar frustrations that many students experience due to the nature of the affiliation process. But I will say that the good things by far outweigh the frustrations, for which I feel lucky since not all student can say this.
I've found the key to keeping my joints happy in the summer is to ice immediately after every run and possibly every night as prophylaxis. I'm starting to think I need to get two more ice packs so that with four in total I can ice both knees and both ankle/foot simultaneously. I am, quite thankfully, acclimating to summer heat. This morning I was able to run without any sensation of suffocation or burning from the inside out. Not that I'm fully comfortable, but its just better. Now if only running with ice packs on my knees were realistic for tendon function and wouldn't cause me to run like a penguin....
This past weekend's run was again over the George Washington Bridge and onto the Palisades Road, totaling 20 miles in about 2 hours 50 minutes. The fun is that you are always either climbing or descending, and while this may sound counter intuitive to some it actually makes my legs much happier. Running on flat road bums out my mind and my body. Hence why I rarely stay on flat land, usually for very rehab oriented runs that I have not needed in quite some time *knock on wood*. Last year I ran the Brooklyn 1/2 Marathon, which included a little over two laps in Prospect Park followed by a straight shot south on Ocean Parkway with a quick finish on the Coney Island boardwalk. The portion on Ocean Parkway is 5.5-ish miles of nearly flat road with a minimum of 3 lanes in each direction and trees/houses/etc very far back set from the road. The thing feels like a friggin highway leading to nowhere, and heat waves radiating from the road are the only block to seeing the next mile marker sign awaiting you dead straight ahead. Can you tell I was thrilled? Hence why I wasn't all that troubled with debating running it again this year versus running Bear Mountain. Give me two and a half times the distance but on a much more interesting and technical course any day. Granted retrospection alters your memory of events, but my mind places equal mental taxation to each of the Brooklyn 13.1 miles and the Bear Mountain 31 miles. Goes to show what flat roads do to me.
This weekend was extremely social. I had friends over on Friday night who I hadn't seen in some time. I needed to exchange stories, and I got exactly that and then some. Sadie decided to show off for some of the guys. In the background you can hear fellow students discussing their affils, Al Green offering sound scape, and some attempts to cheer on Sadie (like the fella in the background). She was at it for a good minute before I got my camera out.
Saturday marked the arrival of Tim (my brother), Jenny (sister-in-law), and their friends Morgan and Jaime. I met them in the Upper West Side near their hotel for lunch that ended up with more of a brunch menu. I'm so anti-fabulous about the city these days that I forgot that my missing breakfast that morning would be fulfilled by restaurants' brunch menus that last as long as through four in the afternoon. They went for a walk, I ran some errands on the way home, including a chat about possible non-chafing gear from my friend Mike who works at Patagonia UWS and who joined me for RAGBRAI and other cycling adventures in previous years. That was a bust, but a few other errands were successful on the way home.
A few hours later the group joined me at my apartment to hang out, see where I lived and to meet the kittehs, who put on a good show of synchronous yodeling once it came to feeding time. When asked where they'd like to find dinner, no one cared until I mentioned that Nathan's job is located in Hell's Kitchen. Tim found the neighborhood name quaint, so south we headed. Once resurfaced at 59th street we turned south to scope out restaurants on the way to say hi to Nathan. Then we parked ourselves at El Centro, and Nathan met us once off work.
Sunday started with my aforementioned long run, after which I quickly iced, showered, and joined the group at the NYC Pride March. I mentioned that marriage equality was on the cusp between approval or failure. Last Friday the bill was approved at something like 11 or 11:30pm. Meant it was an extra exuberant celebration this weekend to finish off Pride Week. Governor Cuomo, who introduced the bill in the first place, marched along with Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. I am impressed that Cuomo got the legislature to actually act on things this time around.
But I hear the Senate republican, who have the majority and thus decide what bills come to the floor, decided to vote on a state vegetable before attending to the equality of marriage bill. Was this to produce more grand effect, or was this a version of stalling while the needed votes were still sought? Likely something much less meaningful. Regardless, the newly designated state vegetable: corn! Nice. So much for distinction from all those other states that are covered in corn. I hear there is a lot of corn upstate between the stereotyped apple orchards, but I still don't find that impressive. To have corn as your vegetable then you have to LOVE corn. Take Iowa, where corn festivals are serious and frequent endeavors. Then again, the runner up was an onion.
Back to Tim and Jenny's visit. I was grateful for the consensus of simply hanging out with no grand plans. The parade was a hoot, but we happily left once the crowds got the best of us. It started at noon, I met the group at 1, by 1:30 people needed to sit and rest away from the crowd. We attempted a pizza joint Tim dutifully found via his smartphone that had good ratings, though unbeknownst to us (or the web) it was closed and vacated. So we walked around the corner and took the first place we found, a thin crust pizza joint. How thin? Well, thinner than just about any cracker I've had before. They offered a "nine-grain organic crust" for $2 extra per large pizza. But if the crust is such that eating an entire pizza would accumulate the quantity of one normal slice's worth of crust, how much nutritional benefit would you actual yield from a few slices of the multigrain?
I think the crowd wore us down much more than expected. When I met up with them, they actually had crossed to the east side of the street before heading south to the parade, so that meant after eating and being done with the crowd we had to either traverse one of few streets allowing cross-throughs in sardine/cattle run form or we had to walk nearly a mile north just to then head west and south again to Morgan and Jaime's bus home. We opted to traverse. After surviving the 15 minutes that required we went for ice cream at the Ben & Jerry's near the needed bus stop and a quick stopover at a drug store. Back to Philly for Morgan and Jaime, back uptown for me, Tim and Jenny. We said our goodbyes on the subway, as I had a pile of paperwork awaiting me that I so dutifully sidelined in lieu of family time. Nicely, the weekend left me feeling refreshed when waking up on Monday morning.
Now it is Wednesday. I survived my birthday on Monday, managed to keep it relatively quiet (by preference). This morning Nathan left for a vacation to see family upstate. After putting seeing him off to his bus I walked a different route to work and ran into a friend of a friend who I have a knack of running into every 4 months nearly to the date. After work I walked a little extra rather than getting on the nearest train, and ran into a former co-worker I hadn't seen since September of last year who was attending an acting workshop in midtown. Sometimes NYC is not as big as it seems, but that does not preclude its intensity....
Today I worked again with Ms. E who has multiple sclerosis (MS), though I'm not sure which type she has. For those who are not familiar, MS is a disease of demyelination within the central nervous system. In simpler terms, most nerves are covered in myelin, a succession of fatty insulating blobs that allow electrical impulses to travel faster along said nerve. The exact origin of MS is unknown, though it is postulated to be an autoimmune disease where the body "attacks" itself and removes this insulation layer (demyelination), but only within nerves inside the spinal cord and/or in the brain. There is no pattern to what areas of the spinal cord and/or brain are affected in the way that Parkinson's is always a disorder of the extrapyramidal system (the substantia nigra portion of basal ganglia). Symptoms thus occur according to the nerves that are involved. These "lesions" can progress slowly over time so that more and more nerves are affected, they could be affected in bursts of lesion development called exacerbations that are intermixed with remission, or they could develop one lesion and rarely be affected by it in the future. All depends on what type you have and what areas are affected.
What happens when nerves are demyelinated? The electrical impulse does not travel the way it is supposed to. If a motor nerve is involved there could be weakness or paralysis of a muscle. If sensory is involved, there could be paresthesia (abnormal and/or painful sensation) or anesthesia (absence of sensation). Why are lesions limited to the central nervous system? Good question. If it is known, it is above my level of knowledge. But one big common theme with MS is fatigue. The absence of myelin means electrical impulses travel slower, but this is heightened with increased body temperature regardless of whether this is due to hot weather or due to raised body heat from exercise. Activity must then be modified so that the patient does not hit that level of effort that may trigger their fatigue. Otherwise you will see those muscles progressively weaken until they seem paralyzed minutes later. With rest this improves, and this does not preclude them from exercise in general -- on the contrary, preventing disuse atrophy is one of the best ways to prepare a patient with MS for any exacerbation of their disease.
So back to Ms. E. Her MS at this point has developed into paralysis of both lower extremities, a very weak trunk, and partial use of her arms with the right more functional than the left. Paralysis in the case of a central nervous system disease means that signals still reach muscles, but they are not normal. School prepared us for all the motoric involvement with patients, such as with Ms. E. But we never really discussed the sensory involvement aside from stating that "it can be quite painful." Okay, bub, that sure helps me out.
Turns out that Ms. E has specific sensory involvement that can be pinpointed in a way I had not expected. Different types of sensation travel by their own types of nerves grouped together in the spinal cord. Light touch (think of a tickle from a cotton ball), proprioception (knowing where your body is in space) and vibration all travel through the dorsal column/medial lemniscus. Separately, crude touch (a hand grabbing your arm), pain and temperature travel through the spinothalamic tract. It is her dorsal column which is affected, and you can easily tell the difference. Any light touch, such as a gentle hand resting on her knee while waiting for the aides to get set up for a multi-person transfer, is incredibly painful. However if you go for it and grab her knee like you would a bat, using crude touch, then everything is fine. Similarly she has no idea where her legs are in space, and thus will fuss over whether her leg is straight or whether her foot is fully supported on the footrest of the tilt table when everything is already set in a very fine position. Vibration, well, I'm pretty sure that this is not testable due to the pain associated with light touch. And she definitely feels pain and temperature differences, which are in the spinothalamic tract.
This type of differential involvement was taught to us assuming we'd need it for our spinal cord patients. I have 5 spinal cord patients, and I haven't needed to differentiate any of this with them, likely because I'm in an outpatient clinic instead of rehab, but whatever. But to get to see this in any patient is incredibly interesting. Realizing what I was looking at was one of those "aha!" moments where you see for the first time the anatomy play out just like the textbooks say it could. It is rarely so clean cut and distinct as with Ms. E's case. Yet another moment of maintaining a facade of professionalism while inside I'm jumping up and down like a 5 year old screaming "WHOA! Did you SEE THAT? Duuuuude...." And, yea, I'm that much of a nerd and that classy deep down inside....
How do accordions fit in with this? Well, they don't. This morning's run was pleasantly supplied a mental soundtrack by Beirut's song "Nantes." Thought y'all might enjoy too. Again, a better quality video may be seen by following the link to the original YouTube video.
Lastly, I leave you with Sadie's first experience with a laser. I imagine that a kitteh rave would look something like this. You can also see Merus's flapper attack here.
Now is when I wish I could project the thoughts/sounds/images from my head so that someone else can help me figure out what the heck I'm thinking. Two songs alternated throughout my long run, but I can only identify one of them. I could have sworn that song A was from Billy Joel, particularly because he is ubiquitous to all iPod playlists played at work. But I have scoured all of his preview-able songs on iTunes and searched on Google for the fraction of lyrics that looped over and over again, and I still come up short. It's teasing me now. The second song, well, I'm not sure where this one came from - Madonna's "What it feels like for a girl." Go figure.
Went back to the Long Path today. About a mile in the trail becomes what I'd call half single track, since the normal single track width (only enough for one person) is half obscured by the overgrowing foliage, so you end up running with your arms out in front of you to avoid getting swat in the face unknowingly. As I neared the end of this section I encountered a deer trotting straight towards me. I didn't want to scare it, so I stopped about 15 feet shy and said "Hi, deer. I don't want to startle you. Want to run together?" It just stared back at me with a little tilt of the head. I repeated "So, wanna run together?" and started to walk towards it. It turned and did a rather good impression of a scoffing teenager since I was seemingly forcing it to go the other way from its original route. In about 50 feet it found a hole in the trees and scampered off on a tangent. On the way back to the George Washington Bridge I looked up at the underside of my hat brim to see a caterpillar crawling upside down towards my face. How long had it been there? And did it start on top of my head and work its way under? It might have been on there for as much as 7 miles. I returned it to what I assumed might be somewhat yummy leaves and kept on.
Speaking of bugs, saw my first firefly of the season! It's always random when I see the first one, because in NYC I am rarely near grassy areas at night. A few days ago Nathan and I went to grab some pizza. Next door is a small church set some 20 feet back from the sidewalk, enclosed with a gate and with a full lawn and shrubbery. I saw it in the corner where the yard and sidewalk met the pizza establishment. After seeing the glow, I pulled a hard 180 and tried to catch it. Nathan, carrying our dinner, laughed and kept walking. I think he called me something just shy of ridiculous. The firefly made me happy enough to skip to catch back up with him.
Around town it is nearing the end of the school year. NYC schools run by far longer on the calendar than my school district growing up. Many graduations have taken place this last week. And yet yesterday as I was walking to the clinic I saw a young boy in Midtown West all decked out in a blue cap and gown with a yellow ribbon/sash/thing. This fella was maybe in 2nd grade at the oldest. I repressed the desire to glare at the kid. I mean, I've never had a full graduation ceremony, and I've completed both high school and an undergraduate degree. I had to leave my high school ceremony early thanks to the school scheduling it for the same day as track sectionals again, and Iowa did away with summer graduations the year I finished and I missed the message about either walking in the spring (oops, too late) or at the end of the fall (you expect me to come back for that??). I'm looking forward to graduation next year because it will be the first degree that is truly meaningful to me, and I'll get to stay for the whole friggin thing. And yet this little bugger gets a full Pomp & Circumstance just because he could color enough inside the lines and can write his ABCs? Boo hiss. New Yorkers annoy me to no end.
State officials in Albany are also making asses of themselves, but what else is new. NYC and surrounding boroughs send scads of tax money to Albany, only for them to shun many of the approvals needed by the city in order to accomplish major projects. I worry that it is going to happen again this week. One previous example of this is congestion pricing. It's based off of the success of London's similar plan and would have been absolutely amazing. Yet Albany decided that they simply wouldn't even bring it to the floor for a vote. Every so often locals joke about seceding from greater New York State. The difference would be huge - NY State would be the fiscal equivalent of Arkansas. I forget if that includes Long Island seceding with us. Regardless, that's how much impact the NYC area has.
The next big ticket item is a third? fourth? attempt to pass marriage equality legislation. At this point NY recognizes marriages performed elsewhere but does not allow them to be created within the state. It's been a big battle between those living upstate and those in the city. A few weeks ago Sen. Ruben Diaz held an anti-gay rally in the Bronx on the same day as the AIDS Walk in Central Park, supported by former Rep. Anthony Weiner and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried. Sen. Diaz even has a gay daughter or granddaughter, and I forget if she was counter-protesting the Bronx rally or if she was vocally attending the AIDS Walk. Either way, 40,000 showed up in Central Park while only a mere 1,000 showed in the Bronx. Too many people in the NYC area support marriage equality as a civil right. Our neighbors in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont have approved it, with CT offering very articulate legislation as to why. The hearsay goes back and forth depending on which news source you follow as to whether the last needed republican vote is likely or not. It has to pass soon, because I think the session is nearing an end. I'm hoping it doesn't end the same way many other meaningful bills die once when go upstate. I know too many good people whose lives could be improved for the better by the passing of this bill. It has a little to do with what the term is called ("union" versus "marriage"), but more so deals with legal rights like taking care of your family in case of unexpected sickness/death, insurance coverage and getting to ride in the ambulance when your partner is being whisked away to the emergency room.
One last lighter note. On Nathan's suggestion, I picked up a $5 laser at a pet store. Amazing. Here's Sadie showing off her rave dancing skills. If you follow the link to YouTube then you can watch it in proper HD.
I had a picture of the two of them holding down an orthopedic textbook by Mark Dutton that is as thick as my thumb is long while I was trying to research spondylolysthesis interventions, but I think this video better illustrates their current state. Namely, Sadie goes on exploring in her dainty ways like that of any kitteh with finness. Merus once again proves herself to be, well, a bit of a simpler kitteh. This latter point may also be witnessed in (the also recently posted) video of Merus and the bouncing ball.
