May 30, 2006
I volunteered to help at a triathlon this past weekend, and the experience was eye-opening. First of all, it sucked getting up at 5:00 AM to drive over to the race site, but it was very much less stressful than racing. I think only twice I was rueful that I myself wasn't participating. What was most entertaining was the body marking portion of the volunteer work. Well, handing out water was also somewhat entertaining, and I promised not to say the word "water" for three days, having exhausted my allotted supply of the word "water".
If you don't already know, triathletes must have their numbers marked on their bodies. The number of markings is illogically excessive. The race number must be placed on both upper arms, the side of one thigh, and the front of the other thigh, plus the age of the athlete is marked on the back of the calf with the category on the back of the other calf (such as Athena, Clydesdale, Beginner, etc). At the end of the body marking session, a triathlete looks as if she has been attacked by a rabid black marker.
So, it was kind of fun for me to attack people with the black permanent marker. And these people were wound up, nervous, jittery. They jumped from side to side trying to guess in advance which body part I would attack next.
One male volunteer was intuitive enough to request that I assist him with marking a young lady who was being a little stubborn about removing her clothing so that her body parts could be adorned with numbers. I don't think she was reticent or demure, but rather a beginner who didn't know what to do. I coaxed her into pulling her pants down for the thigh markings, then pulling the legs of her pants up for the calf markings. Unfortunately, by the end of it, I felt like I had violated her.
The most difficult people to body mark are excessively hairy males and those who slathered on three bottles of sunscreen. I had to circumvent only one arm-covering tattoo, as those with body-covering tattoos tend to ride Harleys instead of Cervelos.
Handing out water entailed screaming WATER!!! WATER!!!! WATER!!! ad infinitum while pitying those who sounded as if they might hack up a lung. I envisioned running alongside certain triathletes, screaming, "TAKE MY WATER, DAMMIT, OR I WILL RUN ALONGSIDE YOU UNTIL YOU DO!" But that would be a little TOO helpful, wouldn't it? I feel so very loved when you take my water. Like Quasimodo's girlfriend.
Posted by megabeth at 05:07 PM | Comments (2)
May 28, 2006I'm enjoying the lazy thing so much that I am still being lazy, three days after returning from the beach. My vacation week consisted of six glorious days of doing nothing while sitting on the beach, basking in the sun. All six days had perfect weather. Crowds were minimal because we slipped in and out of there right before the holiday weekend.
I think the vacation convinced me that I should do less in general. I should spend more time sleeping late, relaxing, hanging out, reading, watching movies, etcetera. Now I'm wondering how to simplify my life without disappointing some people who I have made commitments to help out in various ventures. It's easy to reduce the amount of exercise and races I commit to, but when other people are involved, backing out is more complicated. I also decided to hire a maid to clean my house. I feel much happier when I'm not hurried and frazzled all the time.
Posted by megabeth at 03:18 PM | Comments (4)
May 18, 2006I am riding my bike after work today and will try to keep in mind that I need to take it easy. I should be looking forward to it, but I'm still pouting about my inability to become Superwoman Triathlete on the fast track.
The decision I've made (though I haven't digested it yet) is to drop training for multiple sports at once. This means I will ride my bike in the warm months and run/spin in the winter months. This means I will participate in cycling races in spring/summer and running races in fall/winter. This means I will not do triathlons (perhaps a duathlon or two). Hmmm. That's a lot to swallow.
I'm a sucker for instant gratification, which is running appeals to me so much. I get frustrated with cycling because it takes so long to see results and get stronger; the time span for improvement should be measured in years, not months or weeks. If I keep a long-term perspective, I should avoid becoming discouraged. Remind me to do that.
Posted by megabeth at 03:06 PM | Comments (2)
May 16, 2006After all the trips to the doctors to figure out what is going on with me, the conclusion seems to be that I had/have a virus. A mystery virus. It's possible that my training compromised my immune system and I became sick. It's also possible that my Mystery Virus was caused in part by being overly obsessive with my hobby. The three weeks off have given me some perspective and I can see clearly that I was overtraining. I just started multisport training in spring of 2005 and shouldn't be pushing my body to Olympic-level standards. It shouldn't surprise me that I was breaking down instead of building up. I am sufficiently humbled.
I still stand by my argument that the state of health care in this country is frightening. The lady who brought me some films this morning couldn't be bothered to get up from her desk, and then she spoke to me with a mouth full of food. That's nasty.
My plan is to find a new primary care doctor. Mine made three errors that concerned me: (1) I asked twice for my iron to be tested when I had both blood tests, and it was not tested either time, (2) I asked three times for my body temperature to be measured in one visit, and that request wasn't fulfilled, and (3) my doctor overreacted and diagnosed a severe medical condition, which I will not mention, based on a verbal description of some diagnostic imaging, to the later consternation of a specialist.
Since undergoing the epiphany that I am overly obsessive, I have been obsessing about not being obsessive. Apparently, I am insane.
We are products of our environments. It is difficult to make the right decisions when immersed in the wrong environment. Once upon a time, I thought that frequent bar-hopping and binge drinking were perfectly normal, since everyone I knew participated in those activities on a regular basis. When I took a step back from that, I realized that I wasn't missing out on anything but a lot of time-wasting and stupid, regrettable activities. What I'm doing now isn't much different. You could say it's healthy, but that's simply a justification for overdoing it. It's not healthy to overtax the body with excessive and painful physical activity. It's not healthy to go through life feeling frazzled because there's little time left over for recovery and downtime, what with all the hours of cycling and running and packing for cycling and running and driving to races and training events. Three weeks ago, I think I was about to lose my mind, I had not stopped to sit still for more than three seconds. It isn't right.
So, how do I proceed from here? I don't know. I still want to be obsessive. I want to go by the numbers and I want to beat everyone in the world. I want to push through the pain and I want to experience immense pleasure from making myself work hard.
There should be a 12-step program for this addiction, too.
Posted by megabeth at 02:58 PM | Comments (5)
May 12, 2006When my grandmother was alive, she used to talk ad infinitum about this and that person and what ailment they had recently suffered from. I thought (to myself), well GOSH, if life is all about who got sick and what symptoms they are having when I get old, then do I really want to go there?
Hence the dearth of posts lately. I don't have any particular good news, other than that I have had a lot more energy for the past two days. I hope it's a trend rather than a brief aberration in my descent towards death/incapacitation/madness. I had some new and bad symptoms on Wednesday and ended up back at the doctor's office. My doctor (and his crack-smoking, attitude-laden office employees), by the way, is not doing his job as I would expect him to. He actually reviewed and SIGNED OFF on partial blood test results. During the first round of blood tests, they forgot to order the test that check for blood cell count and iron levels. Blood was taken again, and I am waiting for the lab results.
My next plan of action is to visit an endocrinologist (if my blood results indicate any further abnormalities) and a neurologist. Once all this crap is cleared up and we know what is going on, then I will find a better primary care doctor.
I'm scared to think what would happen if I developed something life-threatening. I would probably die waiting for the receptionist to stop giving me major attitude and set me up with an appointment to see the doctor. Or I would die waiting for blood test results that the lab technician forgot to order. Perhaps malpractice should include the behavior (or lack thereof) of all the incompetent, lazy office employees who find my presence to be an annoyance.
In conclusion, what I have found is that the system of medical care is infinitely more frustrating than my actual ailment, whatever that happens to be. We still have no f'ing clue.
Posted by megabeth at 02:03 PM | Comments (3)
May 08, 2006I am going to assume that it takes a while for synthroid to work, assuming that this IS the real problem. I've been taking it for three days and don't feel better yet. What frustrates me is that I want to get some tasks taken care of, but it takes three times as long to do them as it used to. For example, yesterday while cleaning the house, I would sweep or vacuum, and then I would sit down on the sofa and relax for half an hour to recover from my recent activity. At the end of the day, I took a two-hour nap.
I've always known myself as having a sweet tooth that belies all rational thought when it comes to food choices. It's a blessing from God that my metabolism is fast, because otherwise I would not be able to control myself enough to go on a diet. For the past few days, I've been craving salty food upon waking in the morning rather than my usual cereal and soy milk combo. That is unusual enough to take note of.
Posted by megabeth at 11:12 AM | Comments (5)
May 04, 2006Your endocrine system produces enough hormones to fit on the head of a pin. These minute amounts affect everything that happens with your body. I've harbored quite a bit of resentment towards my endocrine system, because it seems like things are usually not quite right, but not wrong enough to cause alarm.
My thyroid test results did return values in a 'normal' range, but when it comes to thyroid hormones, what is 'normal' depends on the person. My T4 and TSH test values were at the edge of the lab proposed normal ranges (which are different than other labs and physicians' normal ranges), indicating a slight underproduction of thryroxine. This affects my energy level particularly at times of the month when estrogen levels are highest.
Long story short: I've found the root of my symptoms. Once I get a script written, life should be grand once again. Actually, even grander.
Posted by megabeth at 05:40 PM | Comments (4)
May 02, 2006Not much motivation here. I'm still not feeling well. Still tired and dazed. Other symptoms are present that appear to point to hypothyroidism, but the blood test from my doctor came out normal. I *know* that something is wrong, but I don't know how to find out what that would be. Very frustrating.
I ran 3.5 miles yesterday at about a 9 min pace just to see how it felt. I was kind of tired and dazed throughout the run. Nevertheless, I had to give myself a talking-to every time someone passed me. I kept thinking, "OH, SO YOU THINK YOU ARE BADASS, HUH?!?!?" And then I would think, "Hey, now, you are in recovery mode right now, and you're supposed to be running SLOWLY."
Today, I feel worse than I did during the weekend, so I guess even mild exercise isn't such a good idea.
Damn it all.
What point is there to this blog if I can't do anything?
Posted by megabeth at 05:03 PM | Comments (5)