Tuesday, January 26, 2010

And My Status Is...

With all the medical appointments, MRI scheduling, and regular hoopla, I figure my mindset at this point is best reflected by my recent Facebook status messages:

Amanda Justice Note: to everyone who calls a place of business, please STATE YOUR DAMN NAME. Kthanksbai!

Amanda Justice
Those of you who work at front desks (this includes me) -- do your damn job. Don't pull this "I'm just one person" garbage. If anyone needs to hear that it's your boss, not your clients or patients. Tell the clients that you'll get it taken care of... then DO IT.

Amanda Justice
When your office makes a mistake, it behooves your office to fix said error in as swift a manner as possible. It is NOT a good idea to treat your client/ patient like a burden for an error on your part. Just sayin'.

Amanda Justice
People don't listen. Me, 3 minutes ago: "Good morning, Random Initials Architects!" Caller: "Yes, is this Citywide Painting?" *headdesk*

Amanda Justice
A helpful hint: at the conclusion of a telephone call, please say "goodbye" before hanging up the phone. Did your mother raise you in a barn? No? Couldn't prove it by me!

Where have common courtesy and customer service gone? The way of the dodo? Holy cow, some days I feel old.

Seriously, not doing too badly... life gets frustrating and at the moment I'm in the middle of one of those frustrating bits. In some way or other it will pass, though. I've got an appointment tomorrow for MRIs on both knees, so shortly after that we should at the minimum have a better idea of what's going on. Hooray!

Oh, and on the really good news front, today the joint instability has been much better which gives me hope that I can at least start walking on my treadmill again. That would be awesome, because I am sick and tired of having to watch every little stupid calorie I consume. UGH.

I never thought I'd be excited to exercise, but one thing I'm learning through this injury, whatever it is, is to never take my body's functionality for granted.

And I will run a 5K. It will have to wait awhile, but I will do it.

Friday, January 22, 2010

MRI Incoming!!!

So I went to my actual, real-live "has a medical degree and license and everything" doctor, and after bending my knees six ways to Sunday she confirmed my self-diagnosis, which had admittedly been aided and abetted by consultations with Choreboy and Dr. Google (two arguable medical references, to be sure).

My ACL is injured in both my right knee and my left. In proper medical terms, this is known as "hosed" (*koff*).

From everything I've read, ACL injuries don't necessarily need surgery unless a) you're in a high contact sport, or b) you are experiencing joint instability.

Guess which one of those describes me? In both knees?

So anyway, I'm going to have an MRI on this upcoming Wednesday. My doctor will follow up with me when she gets the results, and expects to be referring me out to an orthopedist and we'll let that actual real doctor with a medical license and everything make the surgery call.

I'm thinking 2010 is more of a casual walking, biking, and yoga kind of year. The 5K is going to have to wait until 2011.

And I swear I'm going to use this cane to trip the next person who looks at me weird. It's a cane, people! Lots of folks use them. We live in the retirement capital of the nation. Good grief.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Just FYI...

People look at you really weird when you're visually young-ish, yet toddling about with a cane.

This sucks.

Monday, January 18, 2010

We Are Not Amused

It's Monday, and while a good portion of the nation is off work, I'm sitting at my work computer sucking down my bowl of soup for lunch as I type this.

I'm a bit bummed because my knees are still all out of whack. I decided to forgo any more running until the group run on Tuesday, but the way my right knee keeps trying to collapse or whatever it is it's doing, I think I'm going to have to bail on that, too.

So I've sucked it up and called my doctor. Going in on Wednesday afternoon. I have a feeling this is the first visit in a long line if something in my knee is totally hosed. Or my knees.

Here's hoping she just tells me to wear a brace or something. I hope this is that easily fixable. It doesn't hurt which to me is a positive, but Choreboy had a friend whose ACL was on its way out and it started similarly.

Ick.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

T.G.I. Saturday!!

I know T.G.I.F. is the standard, but obviously I missed Friday. In fact, the whole week has been insane! Boredom, please. I'll take boredom.

First off, thank you Jenn for the lovely blog award!!

And also thank you for your lovely comments about my profile picture. I happen to be rather fond of it myself (and I still think the DMV ought to let me use it for my next drivers license photo).

There are rules and passing on things and stuff as far as the Beautiful Blogger Award is concerned, and I'll get to that early next week. Saturday is The Dead Zone as far as blogging is concerned. And I want Jenn's generosity to get more than a Saturday hit :)

Meanwhile (because whining is fun regardless of the day/week issue), Couch-to-5K is kicking my butt this time around. Or my knees, to be more precise. Primarily the right one, although the left knee has also shared its displeasure with me. I was fine last week, joint-wise. It was strictly muscle pain I was dealing with and that was pretty much gone by the time I did W1D2 on Thursday that week. But this week? Erm... no.

The run went well on Tuesday night. I'm not a huge fan of running in general, but I am very interested to see what I can make my body do (in forty years it's about damn time), plus the company of so many other people similarly huffing and puffing themselves around our trail cannot be appreciated enough. My SIL didn't make it this week because she's recovering from some nasty cold bug, but it's a really friendly group of co-sufferers/journey-ers, so I wasn't bereft.

Come Wednesday morning? Rut-roh. I got out of bed, feeling a bit stiff but not bad, and then my right knee acted like it wanted to slide out of place or something. I know, it's a hinge joint and all, but that's what it felt like.

And that continued the whole. Freaking. Day.

It wasn't that it was painful exactly. There were moments of "eeek!" but mostly it just felt... weird. It started to improve mid-afternoon and was making fewer threats of sliding out of place (again, my perception/ description of the feeling). And on Thursday it wasn't feeling weird anymore, but had developed just a slight, dull ache.

Friday all was well with no ache or weirdness, so I decided to do my W2D2 run on the treadmill. I'd opted out on Thursday due to the ache-factor. I knew I could make it, but one extra day couldn't hurt I figured.

I should have taken two extra days, I think. Because this morning, there's my right knee... threatening to slide out of place again.

The good news is it's not as extreme as it was on Wednesday. I'd done some reading on knee issues and right after my run last night I stretched well, showered, then immediately took some aspirin and started icing the knee. So maybe that helped. But I'm thinking that the actual intelligent move would be to just suck it up and show up on Tuesday for the group run without running again.

I don't know. On the one hand I don't want to "wimp out". But on the other hand I don't want to keep pushing a body part that's been historically pissy with me and end up completely hosing my chances of ever finishing this class, let alone a 5K.

If anyone is out there today (or in days to come) and has any thoughts, ideas, or knows if maybe strapping up my knee or wearing some sort of brace might work? I'm open for suggestions.

Well, time for me to get a move on. I've got grocery shopping to do (hello knee brace), and then a day of cooking to get in. I'm working on making tons of stuff in advance so I'll be sure to have food for both work and dinner during the week with no excuses for eating out. I ate out Thursday, and the results were... embarassing.

Oh what the heck. I'll take a page out of Jenn's book. Here's what I had on Thursday, with the evil calorie tally thereof:

Yeah, it's ugly. Bear in mind that the foods listed are approximate, and the calorie count could actually be worse. It was an Asian buffet for lunch, then Chuck-E-Cheese for dinner. Yikes. Poor restaurant hits, and then lousy choices when I got to each.

On the plus side, I averaged up my caloric intake for the week and even with that paean to poor dining, I was still within my "losing" calorie range. That's something I try to remember -- that one day won't do me in. A whole run of them (see Halloween - New Year) will, but one day? That can be worked with.

If anyone's interested, here's what I'm cooking today:

Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken
Black Bean "Hummus"
and
Creamy Spinach Zucchini Soup

Have a great weekend, everyone! Clearly I'll be trapped in the kitchen awhile... ;)

Monday, January 11, 2010

Homework is DONE!

I made it through the first week of this new Couch-to-5K program my SIL and I signed up for, and I did it at the pace I'd planned which pretty much rocks. I'm still really amazed that picking back up close to where I left off was nowhere near as difficult as I thought it would be. I remember the first day I started walking purposefully again, way back last summer, and I was lucky to make it 20 minutes! To tell the truth I was really afraid it would be that bad last Tuesday with the running, so I'm extremely relieved my body seems to not have fallen nearly so far into slackitude as it could have.

We had the group run on Tuesday, and I did my "homework" runs on Thursday and Sunday. The lady who owns the training company that, in cooperation with our running store, runs this is also a former student of mine, and heaven knows it just Would. Not. DO. if her former teacher showed up to class without her homework done, no matter who the actual coach of the class is!

Damn I'm old.

And seriously y'all? This cold weather can leave any day now. I'm getting all dry and patchy in spite of religiously lubing myself up morning and evening. I'm turning into a lizard. Completely unacceptable.

Last but not least, never ever try to serve Zatarain's Jambalaya to a native Louisianan. It makes them giggle, especially when you use turkey sausage.

Just sayin'.

Saturday, January 09, 2010

Cold

People, I can see my breath out here.

Our computer room (aka "The Dungeon" according to Choreboy -- not for any salacious reason, but rather because the room is a pit) is a converted porch. The previous owner of the house walled it in, and that was that. I'm not even sure he used any insulation. It's not hooked up to the main house's central heat and air, so although we've got a window unit installed for air conditioning, there is No. Freaking. Heat.

The high today is supposed to be in the mid 40's. I'd be hard pressed to say it got out of the low 40's, if that.

There were snow flurries in our end of town today. Snow flurries.

And where do I live?

Florida. Welcome to the sunshine state, y'all. I'm moving back to the couch to wrap up in the electric blanket.

Friday, January 08, 2010

Words Fail...


It's the "breaking news" designation that makes it art.

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Couch to 5K, Take Deux!

Yep, I'm back in the saddle, folks.

I was doing well with all my exercise from June through early October, but once H1N1 hit our house I just splatted. Exercise? Huh? Moderation in eating? What?

Yeah. Ugly.

Weighing in at 168 still. I've dipped down, but clearly I've managed to spike right back up.

My one-year anniversary over at Spark People (I'm AmandaJCD there if anyone else from the blogosphere would like to friend me!) is on January 19th, so basically it's looking like I have 2 weeks to lose 8 pounds so I won't weigh MORE than I did when I started. UGH!

Okay, if some of the weight I'm holding onto is water there is a slim chance I can drop the 8, because I might as well have been eating from a literal trough the past month or so. But the likelihood is that I'll be over 160 still in a couple of weeks.

I'm annoyed.

But as I said, I'm back up with C25K, which should be entertaining. This time I'm going a bit different route. My sister-in-law and I have both signed up to do this through our local running shop, and we had our first session this past Tuesday.

Let me tell you, making my first serious physical activity in three months a run? Likely not the best move ever made. Yesterday I think I'd have been happy if I could just have amputated everything below my ribcage. I thought I'd be fine because I have a sedentary job. Well, I learned yesterday it's more of a "sedentary" job, quotation mark usage required. By "sedentary" I mean "sedentary except when I have to get up to deliver a phone message, file, hunt someone down for the phone, figure out someone left without telling me, write them a message, take it to their desk, come back to my desk, get up to make copies, deliver copies, make it almost back to my desk and then hear the dulcet tones of The Anonymous Architect bellowing my name across the suite..."

Ouch.

Sitting hurts. Standing hurts. Walking hurts. Stairs are especially high on the "yipe-o-meter". This is even an improvement over yesterday, when I was audibly whimpering. Oy.

And I'm clearly insane because I'm planning to do the second night tonight. In spite of everything I'm excited about this, in a masochistic kind of way.

The setup is that we meet once a week for the first run of a cycle (3 day cycles just like last time), and do the other two on our own. And the increments are different from the C25K I did last year as well -- for that one, the first week is run 1 minute, walk 90 seconds, repeat for 20 minutes. For this particular fitness instructor's group, we had several options the first night: walk 1, run 1; walk 3, run 1; or walk 5, run 1. My SIL and I went with the second group, figuring we didn't want to totally flake but we also knew we weren't up to alternating minutes quite yet.

Now the sheet we have for the rest of the week gives three options too, although those are a bit more tight: run 1, walk 1; run 1, walk 2; and run 1 walk 3. Day 2 it's for 20 minutes, and day 3 it's for 25.

I figure I'll again hit the middle group which means amping it up a bit to the walking 2 minutes and running 1. Eh, we'll see how it goes. I think I'll keep up the timing but slow my running if need be.

Now to tackle the food. I'm on track today so far. But that's just today. So far. I need to get a bit more consistency with this. I think Tricia at Endurance Isn't Only Physical hit the nail on the head with her blog title. And I could sure use a bit more mental and emotional endurance.

Sunday, January 03, 2010

You've Gotta Laugh

Gum Zombie: May I have my chips back?

Me, as I return said bag: How'd you know I had them?

Gum Zombie, moving out of range: Because I couldn't find them anywhere else.

Choreboy: Bwahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Me, plopping back on the couch: Shup.

Yep, that's been my M.O. for food of late. So... bleah.

My sister-in-law and I are starting a Couch to 5K program through our local fitness gear store on Tuesday, though. That's been in the works a couple of weeks. So I've got plans.

I just have to act on them before my jeans stop fitting.