Round Is A Shape

Friday, May 30, 2008
10w6d to pics--163#
Work 6p-8a
Slept 5.5 hours.

You've heard that joke where one person says, "I'm getting in shape," and the next person says, "I'm in shape. Round is a shape." That's been the theme of my day. Round people everywhere I go. My last patient was 5' tall and weighed 312 pounds. ROUND.

I am approaching rectangular. :)

Beautiful, warm weather today. Low 90's. Sunny. The shade was in the perfect spot for me. Good stuff. My head was definitely more into it today.

WORKOUT:
16kg TGU 10/side=11'40"
This represents an increased weight from previous versions of this workout. I had been doing it with the 12kg.

5 Rounds of 16kg:
Snatch 5/5
Alternating Reverse Lunges 8/8
Rows 8/8
C&P 5/5

Then...Swing 50, 40, 30, 20, 10 all starting on the top of 2 min, jogging the remainder of the time.

Life Isn't Fair

Thursday, May 29, 2008
11w to pics--164.5#
Work6p-8a
Slept 9 hours.

Boy, did I wake up on the wrong side of the bed! I woke up seriously pissed at the world. Then the damn scale showed an increase yet again. And I just really have not been diggin' work lately and really didn't want to come back tonight. So my workout suffered because my head was just not in it. And I squandered my time for dinner with the hubbie because I was being a titty-baby.

Wah, wah, wah. Boo-friggin-hoo.

About a third of the way through my shift, I checked my e-mail and got a message telling me to suck it up because life isn't fair (and this person didn't even know the magnitude of my crappy mood). And though my mood still isn't exactly sunny, my head is officially out of my rear. Because, no life isn't fair. It's not fair that I am smart, and healthy, that I have the most wonderful husband in the world who loves me dearly and whom I love dearly, that my family is absolutely amazing, that I have a job that pays well and for which there is never likely to be a shortage, that I have so many friends that I can't find the time to talk with them all as much as I would like to, that I could continue this list forever--yet I still bitch and moan and complain just because I can't get my weight to be what I want it to be.It's not fair that the only thing that isn't wonderful about my life is the fact that I am not an aesthetically pleasing woman who can eat whatever she wants to and still be thin while so many went to sleep tonight with no dinner at all, no sense of being loved by another, no family to lean on. No life isn't fair. I definitely got the long end of the stick.

WORKOUT:
12kg TGU's 10/side=8min 40 sec

5 rounds of...
Double 12kg
Snatch x 8
Thrusters x 8
High pull x 12
C&P x 8
Alternating row 8/8
Swing x 20
REst 90 sec

My goal is to do that above round with only setting the bell down at the end. I have 2 more chances to hit that. I was closer today in that I didn't set the bells down between the snatches and the thrusters for the first 3 rounds. Then after that rest, I motored on through setting them down only for a couple of seconds to reset. I don't think I'll be able to motor through all 5 rounds without stopping by next week, but I'll be satisfied to do it for the first three.

Then...12kg snatch 25/25, 20/20, 15/15, 10/10, 5/5 with 90 seconds of jogging between rounds.

As noted above, my head just wasn't in this workout, and I was out of the groove for most of the time. The reps were crisp and right, but that little "something" just wasn't there. I'll do better tomorrow.

OH, and LESLIE...
Thanks for the feedback.Glad you enjoyed the video. :)

UNCLE!

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

11w2d to pics--164#

off

Slept 8hours

Yes, you may have noticed the change in the amount of time to pictures. I woke up and smelled the coffee today--realized there was no way for me to lose 20 pounds between now and July 16. and that's assuming that 20# is going to be enough. Yesterday I had hoped that the 161.5 that I saw on the scale was some small indication that I was going to leap off this damn plateau and possibly at least get near my goal by then. Now I know that was a pipe dream. It would require close to 3 pounds per week between now and then, and I'm fucking lucky to hit half a pound a week. And as if worrying about getting there weren't enough, I've begun to seriously wonder if it's this hard to get to my goal, how in  the hell I am going to keep the weight off when I get there. Fuckety, fuckety, fuck, fuck.

Yes, I have a potty mouth. I've given up carbs (which means bread), fat, fruit, sugar, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, etc. etc.  I'm keepin' my fuckin' cuss words.

Fuckety, fuckety, fuck, fuck.

WORKOUT: Warm-up=(10 bodyweight squats, 10 pushups, 10 12kg swings) x 3

1 min of 45# swing

2 min of jog                            } x 2

1 min of burpees

2 min jog

Jog 15 min--Got about 20 yards further than last Saturday.

Just when I Thought the Scale Was Broken

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

7w2d to pics--161.5# (I was beginning to think it was broken and wouldn't move below 163)

Off

10 hours sleep.

Check out this video. If only we all played the game of life this way...

WORKOUT YESTERDAY: 

10/side 12kg TGU's 

5 rounds of Double 12 kg:

Snatches x 8

Thrusters x 8

High pulls x 12

C&P x 8

Alternating Row x 8

Swings x 20

Then...25/25, 20,20, 15/15,10/10, 5/5

90 seconds of jogging between rounds.

TODAY'S WORKOUT: 

10/side 12kg TGU

5 rounds of:

16kg Snatch 5/5

16kg Reverse Lunge 8/8

16kg row 8/8

16kg C&P 5/5

Then...16 kg Swing x 50, 40, 30, 20, 10 all started on the top of the 2 min, jogging the remainder of the 2 min.

Self-Discovery

Sunday, May 25, 2008

7w3d to pics-163#

Off

Slept 13 hours.

Life is all about self-discovery, I suppose. Discovering who I am, what I'm capable of, where I'm going, and how I'm going to get there. Corey and Amie's wedding was nice and somewhat illuminating. I got up, worked out, and rode with Kevin and Melissa to Hubb's for dinner.  All dressed up and out with friends who were drinking was just too much of a temptation.  I had bread and a drink for dinner and things spiraled from there. I learned from the skydiving incident that visualization works (for weeks before, I visualized myself going out that door, and when the time came, I didn't remotely hesitate).  I know now that I have to use that same tool to my advantage with regard to diet. Specifically, I have to visualize myself staying away from bread, letting it sit on the table undisturbed. It's very much a trigger food for me. I have to make an active plan for going out and solidify that in my  mind before heading out the door. I didn't do that last night. Instead, I had a loose outline for the evening which allowed me to easily deviate. I tend to get angry at myself about these things, but I need to at least take these opportunities to learn about myself and how NOT to repeat behavior. Tomorrow is another opportunity.

"Gardeners Beware" or "Why I Occasionally Love My Job"

Thursday, May 22, 2008
7w5d--163#
Work 6p-8a
Slept 5.5. hours (I just realized today that I have been forgetting to put this on my posts. Not much use to everyone else, but it's helpful to me.)

Last week I saw the most dramatic thing I've ever seen in 6 years of working in emergency departments.

As usual, the department was ramping up to its comfortable level of chaos, and I was in seeing a gentleman who had been waiting 30 minutes or so to see me. (I take pride in seeing patients as quickly as possible.) As I was looking at his open left arm fracture from a dog bite, one of my nurses poked her head around the corner, rolled her eyes, and said, "They're bringin' in a little girl with a tomato cage on her head," implying that I should go to see her right then. Instantly at least a hundred thoughts flew through my brain, and I started to walk to the front of the department. "Hmmph, how did this kid get a damn tomato cage stuck on her head? Are they bringing her in by ambulance? What the F*%$!" About that moment, I rounded the corner and saw a father calmly pushing his 11-year-old daughter through the er as she held in front of her the 3 foot wire conical cage intended to guide tomato plants in their growth. The three large guage (think pencil) wires that formed the point of the cone were embedded in the skin of her forehead and temple. "Damn, that's gonna suck trying to get that sombitch outta there," I thought to myself as I thought about the hundreds of embedded fishhooks I've removed over the years. I just knew those wires were bent between the skin of her forehead and her skull. So I went to talk to her to see how she was doing (no that's not rhetorical) and get a better look at that forehead.

My nurses and I guided the father and daughter pair into a room, and I asked her if she were hurting. "A little," she said, calmly holding the cage and rolling her eyes to watch the flurry of activity around her. To each question, "Are you sick to your stomach? How's your vision? Why is your nose bleeding? How did you get this stuck on your head?" she gave quick, pointed answers in a voice that was astonishingly calm. I was amazed. Even when the wire cutters wouldn't budge the cage, and we had to get a huge, scary pair of bolt-cutters to cut away the biggest portion of the cage, she was unbelievably calm, and not in a way that made me fear she was in shock. As we were cutting the cage away, I realized that the wires were not just floating between the skin and bone. At least two of them were embedded in bone. My brain would just not let me believe that the wires had actually gone through the skull into her brain, but I knew that I had to work with that assumption, so I ordered a CT scan to see inside her head.

While the little girl was in CT, I went to talk to the mother, the other individual most directly involved in the accident, because I was just not understanding the mechanism of injury. Her mother was hysterical. She was wise enough, however, to understand that her hysteria would hinder the process of helping her child, so she stayed in the conference room and out of the way unless she was needed. After some unintelligable sobbing replies, I finally began to understand that she had been cleaning the tomato cages and was slinging them to shake the mud off when she lost her grip on one and it flung through the air, coming to rest in her daughter's head. Think as I might, I still cannot understand how so much force was generated by that single act.

At least able to picture what happened, I went to reexamine the girl on her return from radiology. She was still calm, only minimally in pain, and now a little nauseated. She could still talk to me, could still see, and was overall doing well, so I went to the Xray computer to see the films. All I could think was, "Holy Crap!" One of the wires not only had penetrated her skull but transversed a sinus, her eye socket, and the boney floor of the eye socket and come to rest at the back wall of her head, missing her eyeball, pinning her optic nerve and missing her carotid artery by less than a millimeter. The second wire penetrated the temple, went under the frontal lobe, crossed the skull and came to rest within a centimeter of the brainstem. The third simply skirted the outside of the skull between it and the overlying skin. The 11-year-old lying in my ER had two large wires running directly through her cranial vault.

The next 30-45 minutes were spent arranging for a neurosurgeon to care for her and flying her to where they could do just that. The last 7 days have been spent trying to picture exactly how a tomato cage came to rest not only in her skull but more-or-less through her skull. I don't think I'll ever completely understand that.

Her mother called me yesterday on their way home from the hospital. My patient is not only alive, but she has no lasting effects. Sometimes I love my job.

WORKOUT:
12kg TGU 10/side-- AS I was doing these, I could tell my workout was not going to be the strongest in the world. I think the degree of difficulty of this workout on my fourth day of working out in a row makes this a little more harder than the workout on Monday. I also firmly believe that I have a mental block with this workout because of the thrusters. They are difficult enough that they play a mind game with me. I'm working on this, though.

5 rounds of the following with Double 12kg bells:
Snatch x 8
Thrusters x 8
High Pulls x 12
C&Px8
alternating rows /side
Swings x 20

Then... 12kg Snatches 25/25, 20/20, 15/15, 10/10, 5/5 separated by 90 seconds of jogging.
Whole thing took me 1hour and 32 minutes.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008
8w till pics--163#
Off

YESTERDAY'S WORKOUT:
12kg TGU 10/side=8'30"
Then 5 sets of...
16kg
Snatch 5/5
Lunge 8/8
Row 8/8
C&P 5/5
Rest 90 sec
=30min 50sec

THen... Swing 50,40,30,20,10 Starting on the 2 min mark and running the remainder.
Whole thing took me about 52 min.

TODAY'S WORKOUT:
Burpees x 1 min
Jog 2 min
45pound Swing x 1 min
Jog 2 min
Repeat
Run 15 min.

Progress Update

Monday, May 19, 2008
8w2d to pics
Off

My nephew and soon-to-be niece-in-law were great enough to drive a couple of hours to eat dinner with me and the hubby. This was really good of them. Most of my family lives in a 2 miles radius around my parents and it's generally expected that everyone meets at Mom and Dad's to visit. i.e. people almost never drive outside the circle to see anyone. They're both pretty neat people, served in Bahrain in the Navy, are fighting through my family's jack-legged thoughts about living together before getting married, and generally are just fun to be around.  He came over to the apartment with me after dinner, and I showed him a few things with my kettlebells. I think I have him convinced that they need to give 'em a whirl. I've only been working on him for a couple years now.

I weighed yesterday and measured to give a progress update. Here goes (April 4 measurements in parenthasis)...

Weight 164# (166#)

31.5" Waist (31.75")

36.25" Belly Button (37")

39" Hips (40")

21.75" bilateral thighs

11.75" R biceps, 12" L biceps. 

WORKOUT: 

10 12kg TGU's=10'7"

Circuits:

All with double 12kg

Snatch x 8

Thrusters x 8

High Pulls x 12

C&P x 8

Alternating Rows x 8/side

Swing x 20

Rest 90sec

Perform a total of 5 times.

Snatch 12kg 25/25, 20/20, 15/15, 10/10, 5/5 With 90 sec of jogging b/w sets.

Lemme just tell you this workout wears me out. I'm pretty sure my own personal hell would be organic chemistry lab followed by thrusters for eternity.

Saturday, May 17, 2008
8w4d to pics--165#
Work 6p-8a

I've had a pretty good run at work these last 3 nights. I've seen a tremendous amount of interesting stuff and received a lot of compliments from patients and their families. These are the nights that make it worthwhile. I am, however, looking forward to my three days off in which I plan to do a whole lot of nothing. :)

Despite not getting a chance to go grocery shopping last week, I've done a fair job of tweaking my nutrition this week. I've really been working on increasing my protein intake which has been a difficult thing for me to do. Tuna and Revolutionary Technology Nutrition whey protein have become my friends. And I've decided squash and zucchini are my favorite vegetables right now. I can bring them to work, cut them up with a butter knife and pop them in the microwave for a couple minutes and "voila" good stuff. I've also been able to maintain my carbs at a lower level than they had been--all in hopes of busting out of this damn plateau. It's gotta work. Right?

FRIDAY'S WORKOUT: WORKOUT C
12kg TGU 10/side--10.5 min

Then...
5/5 16kg snatch
8/8 16kg reverse lunge
8/8 16kg row
5/5 16kg C&P
REst 90 sec
Repeat all for total of 5 rounds

Then...
16kg swing x 50,40,30,20,10-Starting each set at the top of 2 min and jogging the remainder.

Total w/o=16 min

TODAY'S WORKOUT:
Warm-up with 3 sets of 10 bodyweight squats, 10 pushups, 10 12kg swings.
then..
45#Swing x 1 min, run x 2 min--repeat 4 times.
Then...Run 15 min. I didn't get quite as far today as I did Wednesday. I think the increase in weight on the swings had that effect.

Back to the Grindstone

Thursday, May 15, 2008
8w6d to pics
Work 6p-8a

I've headed back to work tonight after a ten day stretch off. Because I have been running so much over those ten days, I just don't feel like I had any time off. I guess It's not just me, though, because the hubby was a bit down in the mouth himself. When I asked him why, he pretty much echoed my thoughts about the 10 days' just vaporizing. Fortunately, I'm only working 3 days before I have 3 more days off, so it won't be too bad. I just might be a complete slug for 3 days then, though. :)

WORKOUT A:
12KG tgu 10/SIDE=10 min
Circuit:
Double 12kg snatch x 8
Double 12kg thruster x 8
Douple 12kg high pull x 12
Double 12kg C&P x 8
Alternating Row 12kg x 8/8
Double 12kg Swingx 20
REst 90 sec

REpeat all of the above for a total of 5 rounds. = 45 min

12kg snatch 25/25, 20/20, 15/15, 10/10, 5/5
90 sec of elliptical machine between each of the above sets.

Total time 1hr 20 min or 10 min less than last time.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

9 weeks to pics

Off-Went to Memphis to meet with Kevin and Glenda

I didn't sleep well at all last night. I had a headache all night long and kept waking up. So when I finally got up, I felt like poodoo. Honestly I didn't really even feel like working out, but I knew if I didn't get it in in the a.m., I wouldn't get it in at all. Since I haven't missed a workout since last July, I didn't particularly want to start now over a little thing like a poor night's sleep. So I got my ass out there and went to work. As usual, by the time I was finished, I felt much better.

WORKOUT INTERVALS:

Warmup with 10 bodyweight squats, 10 pushups then 10 light swings repeated 3 times.

Then...16kg swings x 1 min followed by 2 min of jogging repeated 4 times.

Then...Jog for 15 min.  This was the first time I've "run" for more than a couple minutes at a time since last July. I was pleasantly pleased that I ran the entire 15 minutes no problem. I'm slow, so this probably was the equivalent of 1.25-1.4 miles, but it felt good and strong, so I was pleased.

Some Shuttertime

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

9w1d to pics

Off--Still Hanging out with the Gobilets

               Mary, Draegan, Amanda and Anjolia and I took advantage of the beautiful weather yesterday and went to the park. It gives the kids a great chance to run around and have some fun and me a great chance to hone my skills with the camera. At times the light was really good. The light was a beautiful gold coming in laterally but the playground equipment made some crazy shadows. There was a over a full stop difference between the shadows and the full light which made playing with manual mode a challenge but a much needed one. I still had to do a bit in Lightroom, but I did learn a great deal too. I really should do this type of thing more often. Here are a couple of samples. The black and white is from last night, but I liked it, too.

                

WORKOUT: Workout C

10/side 12kg TGU

5/5 16kg snatch

8/8 16kg reverse lunge

8/8 16kg row

5/5 1kg C&P

Rest 90 seconds

REPEAT x 5

50,40,30,20,10 16kg swings all started at the top of a 2 min rotation. I'd finish the rotation with jogging.

Took me a total of 56 minutes.

One Less Thing on the Bucket List

Monday, May 12, 2008

9w,2d to pics.

Off. The Gobilets are here to visit.

         In my line of work, we do a lot of thinking about truly living life.  Sometimes it's morbid; sometimes it's a gift.  We don't take many days for granted, and we learn some valuable lessons from others without having to live the heartache.  When the movie The Bucket List came out, one of our frequent topics of conversation was what our list would be.  I think each person's list would change depending on how long they had to complete the list. If you knew you had only 24 hours to live, what would you really do with them? If you think about it, you would probably do something a lot less glamorous than you would initially think. As I began to think about it, I realized what I would really want to do is spend a few hours eating dinner with my family--my mom and dad, my siblings and their families. And the rest of the time I would want to spend with my husband and my dog. I would hope for an amazing sunset, a full moon, and a warm night--or a cold night, a new moon, and a hot tub. When our necks finally tired of looking at the sky, I'd want to lights some candles,snuggle up on the couch, watch a good movie and just be. Simple as that.

            But when you/I think about what to do assuming we have decades left, it all changes.  Then, I think of things I'd like to see, places I'd like to go, things I'd like to do. I want to spend a couple months camped on the beach in Central America. I want to dive in the South Pacific, watch the killer whales migrate to Alaska, swim with a whale shark.  I want to see ice so old it's blue sliding by millimeters down a valley of its own making.  I want to drink a Mojito on the beach while I watch a Cuban sunset. I want to climb the Mayan ruins and dive the Mexican cenotes.  And until Saturday, right at the top of my list was jumping out of a perfectly good airplane and seeing what it feels like to fly.  Now it's time to work on some of the others. Meanwhile this one was abso-freaking-lutely unreal.

FF about 2 minutes through the advertisement at the front...and through the hoakey Q&A to the part where we're loading the plane.

NUTRITION: I was supposed to start a new program today, but I ended up deciding not to start until Wednesday. We've had house guests since last night, and it just wasn't practical. I did start some minor modifications, but the hammer comes down Wednesday.

WORKOUT: I went to see David last Thursday and got a serious ass-whipping. He talked with me about this plateau I've been wallowing on for the last two or three months.  He wants me to drop my carbs even further and continue with even more lean sources of protein and keep my calories a little lower than what I have been.  And I'm pretty sure he's trying to kill me with my new workout program. We'll see if it works.

Workout A (Today): Warm-up with 10/side 12kg TGU.

8 per side Double 12kg snatch.

8 Thrusters (These are the devil).

12 double 12kg High pulls

8 double 12kg C&P

8/8 Alternating Rows.

20 double 12kg swings.

Rest 90 sec.

Repeat all of above 5 times.

This is designed to do all of the above in a row without putting the bells down. I am a total puss and cannot do that just yet. My goal is to be able to do the total of the above as it was designed with no rest in the circuit until it is called for.

BUT WAIT... then I do the following...

25/25 12kg snatches, 90 sec jog

20/20 12kg snatches, 90 sec jog

15/15 12kg snatches, 90 sec jog

10/10 12 kg snatches, 90 sec jog

5/5 12kg snatches, 90 sec jog.

This workout took me about an hour and a half. I'll be working toward shortening that as much as possible as quickly as possible.

Springtime at Reelfoot Lake

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

10w to pics--167.5#

Off

Slept 10.5 glorious hours and woke up to NO alarm clock. :)

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine took me to one of the local lakes he has been fishing ever since he can remember. He gave me a quick tour since a long one was precluded by the setting sun. Reelfoot is a lake in upper northwest TN that was formed in the early 1800's when the New Madrid fault took a little shift and made the mighty Mississippi flow backwards for 3 days. It is a truly beautiful piece of earth and has one of the most diverse bird populations in the states with cranes and egrets everywhere you look. Here's a little peek for you.

WORKOUT: Light Workout 2

1. 12kg  C&P--AMAP in 15 min

69L/69R=2 less on the left than last week.

2. Unweighted Split Squat--AMAP in 15 min

81L/79R=7 less on Left and 9 less on Right than last week.

3. 12kg Swings--AMAP in 15 min

636=42 more than last week.

Saturday, May 3, 2008
10w, 4d to pics--165 friggin pounds.
Work 8p-6a (Day 8 in my 9 day stretch)
8 hours sleep (which I have consistently been getting the last week--forgot for the last little while to be posting this)

This whole 9 day stretch has been much better than I had anticipated. Undoubtedly the 10 hour shifts as opposed to my usual 14 hours has helped tremendously. As a matter of fact, I'm kinda diggin' 'em. It's also helped a lot, too, that the patient volume has been quite low for the last week which is very unpredictable and could just have easily have been higher than usual. I'm definitely glad the cards fell in my favor. I've been very pleased, too, that I've stuck to my guns during this tremendous stretch. I haven't missed a single workout though I have shuffled them slightly a couple of days. I could have easily made excuses and felt sorry for myself, but I made them happen regardless of how pitiful I felt and how far my lower lip poked out.
I did drag-ass yesterday a.m. when I got up to go to work, but I just did my workout when I got home from work this am. Interestingly enough, I forgot my workout notebook in the Jeep and didn't want to go out in the cool and wet to get it, so I just recorded my reps for the workout not knowing what number I had gotten last time. Usually I have the last workout's number in my head as a goal to beat. This time I just had to go full out and hope it was better. Turned out okay. Then I went to bed, slept a solid eight hours and got up and did my workout for May 3rd. That puts them a little close together, but it didn't seem to matter. My workout this afternoon (my "today") was rockin'.

WORKOUT May 2: Light Workout 1:
1. 12 kg TGU--AMAP in 15 min:3/3, 2/2, 2/2, 2/2, (1/1x5)=29 b/c the last rep was after the beep. This is the same as last week.
Rest 5 min.
2. 12kg Snatch--AMAP in 15 min: 25/25, 20/20, 15/15, 10/10, 10/10, 8/8, (5/5 x 10)=276-20 more than last week. I only set the bell down twice for less than 5 seconds each time.
Rest 5 min.
3. 8kg squat + pushup--AMAP in 15 min: 15/15, 12/12, 12/12, 12/12, 10/10, 10/10, 10/10 5/5=86/86. For this one I have no comparison. I went down on my weight for this exercise b/c my knees have been angry at me. I seems to be helping b/c my knees aren't aching nearly as much.

WORKOUT May 3: Heavy Workout 2:
1. 16kg C&P--AMAP in 15 min: 5/5, 4/4, 4/4, 3/3, 4.4, (3/3 x 6), 2/2, 1/1, 1/1=42/42--5 more than last time.
Rest 5 min
2. 12 kg Split Squat--AMAP in 15 min: 6/6, (5/5 x 3), (4/4 x 3), 3/3, 3/3, 2/2, 2/2=43/43---4 more per side than last time. I thought about going down to the 8kg for this, but my knees were feeling good, and I was feeling froggy, so I kept my usual weight and went on. Tonight my knees aren't bad, but they're definitely expressing their displeasure with my decision.
Rest 5 min.
3.16kg Swing--AMAP in 15 min: 80, 70, 70, 100, 110, 40=470--45 more than last time. These were done as a combination of 1hs and 2hs.

How Did It Go?

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
11w to pics--164.5#
Work 8p-6a (5th day on my 9 day stretch)


Forgotten Language
by Shel Silverstein

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?

This is, from left to right, my sister, my baby nephew Noah, my niece Jessi, and my mom at Christmas last year. My mom is one of those people who will be young until she dies. She was 42 when I was born but she was always right in the middle of everything with me, first one on the roller coaster, down some crazy slide or leading the way on a random adventure. She almost died when I was in medical school and since has had to temper that sense of adventure, but even now she can't wait until the weather warms enough for her to walk barefoot on the cool new grass of the yard or take the grandkids outside. I'm just as likely to find her getting into trouble as I am the kids. So the poem above always reminds me of her. It's one of my favorites anyway,and that it makes me think of her just adds to the appeal.

We found out a couple of days ago that she has squamous cell carcinoma on her left hand, specifically the area between her 4th and 5th knuckles. It is a rarely malignant cancer that chooses instead to invade locally. Obviously, we are pleased that it usually is localized, but "they" have told us that her metacarpals and proximal phalanges (bones of her hand and lower fingers) will likely have to be broken to remove all of the cancer. At 76 years old, my mom has a lot of degenerative changes of the spine that have compressed nerves and severely limited her strength, even caused atrophy of the specific muscles that some of those nerves supply. As a result, her right arm has no strength, and she uses that hand for dexterity purposes. Her left arm is her "strong arm" which allows her to actually lift such necessary things as pots and pans. We all are still trying to figure out how she will manage for 6 weeks or so with a cast on that left hand. She will manage, though. She always does. She is an amazing woman, mother, and friend. I'm proud to be so much like her. I just wish that, like her, I'd not forgotten that language.


WORKOUT: Light Workout 2
A. 12kg C&P--AMAP in 15 min
10/10, 10/10, 10/10, 9/9, 7/7, 6/6, 5/5, 5/5, 4/4, 3/3, 2 71L/69R--same number as last week.
Rest 5 min
B. Unweighted split splat--AMAP in 15min
12/12, 12/12, 12/12, 10/10, 10/10, 8/8, 6/6, 6/6, 6/6, 2/2=88/88 (13 more per leg than last week)
C.12 kg Swings--AMAP in 15 min
200, 393(worked the entirety of the last 9.5 min to get those last 393)=593 (63 more than last week).