Moose's Archives - April, 2005

Entry the Six Hundred and Eighty Eighth

02 April 2005

Training

I think the position of my foot on the pedal of my mountain bike may be a big part of my foot pain problem. While I was out biking around in the rain this morning I could feel the tendon on my left foot, the same one that was giving me hell on my right foot, twitching back and forth as the foot moved around with the pedal. It was less noticeable when I took my feet out of the cages, but still partially there. I think it may be time to take myself down and get the bike re-positioned again to make sure I'm seated correctly.

Did a lot of riding today. 45 minutes to Hains Point (9 miles), 15 minutes to the Metro (3.1 miles), a mad 4 minute dash from Metro home (0.8 miles). Was fun, rain notwithstanding. The DC Tri Club had a bike workshop on buying bikes this morning with our bike shop partner, Capitol Hill Bikes, which was a good little workshop. Not many of us made it out there, which was also okay. Basically reconfirmed my impressions, that fit and comfort are the most important factors when buying a bike. I'll likely get a road bike later this year and slap some aero bars on it - that seems to be the best course now. Give me something speedier than my mountain bike, but not go to a specific tri bike quite yet.

So, felt good to get outside to bike for once. I've been stuck on the indoor trainer for the past couple weeks, so outside exercise, even in the pouring rain that was coming down through many parts of this morning's rides, was a good thing. Now to just get back to running...

Bought a running book on Wednesday that I'm reading with some interest. The author, who lives here in the greater DC metro area, talks about improving running efficiency, with a particular focus on the triathlon arena. We'll see if his stuff works. I figured it was time to learn some more/different technique since I was having to start over again any way...

Entry the Six Hundred and Eighty Ninth

06 April 2005

Sleep/Violation

Tired, tired, tired. I've not been allowing myself to get enough sleep of late. New boy in the bed with me Monday night, which didn't allow me to sleep well, then in my sleep-addled state yesterday I drank a tad too much, which again disrupted my sleep last night. Gah. Not a good way to begin a week, let me tell you.

Crashing hard here tonight, and shortly (it's about quarter to ten as I write this). Swim planned for the morning, so I'll prep the bag for that shortly, get out the fan (we're in the transitional weather state where it's too warm in the room to sleep comfortably), floss & brush, then crash.

This meant, also, that I was not the best company for dinner with a friend this evening, which I'm more upset about than any of the rest of it. I'd already postponed dinner from yesterday because I was tired, then ended up not sleeping when I should have, so was tired again today. Not a good sign. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Anyway, not going to beat myself up about it too much (now).

Got to leave a bomb for Da Boss via email this evening. I may have discovered a possible violation of law because of how one of our components did something. Whee! It's a big one, too. Not a big deal for the BGA past the embarrassment of having to report it (i.e., no criminal sanctions), but it's still a mess. We'll see how she handles it when I get in tomorrow.

Entry the Six Hundred and Ninetieth

10 April 2005

The Eye Has It

I woke up Thursday morning and my right eye was not in focus.

I did not notice this fact until I got outside and had to focus on things that were far away, but once I did, I could tell that things were not quite right with my vision. I did the first thing most people with glasses do when they have a vision problem - I cleaned my glasses. No good. Rubbed the eyes. No good. Held one eye closed, tested, held the other closed, tested, discovered it was the right eye. Spent much of the commute to work looking out of one eye and then the other (I'm sure I looked quite the site, alternately blinking all the way to L' Enfant Plaza). The entire time just kept confirming that my right eye was not seeing things as clearly as it should, indeed, as clearly as it had the previous evening.

Got to work, noticed I was having problems reading things because of the distortion. Had an important meeting with my boss, then off to the optometrist for an emergency appointment.

He performed every eye test he could, looking at every variable he could. Confirmed that my right eye was now 20/30, corrected, where it had been 20/20, corrected, just five months prior in November. Failing to find anything wrong, he referred me to an opthalmologist. Fitted with an oh-so-stylish pair of slip in sunglasses to help with the dilation, I walked down to my new opthalmologist's office.

Once there, I sat for a bit, as they were also fitting me in on an emergency basis. They got me in, once again confirmed the 20/30 diagnosis, and then we ran a whole new series of tests to look at the eye and try to see what might have changed. My favorite had to have been the one where they inject your arm with a dye and then take pictures of the inside of the eye as the dye moves through the blood vessels. A dye which, while going in a lovely shade of red, came out as bright neon yellow pee. Fun!

Verdict: Couldn't find a damn thing wrong.

Didn't want to run an MRI at that point, so we made a follow up appointment for next week to see how it's doing and what, if any, changes have occurred. And then I went back to work for a short two hours, and then off to get a haircut and dinner with my friend F.

Upon arising Friday morning, the eye appeared to be back to normal. And, in fact, I've not had any vision problems since. Bi-fucking-zarre.

All this on a week when Richard was out of town at a conference in Seattle.

This in addition to dealing with a major, major legal issue the latter half of the week at work.

And the really odd thing was, while I had not gotten much sleep the prior two nights, I had zonked out and slept for a full eight hours Wednesday evening. So it wasn't like I could blame lack of sleep or alcohol use or the like for the problem, unless there was a serious delay between drinking Monday night and the eye being wonky on Thursday.

Ugh.

Hopefully it'll stay normal now. I'll raise the issue with my primary care physician when I go in on Thursday (a pre-set appointment to get new drug prescriptions written out to get things via mail order) , but I doubt he'll be any more likely to know what happened. If it does this again I'll wait a day before going in, though. I dread seeing the bills from all the various and sundry tests that were done Thursday. But you know, it's my eye sight. And I'd gladly go deaf, if I had to lose a sense, but don't fuck with my sight.

Entry the Six Hundred and Ninety First

14 April 2005

The Eye Has It, Part 2

The eye doctor (ophthalmologist) called this morning and asked if I could move up my appointment. I readily agreed as his office is less than a block from the dentist and would mean less walking around if I went directly there after the dental appointment.

Got in, they looked at the eyes, checked my vision (20/20 corrected, as it should be), checked the pressure in the eyes, etc. Again, all normal. Follow up in three months to see if anything changes.

Then we talked for a bit about causes of this mess.

The scariest, since everything else looks normal, is the possibility that it's an early indicator of Multiple Sclerosis. Of course it could just have easily been an odd blood sugar fluctuation.

Which is why I'm glad I moved the eye appointment up, since it was originally scheduled for after my appointment with my (very cute and hunky *sigh*) physician's assistant.

Got in to see the P.A., discussed the allergy med stuff I needed to talk about (the original reason for the visit - new scripts to order drugs via the mail order service of my insurance carrier). Then I brought up the eyes. He agreed with me that I'd rather run more tests and know if something like MS is happening than not. He chatted with the doctor for a bit, then came back and we took some blood for testing to rule out more common things. And he gave me a sheet for a referral for a neurologist. If the tests all come back within normal ranges and other stuff is ruled out, I'll go over to see a neurologist and they'll fax over the test results so he doesn't order similar tests over again. And then I'll start yet another round of tests.

Hopefully the results will be in Monday so I'll know then what I'm doing as far as seeing the neurologist or not.

It's some scary stuff to contemplate the things that can go wrong with your body, without any warning, and without you even having done anything to put you at risk. I'd steeled myself ages ago against the possibility of STDs, both fleeting and permanent, but to face the possibility of the body simply gone wrong, with no external, controllable stimuli to measure and view is a frightening thing. Hell, this is worse than my first HIV test, and that was an absolute nightmare (took over a week, had to drive an hour both to have the test and to get the results in person, not a very (gay) friendly staff, etc.).

The best is something temporary and easily taken care of (blood sugar, some odd curable bug, etc.). The worst, I start to watch myself for signs and portents of things that might come. But regardless of which it is, I want to know what's happening, one way or another. Even if that means more testing that finds nothing wrong.

Entry the Six Hundred and Ninety Second

17 April 2005

Pissy

I've been trying to avoid alcohol of late. It ain't easy.

Decided I need to just lay off the stuff, given that I'm not fond of how I feel the next day, even after just a single glass of wine (ah, the joys of being mostly a lightweight). I'm sluggish, and definitely not 100%. So I had been successfully avoiding the stuff and zipping along pretty nicely.

Then we had a friend over last night for some picture taking and just general hanging out.

Pictures commenced, and they started drinking some, so after a bit I had the remaining glass of a nice bottle of white we had left in the fridge, and then ended up opening up some chardonnay and having more of that... Long story short, had more than I then felt comfortable about, got pissy, didn't quite ruin the mood of the remainder of the evening for them, but certainly did for me.

No run this morning because of that, and I simply stayed home and played hermit and nursed my semi-sore body. All of which served to alarm a couple friends, including Richard, and I wasn't in the mood to deal with it, so I just ignored the lot of them. Not my normal M.O. by any means, and it's driving me nuts.

So, feh on alcohol for a bit more, at least until the first triathlon is done. I'm signed up for it now, June 19. 0.3 m swim, 16 m bike, 3.1 m run. And frankly, that's more important to me than trying to fit in when folks are drinking.

Just gotta remember that when I'm actually around folks who are drinking. *sigh*