Archive for May, 2007

‘Roids

May 29, 2007 · Filed under Medical, Running

Actually, just plain old prednisone.  Let me tell you, that stuff is awesome.  Eddie and I took 60 mg around noon and already our poison ivy is much less itchy.  I’m waiting for the hallucinations to start, but so far everything seems fine.  I was very reluctant to go on steroids, but after consulting with Eddie’s mom, my sister, and the internet, it seemed pretty clear that if you have poison ivy on your face, you should take prednisone.  After further research, it seems a 10-12 day course is best so that you don’t rebound when you stop.  Using my amazing math skills and more internet help, I decided on this taper for me and Eddie: 60 mg for 4 days, 40 mg for 4 days, 20 mg for 4 days.  Woohoo.  Wicked exciting.  I begin to feel like a doctor.  Of course, I can’t actually write any prescriptions yet, but Eddie’s mother was happy to oblige.

Interesting how reluctant I am to take steroids.  Taking them for poison ivy does seem pretty silly.  I mean, I always thought of poison ivy as so trivial.  But, man, when you’re this itchy, it’s definitely not trivial.  I will have more compassion when I treat kids with it in the future.

Of course, every drug has a risk/benefit ratio, and prednisone does tend to be a little riskier.  Check out these side effects:

  • headache
  • dizziness
  • difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep
  • inappropriate happiness
  • extreme changes in mood
  • changes in personality
  • bulging eyes
  • acne
  • thin, fragile skin
  • red or purple blotches or lines under the skin
  • slowed healing of cuts and bruises
  • increased hair growth
  • changes in the way fat is spread around the body
  • extreme tiredness
  • weak muscles
  • irregular or absent menstrual periods
  • decreased sexual desire
  • heartburn
  • increased sweating

Some side effects can be serious. If you experience any of the following symptoms, call your doctor immediately:

  • vision problems
  • eye pain, redness, or tearing
  • sore throat, fever, chills, cough, or other signs of infection
  • seizures
  • depression
  • loss of contact with reality
  • confusion
  • muscle twitching or tightening
  • shaking of the hands that you cannot control
  • numbness, burning, or tingling in the face, arms, legs, feet, or hands
  • upset stomach
  • vomiting
  • lightheadedness
  • irregular heartbeat
  • sudden weight gain
  • shortness of breath, especially during the night
  • dry, hacking cough
  • swelling or pain in the stomach
  • swelling of the eyes, face, lips, tongue, throat, arms, hands, feet, ankles, or lower legs
  • difficulty breathing or swallowing
  • rash
  • hives
  • itching

I think my favorites are “inappropriate happiness” and “bulging eyes.”  “Loss of contact with reality” is also a pretty good one.

Of course, for comparison’s sake, check out the side effects from ibuprofen:

  • constipation
  • diarrhea
  • gas or bloating
  • dizziness
  • nervousness
  • ringing in the ears

Some side effects can be serious. If you experience any of the following symptoms, or those mentioned in the IMPORTANT WARNING section, call your doctor immediately. Do not take any more ibuprofen until you speak to your doctor.

  • unexplained weight gain
  • fever
  • blisters
  • rash
  • itching
  • hives
  • swelling of the eyes, face, throat, arms, hands, feet, ankles, or lower legs
  • difficulty breathing or swallowing
  • hoarseness
  • excessive tiredness
  • pain in the upper right part of the stomach
  • upset stomach
  • loss of appetite
  • yellowing of the skin or eyes
  • flu-like symptoms
  • pale skin
  • fast heartbeat
  • cloudy, discolored, or bloody urine
  • back pain
  • difficult or painful urination
  • blurred vision, changes in color vision, or other vision problems
  • red or painful eyes
  • stiff neck
  • headache
  • confusion
  • aggression

Okay, I guess prednisone is definitely worse, but it’s amazing to me how dangerous OTC drugs can be. 

On another note, ran 4 miles today and 4 yesterday despite the heat.  Aiming for 25 this week!

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Zoom through the Zoo and other events

May 28, 2007 · Filed under Medical, Pictures, Running

Lots of exciting things to report from Mississippi.  First, Eddie and I ran an awesome race Friday night called Zoom through the Zoo.  It’s a four-mile race with the first half going through the Memphis Zoo.  This combines two of my passions!  Perfect.

The race started at 6:30 pm (thank goodness!).  We arrived around 5:30 to pick up our race packet and warm up.  We spent about half an hour wandering through the large cats part of the zoo.  The pumas were hilarious.  Very vocal and very active.  After we had our fill of the cats, we dropped stuff at the car and did a slow 10 minute warm up and then some stretches.  Eddie did some strides while I hit the restroom.  At the start line, they had some poor fools dressed up in panda and tiger suits.  They must have been soooo hot.  Despite the fact that it was fairly late in the day, it was still around 85 degrees.  phew.

My goal for the race was to run a sub-10 minute mile.  Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but I’ve been kind of slow ever since the marathon, and I wasn’t sure how I would do in the heat after training throughout the Boston winter.  My plan was to run the following splits: 10:15, 10, 9:45, 9:30.  Oddly enough, there were two mile 1-mile markers on the course.  According to my GPS watch, one of them was short and the other was long.  Very bizarre.  Anyway, the rest of the mile markers were pretty accurate.

Running through the zoo was a lot of fun.  It was quite shaded, and I had fun distracting myself by looking for the animals.  After about a mile and a half, the route veered into Overton Park.  Thankfully, it remained mostly tree covered.  I ran the first mile in 10:11, and the second mile also in 10:11.  After that, I decided I could definitely pick it up.  The next mile I ran in 9:37.  The last mile had a pretty good hill, and I was pretty tired by then.  Whenever I’m feeling tired lately during a run, I just have to think back to the marathon and remember how much pain I was in then, and suddenly whatever I’m doing at the moment doesn’t seem so bad.  Despite the heat and hill, I managed the last mile in 8:57 for an overall time of 38:57 (9:44/mile).  I was very pleased with my effort.  For those of you who know me well, I am NOT a fan of the heat so I was quite happy to do that well despite the 80+ temperature.

The race was very well-organized.  They had a 1-mile fun run in addition to the 4-mile race Eddie and I ran.  And the race ended back in the zoo where there was free barbecue, a clown to entertain the kids and various zoo animals out for petting.  It was pretty awesome.

The morning before the race, Eddie and I spent quite a while doing yardwork for Eddie’s parents.  One of these chores involved clipping the lower branches from the trees around the driveway.  While we were doing this, we noticed a pesky vine climbing several of the trees.  It looked like this:

Now, as Eddie was reaching to tear it down, I said something like, “Don’t touch that.  Maybe it’s poison ivy.”  To which he replied, “It doesn’t look like poison ivy.”  And then, of course being totally stupid, we promptly proceeded to tear down the vine with our bare hands.  It may be hard to appreciate from this picture, but here is what we get for our stupidity:

Trust me, it looks worse in person.  Eddie and I are currently in a competition to see who gets the most body surface area covered with poison ivy.  I definitely started out ahead, but Eddie’s catching up quickly.  So far, I have it on both sides of my face, my left fingers, right forearm, left thigh, left ankle, right side and right popliteal fossa (behind the knee for the non-doctors).  Eddie has it on his face, right hand, left elbow, back of neck, and both thighs.  It looks a little like we took the leaves and rubbed them all over us.  Oh well, more practice for me as a future pediatrician.

And here’s further proof of my hatred for running in the heat.  This is me after a 4.2 mile run in 80 degree weather:

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Ah, fried food…

May 25, 2007 · Filed under Uncategorized

Yes, I’m in good old Mississippi again.  We arrived yesterday around noon, and we’ve already managed to make ourselves feel ill with eating.  On the way home from the airport, we stopped at Gus’s Fried Chicken.  Man, I’m not generally a fan of fried food (my husband thinks this is heresy), but this fried chicken is amazing.  It’s spicy and very crispy without much breading.  Delicious.

For dinner, of course, we had to go to the buffet at one of the casino’s in Tunica.  Thanks to the wonders of legal loopholes, the casinos are able to operate because they are actually located on the Mississippi river.  This time we tried the buffet at the Grand.  Because it was a Thursday night, it wasn’t too busy.  This meant short lines, but less turnover for the food.  Nonetheless, I was quite happy to munch on salad (gasp!), some strange mexican dish, crab rangoon, mashed potatoes, sweet potato pie and an assortment of desserts.  Mmmm, tasty.

Time for our daily trip to Walmart!

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Maturity

May 24, 2007 · Filed under Geeky, Pictures

Tufts graduation was this past weekend so I am now officially an MD.  Crazy.  See how mature it has made me:

I figure a little immaturity will help me in my future as a pediatrician.  For example, I am currently addicted to Lego Star Wars II.  It is wicked awesome.  Check it out:

Lego Star Wars

Perhaps this will allow me to better relate to my patients??  I’m blaming my husband.  He’s the one who bought the silly XBox 360.  Not too mention our giant TV:

IMG_2282

Ha!  I managed to sneak in another picture of Spenser!

Anyway, graduation was excellent.  Eddie’s mom came up, and I had a great time meeting all my friends’ families.  There was, of course, lots of eating and drinking.

To continue this theme, Eddie and I are heading down to good old Mississippi tomorrow to visit his parents.  Our visits down there definitely tend to revolve around food.  We already have many meals planned.  :)   Should be a lot of fun, although I am rather wary of the heat.  Eddie and I are running a 4 mile race Friday evening.  It takes place in the Memphis Zoo!  Given my obsession with animals, I think this will be totally awesome.

Speaking of zoos, Eddie played hooky the other day and we went to the Stone Zoo and then had a very nice picnic by the lake.  The zoo was pretty small, but we had a great time.  As you may have guessed, we spent a lot of time admiring the big cats.  Too bad the zoo wouldn’t let us bring Spenser.  I’m sure he would like to meet his relatives.

Speaking of large cats, check out this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cgg0txuzWM.

Okay, need to go pack!

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Pictures!

May 16, 2007 · Filed under Animals!, Pictures, Spenser

I’ve decided that my blog needs more pictures.  Pictures make everything more fun.  And what better way to add pictures to my blog than to document the extreme cuteness of my cat.  My cat’s name is Spenser, and Eddie and I are slightly crazy about him, to say the least.  We adopted him from the Animal Rescue League when he was 1 year old.  Here he is the day we adopted him:

Spenser

Of course, I haven’t always been a cat person.  In fact, I grew up as a dog person, thanks to Maggy, the best dog in the world:

Maggy

In fact, I used to only like big dogs until I met another great dog.  Her name is Ocky and she loves drinking beer!  Ocky is part of Mark and Susan’s family, and they may be even crazier about her than we are about Spenser.  They threw her a doggy birthday party.  Sadly, wordpress does not seem to like Ocky becaues it won’t let me upload pictures of her!  Very bizarre.

Anyway, back to the story of Spenser’s life.  When we adopted him, he had only been in the shelter a few days, and he had the unfortunate name of “Miracle.”  Of course, we quickly gave him his true name.  We quickly discovered that Spenser like three things:  playing, stealing water from our glass, and sleeping in strange positions.  Here he is in his favorite past times:

Spenser flying through the air

Spenser drinking

Spenser and Eddie sleeping

I would like everyone to note my extreme control in posting pictures of Spenser.  We have no fewer than 232 pictures of him, all of which are ridiculously cute. 

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Knee pain

May 15, 2007 · Filed under Running

My right knee has been bothering me a little bit.  I wasn’t going to run on Sunday because of it, but I really wanted to hit 20 miles last week so I did 6 miles anyway.  It hurt a little for the first two miles, and I thought about cutting my run short, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  It actually felt fine as the run went on and after I got back.  But it started hurting quite a bit later that evening.  So, of course, I’ve started icing and taking ibuprofen.  My guess is that it’s runner’s knee so I’ve also started doing some exercises to strengthen my quads.  I took today off, as planned, except for a short bike ride.  I should probably take tomorrow off too, but I wish I didn’t have to!  We’ll see…

 On another (and certainly more important note), Eddie and I bought a condo!!  It’s right next to Porter Square, which is extremely convenient for both me and Eddie.  It’s on a very nice side street and has a yard (!) and two decks!  Not to mention a garage parking space.  Excellent.

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More about Boston

May 11, 2007 · Filed under Running

A continuation of my experience during the 111th Boston Marathon: 

By the time we finally made it down to the corrals, the rain had slowed to a drizzle, and we (Jordana, Allison and her father, and I) were starting to get very excited.  I couldn’t believe that I was about to start the Boston marathon.  Having grown up in Boston, I have many memories of watching the marathon and cheering on the runners.  During college, we would always go down to watch, and I remember how exciting it was and how much it made me want to run a marathon.  I thought back to the training runs I had done along the course.  I remember very well trying to picture myself on marathon day while I was trudging along during training, and now I was finally ready!  Unbelievable.

Walking up a slight hill toward the start, I was amused by all the discarded rain gear in the street and very happy to see that the rain had stopped.  Despite the foreboding forecasts, it was actually perfect running weather (40s and cloudy).  As we approached the start line, I could hear an announcer, and I couldn’t believe when she incorrectly identified this as the 110th Boston Marathon!  I didn’t have long to think about this because we were off and running.

 It was a fantastic first few miles as we were cheered on by great supporters in Hopkinton and Ashland.  Running downhill was nice, but we tried to reign in our pace (in retrospect, we didn’t slow down enough!).  I was very excited when we entered Ashland and I recognized the area from one of my training runs.  I was very amused by the volunteer warning us of the barrier in the road.   The first 6 miles flew by!  We ran ~10:30 pace without any difficulty.

Unfortunately, my memories of the rest of the race are a little hazy.  I definitely remember the great volunteers and crowd support.  There seemed to be a lot of people from Tufts there to cheer us on.  Jordana and I got got a lot of cheers as we had our names printed on our shirts.  Pretty early in the race I took off my windbreaker, but decided to keep it with me in case I got cold later on.  I was very happy to be wearing my wicking long underwear and a warm vest.  I also spent a lot of time taking my gloves off and on, depending on the wind.

I broke up the course in my mind into manageable chunks.  The first 6 miles were easy.  The next checkpoint was the Tufts team cheering for us at mile 9.  Then I had the screaming women of Wellesley to look forward to at mile 13.  Then only 4 more miles until my husband cheering me on.  Then another 5 miles until I saw him again at mile 22 and then only 4.2 more to go.

I ran the first half of the race with Jordana, but around mile 13 she seemed to be slowing down, and I was still feeling great so we split off.  I had a gu around that time.  I remember getting a little tired around mile 16-17 as I crossed over the Pike and ran by Newton-Wellesley hospital.  However, I was still in excellent spirits and very happy to see my husband.  The next few miles were quite tough.  As planned, I walked up all the hills, but I began to have trouble going down the hill at BC.  My quads were absolutely killing me, and I felt like I didn’t have any energy left.  I had planned to have a second gu around mile 20, but I felt too nauseous to attempt it.  Instead, I concentrated on trying to get a little gatorade or water into my system at every mile marker.  By this point, my times had slowed considerably to an 11-12 minute mile.  When I saw my husband again at mile 22, I was really hurting, but I knew I only have a few more miles to go.  I alternated running and walking for the next 2 miles, but when I hit the 24 mile marker I decided I needed to finish the race strong.  Somewhere deep inside me I found a little extra energy and managed to run the last 2.2 miles.  When I turned onto Boylston street and finally saw the finish line, I experienced a huge mix of emotions:  exhaustion, excitement, pain, and disbelief that I had made it this far and actually run the Boston marathon.  I sprinted to the finish and crossed it with a smile on my face.

The next few hours are a bit of a blur.  I remember being amazed by how much my legs hurt.  I remember being very cold and also very excited to finally see my husband.  Despite my many layers, I spent the trip home shivering while my husband tried to get me to drink and eat despite my nausea.  I finally warmed up after a hot shower.  I lay down in bed and finally managed to take a nap despite the constant pain in my legs.

I would say it was a pretty good day.

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First marathon

May 9, 2007 · Filed under Running

I ran Boston a few weeks ago, and I still haven’t managed to write anything about it.  Very sad.  So, here goes….

I started running about 3 years ago, and I ran off and on (depending on the status of my shin splints) until this past July when I got hooked on SteveRunner’s idea of a Worldwide Half Marathon.  I happily trained through the summer (complaining constantly about the heat) and ran the BAA half marathon in October 2006.  I finished with a smile on my face in 2:21:43, well under my goal of 2:30.

Since that was so much fun, I started thinking about running the Boston Marathon.  Obviously, I would be unable to qualify, but Tufts has a charity program, which I decided to join.  Thanks to my amazing family and friends, I raised the necessary $1000 without much trouble. 

My training went quite well throughout most of the winter.  Even the weather cooperated, and there was very little snow.  I completed my longest run of 21 miles on March 4th with another 20-miler planned for March 25th.  Unfortunately, the week after my 21-miler, I started to feel some pain in my left foot while doing hill training.  To make a long story short, I stopped running for a few weeks because it looked like a I might have a stress fracture.    I did manage to bike a heck of a lot in an attempt to maintain my aerobic fitness.  Happily, I found out on April 3rd that I did not have a stress fracture.  I spent the next week and a half trying to both taper and get back into running shape before the marathon.

I was initially quite nervous about running the marathon given my abbreviated training in the weeks prior.  Thankfully, this is New England, and my fear about my training was quickly replaced by fear about the weather.  A Nor’easter was predicted for that day.  After a lot of debate on what to wear (but never any doubt about whether I would run the marathon), I decided on this ridiculous outfit.

The night before, I went to the Tufts dinner with my friends Steve and Jordana.  I tried to eat a good bit of pasta, but I’d had a big lunch and wasn’t that hungry.  I slept pretty well that night (all things considered) and woke up bright and early Monday morning.  I had my normal breakfast of cereal and brought a couple of bagels to munch on during the morning.  I took the T to downtown Boston to catch the bus to Hopkinton.  I was amused to see other marathoner’s on the T with me.  When I got downtown, it was sprinkling lightly, but it soon became a downpour.  I waited in my waterproof poncho and tried to stay dry with the thousands of other runner’s.  I couldn’t believe how many people there were!  I was very happy to finally get on the bus and get warm and dry.  I chatted with the other runners nearby, all of whom had qualified, which I found slightly intimidating.  I somehow assumed there would be more charity runners.

When we finally arrived in Hopkinton, the place appeared to be in total chaos.  Everything was very muddy and runners were milling about everywhere.  It took me awhile to figure out where I was supposed to go, and I ended up cutting through a couple of fields before finding my way to meet up with my friends and put our bags on the bus.  We made multiple trips to the porta-potties as we anxiously awaited the start and tried to stretch a little in the downpour.

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