health Posts

OK I’m Awake!

Because I work such long hours, I’m forced to schedule my physical therapy sessions at like the crack of dawn. It minimizes the amount of time I have to take off from work. The main problem with this, aside from the fact that my sessions sometimes start a full HOUR before I’m used to starting work, is that I have to drive about 20  miles to get there. 20 miles + rush hour traffic = about a 45 minute drive. So I leave my house anywhere from an hour to almost 2 hours earlier than I “should” on physical therapy mornings. Needless to say, I’m pretty tired – tired like I was during the Olympics. Exhausted really.

After waking up at the crack of dawn yesterday and sort of zombie-ing through my morning, I decided that I MUST get to bed early last night. Yet despite my best efforts, I didn’t make it to my bed until around 11. Alarm starts chirping just a few short hours later, and I’m NOT a happy camper. I think I snoozed for like 35 minutes before finally giving in to the little voice in my head telling me I need to get up, leave my warm bed, and face the day. Ugh. Fine.

Again, eyes don’t wanna open. It’s cold. I don’t wanna leave my house. So I throw on some jeans (and not exactly my nicest pair either lol), running shoes (the physical therapist wants to check them out), a shirt, and a sweatshirt. It’s not the nicest of outfits, but it works OK for work, and it’s comfy. I then quickly throw my hair up in a pile on top of my head, and really it’s not too polished looking, but I simply couldn’t care less at this point. Obviously I’m also wearing my glasses. Let’s be honest – if my eyes don’t even want to open, jamming contacts into them just isn’t a choice. I figured I’ll just clean up a bit after physical therapy when I’m more awake.

Thankfully I made a pot of coffee this morning. A strong pot of coffee. Started chugging that before I even got into my car lol. It was kinda sorta maybe kicking in a little bit the more I drank. I’m about halfway to PT at this point, and starting to feel a little better. Got some good music playing…it might end up being a good morning after all.

Then the morning gets interesting.

About 3 cars in front of me I see this truck kinda sway/drift over to the right. He compensates my cutting to the left. Only he over compensates. Big time over compensates – dude spins out. So I see a spinning truck, hella cars slamming on brakes, people swerving in all kinds of directions (think parting of the red sea but with vehicles), the car in front of me (also slamming on brakes, clearly) is quickly approaching. FOOT ON BRAKE ON FLOOR…PLEASE LET ME STOP! Check the rearview mirror, yep car behind me is quickly approaching, fuck I’m about to get sandwiched here. FUCK PLEASE STOP CAR.FUCK FUCK FUCK. I’m gonna hit this SUV. Goddamnit I was JUST in a sandwich accident, please don’t let this happen AGAIN.

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Posted by Caro in Life, Random, fears, health

BRUTAL-ly Honest

I had physical therapy today. My usual physical therapist was sick so I got a substitute today. A brutally honest one. I guess I should talk about physical therapy in general since I haven’t done that yet.

About a week and a half ago I went in for my consult and evaluation. It was kinda odd, but based on past physical therapy sessions for other problems, I was expecting odd. She needed to observe and measure all kinds of things related to my foot, so I took off both shoes and socks. She looked at my feet while I just stood there. She had me raise up to my toes while standing on both feet. She had me stand on one foot at a time so she could look at something else. Then she made me walk up and back the room so she could see stuff when I walked. Then I laid down.

Here’s where it got really sad: she measured my calf/Achilles flexibility. When you’re laying back and you pull your toes up to a 90 degree angle (toes to the sky), that 90 degree angle is considered “0″. Pull your toes in toward your shin more, and every degree beyond 90 is +1. So you want the 80 degree angle: +10 on their scale. Ok so when I first got measured a week and a half ago, I was at -5. MINUS 5. So that’s 15 degrees of flexibility that I’m lacking. OK people, it turns out this isn’t bad; it’s ABYSMAL. Apparently the average elderly person has more flexibility in their calf/Achilles. Heck even my “good” foot is only at a +5. OK fine, my ankle and calf aren’t flexible. Whatever — fix me!!

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I want to post Chicago pictures…

…But I feel like crap :(

One blog is enough for the day. I can say that Chicago was absolutely spectacular though. I ate too much, shopped a bit, drank a little, and saw not nearly enough. I got to wear all my warm clothes and had a great time in the freezing cold. It snowed too!

Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow and put up a picture or two. If not, Monday for sure!

Posted by Caro in Food, Shopping, Travel, cool, fun, health, things to do and tagged with

Lesson Learned

Ok so those super cute shoes I bought on Tuesday. The ones that were a half size too small but didn’t feel that tight. Yeah those. Those are going to be sold or given away.

I made the mistake of wearing these babies yesterday. It’s usually never fun breaking in a new pair of shoes, but add a busy day to that equation and you’re in for a mess. I worked 12 hours yesterday – recipe for a disaster. (more…)

Posted by Caro in Life, Shopping, Work, health, money, things to do

Marla

I’m not even sure where to start with this. I guess I could start just by simply stating that I hate Marla. Passionately.

You might be wondering who the F this Marla person is. Well she’s not a person; she’s a part of my foot.

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Posted by Caro in Random, fears, health, things to do

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Posted by Caro in Random, baby, family, fears, health

VSP

VSP – Vision Service Plan. Aka the only eye insurance I’ve ever heard of. Despite the apparent monopoly (or my ignorance regarding their competitors), I love this company. LOVE it.

I had my annual eye exam a couple of weeks ago, which went more or less seamlessly. I should note that I’m like blind, for those of you who somehow missed that memo. Blind. Anyway, I called the doctor to schedule my appointment and was asked if I “had” to have Dr. N. Thinking she must have been too busy, I said no, I’ll take someone else. I just need to get in. So I was booked with Dr. C.

I arrived to the office to discover that Dr. C is the “low vision specialist”. Awesome. I’ve been switched from the regular eye doctor to the doctor for the blind. Definitely a blow to my ego, but I’ll get over it.

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Posted by Caro in Life, Shopping, discoveries, health, money

Pink Eye

I think I have it. That means throwing away my contacts. Lame!

Update: I just went on webmd’s symptom checker. Clicked on “eye”

Some of the symptoms I might choose from are:

*blank stare

*seeing letters, numbers or musical notes as colors — seriously!?

Posted by Caro in Life, Random, health

Keloids Can Kiss My Ass

I work in research. Every now and again, I try to “give back” to my research community. Mostly these are selfish endeavors, in that I do one study over another because I get paid. Well last week a paid research opportunity presented itself to me, so I jumped on it.

It was an MRI study. Get paid like $50 to get a 30 min MRI done. Sounds easy enough right? Well the problem with this is that you can’t bring metal into the MRI room. If you have a metal object, like say a piercing, lodged somewhere in you, it will certainly be ripped out. Painfully and traumatically. I knew this going into it, but figured I’d be fine.

I’ve had my cartilage pierced for like 9 years. Not a single problem with it. It should also be noted that I have never once attempted to remove it. I’m not even sure how to remove it.

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Posted by Caro in Life, Random, fears, health, money, things to do

Stress and Whatnot

Why is it that when I have to deal with something tedious and out of the ordinary, it’s never just one problem at a time? I’m going to go on a long rant here!

On 1/4, the first business day of 2010, I found several problems that needed to be tackled:

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