Thursday, August 21, 2008

Well said...

"Success is knowing your purpose in life, sowing seeds that benefit others, and growing to your maximum potential."
- John C. Maxwell

"The tremendous revelation of Christianity is not the fatherhood of God, but the babyhood of God - God became the weakest thing in His own creation, and in flesh and blood He levered it back to where it was intended to be. No one helped Him; it was done absolutely by God manifest in human flesh. God has undertaken not only to repair the damage, but in Jesus Christ the human race is put in a better condition than when it was originally designed. It is necessary to understand these things if you are to be able to battle for your faith."
- Oswald Chambers

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Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Bridge to Brisbane Training

So my shoulder is probably about 90% better with still some limitation to my range of motion (any movement involving external rotation can hurt if I'm not careful) and I've been doing some more running to get into somewhat decent shape for this Bridge to Brisbane run coming up on September 7th. Now I'm not a fan of running but I have found that it really energizes me and that I feel more alert rather than tired afterwards. Plus, running with my flatmate Albert really helps to make the time pass by quicker because can we can chat and motivate each other to push through. I finally got proper running shoes and they make a world of difference. Now my feet aren't swollen after running and it almost feels like I've got a bit of bounce in my step.

This is a 6km run that we aim to do in just over 30 minutes that includes two fairly big hills right at the end on Carmody Road. The first hill is about 200m long at maybe a 35 degree incline and the second is about 240m long at maybe 30 degrees? I probably have mis-estimated the steepness but it's pretty close to walking up a set of stairs...

The second run is a 10.9km run to the city and back. It has a hill at the very start and some hilly bits right at the end. The latest time for this one was 1 hr 1 min 30 sec. It would be nice to shave this down to under an hour.

Haven't really figured out a training plan yet...right now if I can get out to run 2-3 times a week I'm happy. I've heard that it's better to run farther at first than to run faster. Still trying to find a good pace because there have been a couple times where I head out way too fast and I'm completely pooped by the half-way point.

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Urachal Fistula

Onwards to a very brief, three week renal block. Just read about how you can pee through your belly button if you have a urachal fistula. Basically, it's a direct connection that forms between your bladder and the umbilicus (belly button). Would be cool to head to the urinal, lift up your shirt, and relieve yourself. Problem is that this fistula would probably be proximal to your external urethral sphincter and you wouldn't have any voluntary control over when you pee...so you'd really just end up with a constant wet spot all over the front of your shirt and pants.

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Friday, August 01, 2008

Use It Or Lose It

That's what the physiotherapist told me about my shoulder over the next few weeks/months. If I don't make diligent use of the painless range of motion that I have right now, it will seize up and rehabilitation of a frozen shoulder will not be fun at all. I was talking to a friend here who had a cortisol injection into her suprapatellar bursa and she said that it wasn't bad at all. Made a huge difference for her pain. If in a couple weeks I'm not seeing significant improvement I might explore getting an ultrasound guided injection for my shoulder...

This morning I was just finishing up my shower and I twisted my shoulder really funny while trying to dry my back. Probably an 9/10 on the pain scale. I thought I felt the tendon/muscle tearing apart just a bit when I did it. You just don't realize how important something is until you lose it. I was just thinking about all the things I can't do without at least some pain or super awkwardly:

- Wash my hair
- Scratch my back
- Brush my teeth (I've realized that it's really awkward to brush my teeth with my non-dominant hand)
- Putting on any pull over shirt/jumper/jacket. If i wore really small t-shirts I would not be able to get my arm in...
- Sleeping on my right side or my stomach. I love sleeping on my stomach so I've had to get used to sleeping either only on my back or on my left side.
- Reaching forward for anything including shaking people's hands, hitting the signal light while driving, grabbing the steering wheel, opening my car door to get out...actually I've noticed my disability the most when I'm driving because there's so much that involves reaching forward and I can't reach!!!
- Pretty much any physical activity that involves my R arm. Can't even do push-ups on my knees...
- Playing the guitar while sitting (because my R arm sits at a weird angle). Thankfully I can still play if I stand up so...I'd be sooooooooooooo depressed right now if I couldn't even do that.

Is this a sign that I'm gettin' old? I remember the days when I would just do things with little to no regard for my body - and I'd be sore afterwards but I'd always bounce back soon after. ARGH!

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