A memo from the desk of TMI

I have vericose veins. On my...






...fanny flaps.



Apparently vulvar verices (as they are technically known) are common in around 10% of pregnancies (though that's considered to be a wild underestimate as it is believed the condition goes largely unreported), and appear most frequently in the fifth month (check) of a woman's second pregnancy (aaaaand check).



God I have being unoriginal.

WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL PREGNANT?!?!?!?!

My due date was Friday. This is shit. This is NOT the German efficiency (and I'm 25% German, so that should count for something.)

I'm huge. I can't sleep. I can't sit comfortably, stand comfortably, walk comfortably, or lie down comfortably. And I'm fed up with swapping one discomfort for another just for variety's sake.

Also, I'm exhausted. I can't sleep. I have to pee every 45 minutes (until about 4 am by which time I'm sufficiently dehydrated that I can go about 2 hours between weeing. If only my uterus was as keen as my fucking kidneys.) And my RLS* has become unbearable. I lie in bed at night jerking like a mule that's undergone army experimentation, thus guaranteeing that the Pirate isn't getting any meaningful sleep, either. (And he hasn't whinged about it once, bless his tighty whities.)

We went to see Brendon Burns in Oxford on Thursday night, hoping to laugh the kid loose. Nearly worked, too. Had a couple contractions before the show began, and after 90 minutes of solid belly laughter I carried on contracting strongly, if erradically, until about 2 am. Then it all fizzled out and died and I've had nothing since. Bah.

Tomorrow is my nephew's birthday. He'll be 1. Keep your fingers crossed that something kicks off tonight so the cousins can share a birthday. That would be cool.


*Don't laugh. It's real, and it SUCKS.

Haunted

I figured out what was wrong with me.

The house is killing me.

Here's how it works. Do you remember the incident last October, shortly after we moved in, when the whole left side of my face ballooned up and my eye was swollen shut for 3 days and the doctors (yes, plural) never did figure out what caused it? They couldn't figure out if it was bacterial, viral, or an allergic reaction to some environmental factor, and it was getting worse so rapidly there wasn't time to try different medications in succession (also, I was half blind and itching like i had fleas in my eyeballs), so they put me on antibiotics, antivirals, AND antihistemines all at once. One of them worked because I began to get better shortly thereafter, but it's still a medical mystery.

Now bear in mind that we moved in here on September 20, I immediately got a head cold, and then the eye thing started on October 5.

Please also bear in mind that all last autumn I had one head cold after another, such that we estimate I've been sick about 50% of the time since we got married.

Except for the 6 weeks I was stuck in Michigan waiting on my spousal visa. For those 6 weeks I was completely fine; not a sniffle.

I got back home to Cornwall at the end of January, and within two weeks I had another mysterious illness. This is the short version:

Friday: sore throat

Early Saturday morning: most painful sore throat in history of humanity, body aches all over, throbbing pounding headache. Essentially pain. Ultimately, the only symptom I had was pain. Conspicuously absent: fever, congestion, sneezing, coughing, runny nose, or ANYTHING that might indicate a viral or bacterial infection.

Sunday: Body ache gone, throat still sore but sufficiently better that I can eat solid food again, headache more bearable but still present.

Today (Monday): Sore throat all but gone, headache back with a vengeance, accompanied by mild nausea.

This morning I walked to the pharmacy to buy some of the effervescent cocodamo*l tablets the nurse on the NHS helpline told me about on sunday morning. My throat was better, but i'm not convinced it won't happen again, so i decide it's a good idea to have some in the house.

My head was throbbing. It didn't hurt more if i bent over or looked down, but as soon as i straightened up again it felt like someone was driving a railroad spike into my brain stem. I thought my brain would explode from the pressure. The ferocity of the pain was such that I actually cried out loud a couple of times while walking home. I wasn't sure I would make it. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and eventually I got home. (It's only one bloody mile.)

I decided to take one dose of the cocodamol for the headache. It helped the headache, but gave me a mild psychotic reaction. I was utterly convinced for 3 hours that there was someone else in the room with me, and i was being WATCHED. I can't tell you how freaky this is. Thankfully about 3% of my brain was holding down the sanity fort and constantly reminding me that I was alone, in no danger, and this was clearly a reaction to the drug.

So what the fuck caused me to have an incredibly sore, swollen, inflamed throat and migraine-level headache pain with no other sign of infection? The House.

Think about it. Shortly after we move in i get some weird, undiagnosable condition. I am sick on and off the entire autumn. I leave for Christmas and enjoy 6 weeks of perfect health. I return and within 2 weeks (roughly the same amount of time between moving in last September and the first medical crisis) I have some other weird, undiagnosable condition. Unless someone else out there has had a bout of tonsilitis that lasted 2 days and went away on its own, my leading theory right now is that there is some environmental factor in the house that's making me ill.

Am I crazy? It just seems unlikely that this is a coincidence.

Pirate is not affected by it, but I'm in the house ALL THE TIME, whereas he only comes here to eat, shag, and sleep. He's out for 12 hours a day at work. I'm not. I'm here, dying by inches.

I've dismissed CO, as we have a dector that says there's no CO in the house.
I've dismissed radon, even though Cornwall is full of it, because radon toxicity takes years of exposure to produce symptoms.
Right now I'm thinking some kind of mold or fungus. I shall begin to investigate and see what I turn up.

*Tylenol 3 with codeine, and it's available over the counter here. Take that, you sorry Americans!

Good News, Bad News

The good news is we're getting a cat! I feel kinda bad because Pirate really, REALLY wanted a kitten,* but we went to the other local animal shelter on Friday and absolutely fell in love. He's brown and white with really striking markings, very fluffy, is 2 years old, prone to urinary tract infections, is incredibly friendly and cuddly, and his name is Fred.

The shelter doesn't know much about his history as he was brought in as a stray, but he's waaaay to friendly with people to have been born stray. I suspect he was dumped by an owner who couldn't cope with his bladder problems.

But the good people at the shelter have got his problems under control, and assure us that all he needs is to be fed a special diet and he should be fine. I'm sure he'll still have the occassional flare-up, but I'll watch his litter closely and get his urine tested every 6 months or so, which is no big deal at all.

So after we visited him I decided I was completely in love with him, and I looked at Pirate with big, doleful eyes and he gave in. He's such a good man, but i do feel a bit guilty. I've promised him that after Fred is all settled in we will look for a kitten. Someone seriously needs a kitten. Bless.

And now for The Bad News.

I am sick as a dog. I don't know what's wrong, but I have the worst sore throat in human history. The throat started Friday afternoon, and by the small hours saturday morning my whole body was in agony. My head was pounding, my throat was so sore I couldn't sip water without extreme discomfort, and every muscle and joint in my body ached. I could barely move. I spent the day lying on the couch and moaning.

Today I am a little better. The body aches have subsided somehwat, so I'm more comfortable than I was yesterday, but everything above my collar bone still hurts like a bitch: my head is pounding, and when i swallow it feels like someone is choking me to death and the pain goes right up my ear canals. I've managed to eat a scrambled egg, 2 popsicles, and 2 glasses of apple juice. That's since Friday night, and now it's sunday morning. Pirate tried to get me to drink some Lemsip** but hot things make my throat hurt more and after it cooled it was so disgusting i gagged and almost threw up. Oh yeah, I've had some nausea and stomach cramping as well.

Clearly I am dying.

Does anyone know a disease that is characterized by an incredibly sore throat and massive body aches? Cuz really, if it wasn't for all the pain I'm in, I would just have a slight stuffy nose and that would be it. I'm seriosuly wondering if it's not my tonsils. This is truly not your run-of-the-mill sore throat.

Oh yeah, there's more: Pirate got contacts!

It's very strange. Normally the only time I see him without his glasses is when we're making love, and therefore I find it a huge turn-on when he takes them off, because I know what it foretells. But now he's wearing contacts and every time I look at him I think I'm about to get some. If I wasn't in so much fucking pain I'd be the most turned-on woman in the western world right about now.

*"self-propelled balls of entertaiment" according to Pirate

**Theraflu to you Yanks

No-man's Land

I saw a new specialist yesterday about my back. He's the head of physical therapy at Plymouth's largest hospital, and he specializes in lower back pain.

I'm not in quite a sufficiently poor state to justify surgery at this point. Most days I can function just fine. It's really only about 1 day a fortnight when I'm genuinely unable to do basic things for myself like get dressed and wipe my ass. Most other days I have pain on and off throughout the day, but I can do the things I need to do, albeit a bit stiffly.

The problem is, I've already just about exhausted all the non-surgical options. I'm fit, healthy, strong, and flexible. Given that, there's very little I can gain from further physical therapy. There are a few things that can be worked on, some movements that I can't do, so they are giving me an NHS physio who will give me more/new excercises, etc. But The Expert said he couldn't guarantee it would have any real impact on my quality of life.

So I'm in a bit of a medical no-man's land. If I were any worse, they would operate, but I'm too healthy to benefit much from phys. Arg.

I asked about my long-term prognosis. His response? (And this is a direct quote) "You have a bad back."

Thanks.

The one small segment of silver lining is that if I do get any worse I'm an absolutely perfect candidate for a particular kind of back surgery that no one else had discussed with me. Instead of removing the disk and fusing the vertebrae, which I thought was the only option, they can add little rubber springs to my L4 and L5 vertebrae on either side of the damaged disk to give it more stability. It's only got a 50-70% success rate, but because I'm such a perfect candidate for it (young, healthy, fit, and with a single-level problem (ie only one affected disk)), they put me at the top end of that estimate, and maybe as high as 80%.

So in the meantime I muddle on as best I can, unlikely to get better, and waiting to get worse, so that then I can get better.

Back to back

My back has been getting slowly but steadily worse for several weeks. By this weekend I was having serious problems, including but not limited to:

• pain that reduced me to tears every time i sneezed or coughed
  
• an inability to bend over to put on my own knickers
• an inability to bend over to wash my face
• an inability to get into a car w/o assistance
• an inability to twist around to wipe my own ass

So I finally did it. I slept on the floor.

I expected that I might feel somewhat better after a night on the floor, instead of in a bed so soft that when you sit on it your ass sinks below the level of your knees. I did not expect that after one night on the floor that I would feel completely fine.

That pretty much settles it. We need a new mattress.

For budget reasons we'd really rather not make a major purchase until after Christmas. As a stop-gap we're going to try putting a sheet of plywood between the mattress and box spring. Several people have suggested that this will help, so it seems the obvious first step.


(Oh, and I've got an appointment with the doctor in the morning to see if there's anything else that can be done from a medical perspective. In the past 2 years the NHS has shown a distinct disinterest in my back problems, but this is a new doctor so maybe he'll be more openminded to helping a 29-year-old healthy woman with chronic pain issues. I'm not holding my breath, though.)

My eyes, my eyes!!!! *blood curdling scream*

Part III will have to wait because guess what? I have impetigo!* In my EYES!

It started last Saturday as an itchy bump on the bottom of my chin. Monday morning I had developed what i thought was a cold sore on the corner of my mouth. As luck would have it, I had to see the doctor that day anyway to get my gym pass signed off. (If Pirate brings it back today I can go use the gym on the base for free any time I want, including all the classes and stuff. cool!)

Long story short, it's now on my chin, the corner of my mouth, my left ear, and both eyelids, which are swollen, blistering, oozing yellow puss, and itching like the blazes. You have NO IKEA how miserable this is.

Good thing Pirate and I are having company for dinner tonight -- some of his work colleagues. I look awesome!

(And yes, I asked the doctor when I went back this morning if it was safe for me to prepare food for people, and he said it was. Now I'm using an antibiotic cream and taking oral antibiotics. That should kill the little feckers.)

*Do a Google image search. I dare you.

Hot Toddy

Here's how I make my hot toddies:

Juice of 1 entire lemon
Equal amount strong booze (at least 40% abv) such as brandy, cognac, scotch, or bourbon
Almost that much honey
Top up with hot (NOT boiling! you'll evaporate the alkyhaul) water.
Drink.

There's enough acid and alcohol in that concoction to disinfect a front-line hospital. On Sunday night when I had a sore throat it worked a treat -- by Monday morn my throat was better. But at the same time my sinuses got worse.

Now, on here on Tuesday night, my sinuses are still plugged, my throat is hurting again, and it's moved south into my chest. That's the really worrying bit. I can race with a plugged nose (i breath through my mouth anyway) and i can cope with a sore throat, but chest congestion makes racing impossible. You just can't get enough oxygen in to power the muscles. I'm getting really worried. This is the same thing Sal had, and she was down with it for almost 2 weeks.

I've been to Henley twice before, and both times I've been fucked by my team. Once I was sabotaged by my coach (yes, I know that sounds paranoid, but I think he was getting me back for throwing up on him, unrepentantly, at training camp), and the second time all the senior women in the club quit and my only hope was in a coxed 4 (an inherently shit boat, as it has the worst power:weight ratio of any racing craft) with 3 keen but inexperienced and unfit novices. Then last year I lost the whole of the spring season to my back injury.

This was my year. This was the year for the glorious come-back. I got screwed by my club YET AGAIN (i'm not bitter, i swear), but managed to find a fantastic partner and get it together in a double scull.

AND NOW I'M SICK.

Honestly, there does not exist in this world an angstometer of sufficient capacity to measure my frustration.

So today I bought a coloring book to color. Like you do.

Angst. With a headcold. And sunburn.

Why is that you only ever get sick at The Most Inconvenient Time Imaginable?

I'm sick. Henley is in less than a week and I'm sick. Shit bugger wank balls fuck damn arse shit fuck.

And because I'm sick, I feel like crap and therefore can't be bothered to give you a long, drawn-out, delightful narrative of the weekend's spankings. There were two. I shall sum up.

Saturday:

Competing in the double scull. Was so nervous I was nauseas for 3 days leading up. Got attached to the stake boat, nearly blew my cookies, had a really mess start (holy fuck that stream was strong!!!), and rowed a line like a fucking sine curve. I was all over the river. Even so we only lost by a length. I figure if you factor in all the extra distance we did on account of my fucking steering (or lack thereof) we actually went about 100m farther, and therefore won. Too bad the judges don't see it that way.

The Mother-in-law came as well, bless her M&S socks. All that way to watch us lose. (Twice.)
Had a nice picnic anyway. The weather was good. There was a lovely irish wolf hound who befriended me and got belly rubs out of the bargain. I got dog hairs on my wet lycra.


Sunday:

Racing in a quad scull with a seriously strong crew. Scratch crew. We'd only had 1 outing together prior to racing. It was just for a lark. But the Bristol women who swore up and down that they didn't want to race a quad scull and thereby effectively threw me out of the club (remember that?)... THEY ENTERED A QUAD AGAINST US.

Knife in back: TWIST.

Holy fuck were we out for blood. We wanted to win it. BAD. Rarely in my life have I wanted anything so badly. I wanted their heads on platters. With little bits of parsley garnish sticking out of their eyeballs. The cunts.

We had an awesome start. After a few strokes we were already clearly ahead. Poor Weybridge didn't stand a chance. (I should clarify here that we were actually racing Weybridge. The Bristol quad got knocked out in their first round, but we wanted to win the whole event just to demonstrate our obvious superiority. It would have been nice to meet them in the final, but they got eliminated by New South Wales.) We were going to decimate them and go on to the final.

Until Sal crabbed. Massively. And then, utter genius that she is, her reflex was to use both hands to try to recover her blade, and so she let go of the second one! Aaaaaahhhh!

So that was us done. We made a valiant effort and came back well, even managing to close the 4 lenghts of open water between us and come in contact with them again, but then we ran out of river and they crossed the line first. Had we had another 200m of water we'd have gone right through them, but it was a short course and there just wasn't time.

Weybridge were really friendly about the whole thing and we cheered them in the final. They lost to UL, poor dears.

But we decided the quad has sufficient potential that we will carry on racing it through the summer, because we're confident we can win shit. And the weather was perfect, so that was nice. And I got to pet a 12-week old beagle puppy named Donut, who was an absolute little doll. And there was chocolate cake in abundance, which also helped. But i'd gladly give all that up and more to have won that race in the quad.

Yeah, AND I got sunburn on the top of my head where my hair was parted.

And now I'm sick, one fucking week before Henley. Frustrating ain't the word.

I'm going back to bed now.

Nighty-night.

Not another rowing post

or, Living in My Body Again

I'm just beginning to realize/accept that my back will never be the same again. I will, for the rest of my life, have to make small adjustments to my lifestyle. That said, it's not so bad.

Of all the things I love most about rowing, it's the feeling of really loving living in my body that gives me the biggest high. I feel comfortable inside myself. Not in a vain "oh don't i look great" kind of way, but in that way you felt as a kid, when you ran around and jumped off things and climbed things and didn't actually think about your body. You just did what you wanted and expected your body to keep up, and 999 times out of a1000 it did.

That's what rowing does to me, and that's just how i'm starting to feel again for the first time since my injury. My body is beginning to feel like mine again. I tell it to do something, and it does it. The constant fear of pain and injury is starting to dissipate. It's not gone completely, i still hesitate when I do things like put my pants on in the morning (if you've ever had a lower back injury with sciatic pain you know that bending over to put your knickers on and lifting one foot off the floor is one of the most impossible small tasks and usually comes with a side order of searing agony), but by and large I am just going about my life. In my body, which I can almost stop thinking about.

It's nice.

Back early

If the point of training camp is to experience pain in places you didn't know you had places, then this one was a cracking great success. On every other level, it must be said, it was a pathetic and agonizing failure.


It started out well enough. On Sunday I took my single out in the morning and racked up 16k before either the double or the coxless 4 managed the same distance. I felt good. In the afternoon I went out with the quad scull. God it felt great to go fast again! My back was pretty stiff, but I still managed a good outing with some race starts. By the end of it, though, my back had gone into complete spasm and I couldn't move. Coach O had to carry the boat for me.


That night it was announced that the top crew boat the club would be racing would be a coxed 4. That would be the Henley crew. This is fine, except I can't row in a coxed 4. A coxed 4 ("4+") is a sweep-rowed boat, not a scull. And because of my back problems, I will probably never sweep again. I am now, and for the rest of my life, a sculler. So what it boiled down to is I had just been thrown out of the Henley crew in my final year at Bristol and my last ever year to row competitively at Henley. "Heartbroken" doesn't begin to describe it. I was devastated. I sat in my room alone all night and cried.


Monday morning I was still crying, and had a chat with O. He understood how felt, but had to make decisions that were best for the team, and he thought the team stood the best chance of winning in a 4+ (never mind the fact that we don't actually have a coxwain, that's just an insignificant detail!), and it was a shame that a, I had been left out of it and b, that I train the hardest out of anyone on the crew. He promised me that if I could find a doubling partner from another club that he would do everything he could to help us with training and drive us and our boat to practice regattas. I personally am of the opinion that it's absolutely SHIT that

a, I have been with Bristol for 3 years and now, at the end of my career, i have been effectively abandoned by my squad. There is no more racing for me with Bristol.

b, participation is not a factor in selecting crews. When I was an undergrad it would have been inconceivable that someone who spent 3 years on the squad and did all the training would be denied even a chance in competition.

c, apparently all the hard work and painful physical therapy I've put myself through since I ruptured my disk back in November of 2006 has been for JACK. SHIT. All that effort, and here at the end I get NOT. A. FUCKING. THING. The only thing I got was screwed.

After having this out with O (who is, goddamnit, a really nice guy and yelling at him is like kicking a puppy; i just can't do it), I was still a bit stiff, but took my single out again. I could only do short distances and had to come back to the pontoon frequently to stretch. I tried to do some short pieces to burn off the aggression, but only succeeded in pulling my left hip flexor. By Monday evening I was not only discouraged, I was in serious pain. Sitting in a chair, I was unable to raise my left knee off the floor. I could not walk up stairs. Another night passed crying alone in my room.


Tuesday morning I was somewhat better for a bit of rest, but I was still stiff and sore. I tried going out in the single, and actually went in circles. I had lost at least 30% power in my left leg, maybe more. The strength just wasn't there.

(Now, you have to understand my relationship with my legs. They are huge. They are like tree trunks. They are not attractive, but damnit, they work. They work hard, and they have never, ever let me down. They take everything I throw at them, and they give as good as they get. They are the one bit of my body that I can absolutely, unequivocally depend upon. To be betrayed by one's own body in the pursuit of one's dream is traumatic at best. To be betrayed by my legs is like, well, imagine if Pirate left me and married my sister. That kind of betrayal. I have never been so angry at my own body. It's difficult to know what to do with that kind of anger.)

After 2k of trying to compensate by sculling primarily with my right leg, I had a massive knot in my right lumbar spine, at the top of my glut. I came back in and rang my chiropractor, Miracle Mike. He said he could fit me in Thursday morning.


I announced to the rest of the crew that I was leaving camp early, quitting the Bristol boat club, and they could all please go fuck themselves. With a pineapple. Sideways.


The End.

Wankety balls bollox shit fuck wank damn carp

I'm sick. AGAIN.


I really do NOT need this, not now.


I'm gonna go get jiggy wi' da' Lemsip* (as the kids say nowadays). I'll be back later.




*Theraflu

Weekend musings, part II

Saturday
Saturday was the UBBC Head, a head race on the Avon river sponsored and organized by the Bristol U boat club.

It was also my first competition since Fours Head last november when I ruptured a disk in my spine. Almost a year to the day, and I was finally competing again.

Neither my coach nor captain wanted me to do the race. They didn't feel I was ready. I felt that ready or not, if I didn't at least give it a go I would explode with frustration. I finally went over my coach's head to Head Coach Big G, who told my own coach that I could do as I bloody pleased and if I wanted to race it was his job to make sure I was entered. Big G is mostly a giant prick, but when push comes to shove he does get your back.

The compromise was that I would compete in a single scull. I much prefer crew boats, but we all know that if I'm in a crew boat and my back starts to crumble i will actually kill myself before I stop rowing. The First Commandment of Rowing is: Thou shalt not let they team mates down. In a single, though, if it all went tits up I would allow myself to stop and be rescued without the worry of ruining someone else's race. So a single it was.

There were only two of us in the W Champ 1x division: myslef and my team mate, C. Pirate was there to lend support (translation: abuse hurled at me from the last bridge) and rescue me if need be. The weather wasn't great, but far better than it could have been. It stopped drizzling just before we arrived and didn't start up again until after everything was over. The temperature was barely above freezing, but there was no wind at all, so I didn't get too cold up at the start marshalling.

I was the very last boat of the day, which sucked. I didn't have anyone baring down on my stern to push off of, which is too bad. It's a big psychological boost when you are out-running someone. Being last also meant that by the time I came heaving by nearly all the spectators were gone, so there was no one left cheering except the Pirate and my coach. Otherwise the banks were silent. It reminded me vaguely of a description I once wrote about the last woman in the Athens Olympic marathon, but only when I thought about it later. At the time, I coudn't hear the silence over the sound of my own breathing and my blades popping in and out of the water.

I did finish, and finished strongly, but not quickly. I was under-rating. I didn't have a stroke-coach on board, and I was shooting for a rate of about 25-26. (Not ambitious, I know, espeically for a 3.5k head, but remember I haven't done this for a year, I'd done hardly any training in the last 3 weeks owing to my cold/flu things, and before that, I had been unable to do any difficult training pieces without suffering serious consequences. Hence the reason my coach didn't want me out there at all.) Basically, my goals were to scull a strong, steady rhythm, keep the power on but not kill myself, take good line down the windy bits of the course, and cross the finish line withoug a career-ending injury.

Actually that's complete and total bullshit. Who are we kidding here? My goal was to fucking WIN. End of. All that crap I just said was what my goal should have been, and if it had been, I might be a lot happier today, having achieved all of the above. But no. My goal was a very unrealistic gold medal. But who gives a shit about realism? goals aren't meant to be realistic, they're meant to be hard. And there's no fucking point in racing if you're not in it to win.

Hence the reason I was so crushed to have had the slowest time of the day. Bah. Sheer stubbornness should be able to overcome circumstance; that's what it's for. Next time, damnit, next time. And tonight I have a 5k erg test to murder.

I'm dying

Seriously.

I can't breathe, my sinuses are full of yellow-brown goop, I've got a splitting headache, my ears are plugged, I'm coughing my lungs up, sneezing my brains out, and I ache all over.

Fucking flu.

(And before you even suggest it, Herebe, it's NOT from over-training.)

Now the only question remains, What do I want on my tombstone? Ham, mushroom, and pineapple, of course!

Saddle Sore

Last Saturday I cycled 25 miles (12 to the boathouse, and further 13 to the Pirate's).
Sunday I cycled 26 miles (13 each way from Pirate's to boathouse and back).
Monday I cycled 25 miles (home to Brizzle from Pirate's).
Tuesday I cycled 26 miles (13 miles each way to my chiropractor in Clevedon).
Wednesday I could have cyled to the boathouse and back (total 24 miles), but I got a lift because I was sick of cycling.
Thursday I cyled 26 miles (Clevedon and back to see my chiropractor).

Tonight I'm cycling to the Pirate's (25 miles).

Thank god the girls are in London racing this weekend, so I don't have to cycle to the boathouse. I can go to the gym and do a weights session instead.

Because on monday I have to cycle home from the Pirate's (25 miles) AND go to the chiropractor in the evening (26 miles). Total: 51 miles.

My bum hurts.

Halloween

The day began well enough with a light boxing session. I like waking up in the morning and beating the crap out of people. What a great way to start your day. Sooooo much better than coffee!

Then on to rowing: I got soft and got a lift to the boathouse instead of cycling the 11 miles each way like I usually do, and had a light outing in a scull. Only did about 9k owing to recovering from Sunday's disasterous back pain, but on the final leg i hollered to my team mate "Oi! Wanna race back to the pontoon?!" So we did. It was only about 700m, but I kicked her ass and that felt good.

Concluded the day here, with Pirate and good friend, Welsh Cake. I don't think Pirate enjoyed himself very much -- not really his thing apparently -- but the Cake and I had a good time. And hey, there was free ginger cake. What's not to love? So no candy, no dressing up, and no trick-or-treating, but ghost stories by candlelight in a medieval crypt (with ginger cake). Not a bad trade-off, really.

How was your Halloween?

The News in Brief

and Thong, and Tighty Wighty, and Bikini, and...


Politics
I'm the Vice-Pres of the Atheist, Agnostic, and Secular Society. We're holding elections tonight for a new Pres. (I don't want to be it. I don't have time to do the job I've got.) Mostly my concern is that the one person who's being doing all the work for the last 18 months will have to continue to do all the work, and when he graduates there won't be a society any more. We need to start spreading some responsibility around or the club will die, which would be a huge shame.

Health
I'm seeing a chiropractor. Although the ruptured disk is as healed as it will ever be, my pelvis is apparently out of alignment. This is causing me to put 15 more pounds of pressure on my right foot than on my left when I stand. Such misalignment puts a twist in my spine that will make reinjury more likely, so I'm having it sorted. Which is good. I guess. I'm a bit skeptical of chiropractors. They're not doctors. I worry that it's all just so much snake oil. Any thoughts?

Finance
I can't afford the chiropractor. I earn about 100 pounds a week. This is my only regular income. I could earn more, but I don't have time to take on a third job. My rent is 78 pounds a week. I have the remaining 22 to live off and buy things like food, books, and pay for rowing expenses. The chiropractor costs 50 pounds a week, plus 12 pounds a week in bus fares to get there (his office is in a different city). Ow. I'm afraid this will hurt my wallet more than it will help my back.

Arts
Went to see Ladysmith Black Mambazo at Colston Hall last night. They were amazing. Rich, soulful, powerful, and even a bit camp at times. At one point a bunch of women jumped up on stage and started hugging the guys! There is not enough music in my life right now. It was wonderful to sit there with their round, full harmonies filling my ears. I needed that.

Celebrity
Our Roving Reporter spotted the Pirate this weekend down at the Bristol boat house on the Avon near Bath. He was helping his stiff, sore, pathetic, degenerate, dejected girlfriend lift her scull out of the water. Later, our source informs us, he took her to his gym to get a proper workout in, since her water session was too painful for her back and she returned after doing a paltry 3k. At the gym he spotted her while she did an upper body weights circuit and helped her stretch afterwards. Later that evening (according to our snoop) he spend nearly an hour giving her a full-body deep muscle massage with lots of beramot-scented oil and a rolling pin.

Obituaries
Daisy the Wonderbeagle passed away last week. She had to be put down owing to excessive feebleness and inability to hold her pee. She leaves behind 4 grieving bipeds and numerous friends and admirers. She was 15 1/2.

Horoscope
Your position is shaky right now, but that is temporary. You will find a way out, as you always do. In love, you are coming to a crux. Soon you will know for certain where you stand, one way or the other.

My donuts got no jelly!

So I finally, a full 10 months after my inital injury, got a concrete diagnosis on what went wrong with my back.

For those of you who don't know the story, I shall summerize briefly:

November 06: injured my back while rowing in Fours Head in London. Was in agonizing pain. Completed the race (and beat the quad!!!) but had to be carried to an ambulace after we crossed the finish line. Was flat on my back on heavy pain meds for 3 days.

Received unnofficial diagnosis of ruptured disk from Dr. D'Artagnon who came galloping to my rescue (with aforementioned heavy pain meds). Couldn't get the student health service to even acknowledge I had a problem, let alone do anything about it.

Quit rowing to recover, suffered chronic back pain of varying intensity for months. By easter was flat out again.

Became depressed from pain and lack of rowing, went on happy pills.

Bounced from therapist to therapist hoping to find someone who could help.

April 2007: finally got an NHS referral to a back specialist.

May: Saw back specialist, who ordered an x-ray which showed nothing wrong with my vertebrae. Specialist then ordered an MRI to examine the soft tissue.

July: MRI scan was conducted.

10 September: results of MRI are finally revealed to me.


yes, you read that right. They did the MRI in July and wouldn't tell me what it showed until SEPTEMBER. This is the National Health (lack of) Service.

So what did it show???


I have a degenerate disk (L4/5).

Your disks are like jelly donuts. When I ruptured my disk i sqirted all the jelly out, but it doesn't regrow. So now I have a shrivelled, permanently dehydrated disk in my lumbar spine.

The good news is:

• it's as healed as it's ever going to get, so
• I can return immediately to rowing, and
• the little whinges of pain i get are nothing serious and can be ignored, because
• my back, core, and ab muscles are doing a great job of holding my spine up and keeping the dried disk from collapsing, and
• I might go conceivably go the rest of my life without the problem ever becoming worse.

The bad news is:

• At some point, tomorrow or never, the disk my begin to collapse because it doesn't have the internal pressure of the fluid.
• This will hurt
• And will probably require spinal fusion surgery to correct, which sucks.

That said, Tim Foster had spinal fusion surgery TWICE and still managed to win an olympic gold medal, so there ya go. Not the end of the world.


Now if you'll excuse me, I have a date with an ergometer that needs to be taught a lesson.

Cirlcle of life

My aunt is sick. Again.

She's in the hospital with congestive heart failure AND pneumonia. And yet, amazingly, she doesn't appear to be at death's door. The fam have told me not to bother flying home.

The doctor told her, effectively, "You're a time bomb. But given that you're 80 years old and morbidly obese, you knew that anyway. So what's really changed?"

"What do I do now?" she asked.

"Well," said the wise doctor. "Whatever you please. There's no point spending your last days sitting in a rocking chair waiting for The Big One. Go live your life."

"I was thinking about taking a vacation."

"Good idea. You should do that."

"But what if I have a heart attack and die in (insert resort town here)?"

"What if you do? What difference does it make if you die here or in Boca?"

"..."

"Exactly."

I like this doctor.

Too sick to blog

but so much to tell you! I got the Pirate's nasty head cold and I feel like shit. Perhaps tomorrow I'll be in better shape to relate to you all the crazy shit that happened over the weekend.

The follow-up to the Personality Test, however, you've been waiting paitiently for for a long time, so here's the decoder.

1. Favorite color: (supposedly) reflects how you view the world and your outlook on life

2. Favorite body of water: reveals how other people view you.

3. Favorite animal: how you see yourself.

Now go back and read all the previous comments and laugh at people.



Also my toilet is broken. Bah.