Good Morning

I'd like to welcome Robin to the fan club, thank you Robin- you will be receiving the action hero of me in the mail.

I was looking through some pictures of mine and came across the only halfway decent photo of my arm before surgery.

I'm not going to get into why there's tape wrapped around me, but I'l have you know that's exactly why my belly is sticking out like that- along with my poor posture.

So if you compare the tape on my right on to the tape on my left arm, you can see my left is quite a bit larger that my right. I really wish I had a better picture of this.

And here are some pictures of my beautiful scars:

This is my chest, the scar is doing really good. It could be better (it illicits stares once in awhile) but it looks like it'll fade quite well in time.

This is my leg where the vein graft was taken out of (and put into my chest). It's much less attractive than the one on my chest. Post-surgery it got a rather large hematoma (bloody tumor basically) so it didn't heal so well. Not to mention that my dissolvable scars decided to peak out of the skin, and once those are outside of the body they don't dissolve. But you can't pull them out either because they're attached to the inside of your body- so the wound doesn't fully close. The gunky residue from the hematoma is still in the tissue in my leg but it's slowly working its way out. It's got some hard areas and is still a little discolored. From what I'm told it can take a year or two for that to totally dissolve.

This is where the fistula is in my wrist. I'm crossing my fingers to hopefully get it removed in a week. I'll be going back to San Francisco on Nov. 9th for a venogram (picture of my veins) and if everything looks ok the fistula is coming out. I hope to wake up with stitches in my wrist!

So that was just an update. Happy Halloween everyone!

The Pumpkin Patch

First of all, I see my Aunt Pat is my only fan. The rest of you stink.

Yesterday I took my very first trip to the pumpkin patch with Candace and Emily. Until then, all my pumpkins just came from the grocery store. Who knew they actually grew on vines? Just kidding.

It was pretty crowded when we got there but lightened up not long after. We picked out a couple of pumpkins with "character" and had to haul them back to the car.

Emily went in to the little petting area to pet little goats, sheep and a duck. I don't think she touched the pig; even in its sleep it looked rather scary. Plus it was bigger than her. She hugged and kissed all the goats.

Then she got her face painted and got a little Halloween crown.

This is how she truly feels about getting her picture taken these days. She went through a phase maybe two years ago where she would smile so big for pictures that her eyes disappeared. Now she's been much more serious for things like taking pictures and riding ponies. Not anything to be taken lightly obviously. Somehow I captured a little smile during the very serious pony ride.

At the end of the day she didn't want to go home so I told her if she wanted to stay she'd have to pose for pictures in front of everything. It only worked for a few minutes before she was over the picture-taking. It was one of those days when you appreciate having a child around because you're seeing everything as new and exciting like when you were a kid. Who knew kissing a goat could be one of the most wonderful things in the world? And what better child to spend the day with than Emily? She's pretty neat... but I also enjoy getting to walk away and leave her with her mother when she's getting cranky.

New Addition

So I added a new little gadget to my blog called "Followers". I'm really not sure what it's supposed to look like since Blogger didn't have a very thorough description of what it is but I thought I'd give it a try. On the right you'll see a section for followers and you can add yourself if you feel so inclined. No, it probably won't make you famous. But when I get famous you can say you knew me before the papparazzi started chasing me, and you'll be on the blog to prove it. If the gadget turns out lame I'll probably just get rid of it.

You may be wondering what I've been doing with myself. The short answer is not a whole lot. I've been sentenced to at least another month of forced laziness due to my uncooperative vein. After a couple days of pouting about it, I decided to become a famous writer.

If only it worked that way. Why do all of the really great writers live in Maine? Am I missing something? It's cold there! Maybe that's the point: it's too cold to go outside so they sit inside and write all day. I would too. Not that I'm getting outside a whole lot here in the sunny side of the world.

I've submitted a few of my poems to some literary journals and a couple more are ready to go out to journals that only accept snail mail submissions. I would love to write a book and have been toying with some ideas. It's tough to hold on to inspiration though. Yes, I already know that writing involves a lot more discipline than just writing when you're inspired... I'm trying to adjust. Being as my income doesn't depend on it, it's hard to make myself do it some times.

Follow Your Instinct

I have really great instinct and I think I’m fairly smart. The problem is I sometimes have a hard time telling the difference between my instinct and my wild imagination. Imagine mixing those two up. Well I do. The only person who has really caught on to this is my best friend Candace. We’ve known each other for 13 years now, and she’s finally starting to question the things that come out of my mouth.

It started when we were 16. Candace had her license and I only had a learner’s permit. Who in their right mind gave that girl a license is beyond me, but it enabled us to branch out to bigger adventures than those that could be found within walking distance. It’s hard to get into trouble when you have to get a ride from your parents in order to get there. One night we were bored and decided to drive up to a fire her dad was working in Riverside. We didn’t know exactly where it was but figured we would get in the vicinity and then it would be obvious from there. Did I mention it was night time? We were pretty clever though, I must admit.

We got into Riverside and I stuck my nose out the window. When the smell of smoke got strong enough, we took the next exit and continued following my nose. We pulled into a gas station and inquired about the fire. Apparently the fire had blown through there the previous day. See what we didn’t know was that smoke can settle into an area not even close to the fire and all we were doing was following our noses. I’m not sure what our plan was once we got to the fire. Her dad probably would’ve given us an ass chewing if we showed up at one unannounced.

That little adventure was the spark that set us off on all kinds of excursions. Candace would drive (I have another story about her driving my first car) and I would give directions. Anyone who has driven with me more than twice can tell you that every trip is an adventure… meaning we take the scenic route, but always get there. That same year Candace and I went in search of Mt. Soledad- again at night when my direction is at its worst. She drove and I gave directions with enough authority that she followed every single one of them without questioning whether or not I knew where I was going. I guess I didn’t. We never found Mt. Soledad that night. You might be asking yourself why I wasn’t just honest with her and tell her I had no clue where I was or where we were going. That’s where it gets a little sticky. My instinct speaks rather loudly and generally knows what it’s talking about. However, my imagination speaks just as loudly and may or may not know what it’s talking about. Sometimes my imagination sounds like a general in command of an elite force: it knows what it’s talking about, it’s been here before and it’ll get us out of any situation that may arise. Don’t question the general.

After several years of Candace and I taking the long (and scenic) route to get everywhere, I asked her why it was she followed my directions at all.

“Because you sound so sure of yourself” she said.

“Well I am sure of myself” I replied, but now slightly confused as to how I could be so sure of myself and still be so wrong. I still wonder about that. From my understanding, if you don’t know what you’re talking about you should feel like you don’t know what you’re talking about. There should be some doubt when asked “Left or right?” What is a person to do when the voice inside says “Right” and there’s no tiny echo that says “Maybe left?” Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of times I’ve experienced what I would call doubt and usually express that to whomever I’m speaking to. What is this voice inside me that keeps speaking up when it has no idea what it’s talking about? And how do I shut it up?

The most recent escapade was what I think finally convinced Candace that she should question the consistency of my discoveries. I recently had my rib removed during a major surgery to correct a scarred vein in my shoulder. Of course I decided to keep the rib- who would pass up such a great opportunity? I considered bringing it back to the barracks and offering my crew and the smokejumpers that lived with us a taste of it. I thought that to be a great opportunity as well. Not many people get to say they’ve eaten human flesh. Unfortunately the rib had to first be sent to the pathology lab to be scanned for diseases that might kill me. After they were done with it they placed it in a jar of Formalin which nixed the possibility of anyone taking a bite unless they wanted to die an early, and probably painful, death. When it was ready to be picked up it was packaged in alcohol and water. It took great pains to reunite my rib and I, but one beautiful sunny day in San Diego my rib showed up at my front porch and all was well.

I spent all day boiling and plucking the preserved flesh off my rib. Once I got it cleaned up enough to see the details of it, I decided to compare it to online anatomy photos so that when I posted pictures of it, I could point out all the details of its tubercles and grooves. I was proud of my rib like a mother is proud of her child. Unfortunately, what I found led me to believe I was holding a right sided rib. Without a doubt (seriously this time) my left rib was removed. I poured over anatomy notes and tried every which way to figure out how this rib could sit on my left side. I figured it out. There was a girl who had her rib removed a day or two after mine. Her rib and mine must have been mixed up in the lab. I was pretty bummed because she didn’t seem like the type to hang on to her rib (in other words, she didn’t recognize opportunity when it came knocking) so I figured mine was gone for good. I called the doctors office and reported the mishap to my surgeon’s assistant and she informed me she would call the lab and find out how such a thing could happen.

Meanwhile I searched for better pictures of a rib and came up with one that hinted I might indeed be holding a left sided rib. I consulted Candace’s (rather wise) mother, which is probably something I should’ve done before I called the doctor’s office. She confirmed that with all evidence considered she believed it to be a left sided rib. Thankfully the lab had a sense of humor and wasn’t insulted at all and to my knowledge my surgeon never heard of this little mishap.

So when I approached Candace a couple weeks ago with the fear that my vein had clotted or narrowed again but was doubting myself thinking maybe I was just paranoid, she gave me a stern talking to and referred to the little rib mishap and suggested I may not always know what I’m talking about. I was insulted. Of course I always know what I’m talking about. After I set the hurt feelings aside I realized she was right as history has revealed. I started to wonder what on earth took her this long to start questioning the things that I say with such conviction.

But it’s not really that simple because see, my vein really had narrowed again and I ended up getting another angioplasty to open it up. So now I’m wondering if I’m right the times that I feel doubt and I’m wrong when I feel wholeheartedly convinced. Can anyone really be surprised that I’m so confused as to what is my gut instinct and what’s not? Maybe it’s that my imagination speaks louder than my instinct and I should start listening to the quiet voices instead.

Huh

I get the NSCA (National Strength and Conditioning Association) journal sent to me though email and occasionally read it. The recent one talks about sugar in our diet. Added sugar actually. Women are now recommended to have no more than 25g per day and men 37.5g (yeah they pretty much get the best of all worlds). So out of curiosity I decided to check up on the details of frozen yogurt. It's got less fat than regular ice cream but I've heard it's usually loaded with sugar in order to make up for the lack of taste from lower fat (for those who don't know- fat tastes fabulous- so does salt and sugar).

Since we all know ice cream can be absolutely horrendous to our health, I picked a relatively healthy kind to compare to the frozen yogurt. I chose Dreyers slow churned chocolate ice cream to compare to yogurtland's dutch chocolate frozen yogurt. For 4 ounces (half a cup) here's the results: the yogurt had 44 more calories, no fat (compared to 4g for the ice cream), no cholesterol (compared to 20mg in the ice cream), twice the sodium (68.8mg) of ice cream, twice the carbs (34.4), 7g more sugar, slightly more protein (0.6g) and 6% less calcium. The bottom line? If your cholesterol is high, you'd be better off with the yogurt, otherwise the ice cream is a healthier pick. For the ice cream, 3g of the total 4g of fat were saturated which isn't great. However there were no trans-fats in it. I'm thinking the extra carbs, calories, sodium and sugar in frozen yogurt would probably outweigh the measely 4g of fat in ice cream. Again, this was only for plain chocolate- no toppings added... and only for half a cup. If you tend to eat a cup (or more) of ice cream or frozen yogurt, you can do the math.

For info on yogurtland's nutritional values: http://www.yogurt-land.com/
For info on Dreyer's nutrional values: http://dreyers.slowchurned.com/idol
And for the NSCA Journal: http://www.nsca-lift.org/perform/

Oh and by the way, if you're looking to reduce your sugar intake by choosing Dreyer's No-sugar added, you'd be doubling your sodium intake. Generally not a good idea. Remember if you're taking something out, there's probably more of something else in it. Bummer huh?

Morning/Evening People

I just finished a paper in my Physiological Psychology class that focused on the moods of morning and evening type people after sleep deprivation. In case any of you were wondering, being a morning person (actually- morningness type) is a scientifically proven phenomenom. How we rank on the morningness-eveningness questionnaire dictates our sleeping habits as well as several personality traits. A simple version of the quiz can be found here: http://web.ukonline.co.uk/bjlogie/test.htm

I personally ranked 30 out of 32- being a strong morning person. There's a great study out that describes the personality traits of morning and evening type people, but you have to pay to read it... and I'm currently not bringing in a whole lot of dough, so I just read the abstract. Here's the gist of what I've found so far. Morning people scored higher in the activity category (apparently we do more stuff), morning type men were more neurotic and anxious, neither type women (those who don't fit into either category) showed the highest rate of neuroticism and anxiety- morning type women score low on the neuroticism/anxiety category. Morning people tend to be more introverted and evening people more extroverted. Interestingly enough, another study found that evening type people experienced psychological and psychosomatic disturbances more frequently and with more intensity than morning people, morning people tend to live a healthier lifestyle, and morning people tend to report having more satisfaction with life.

Looking this over, I've got a theory- based solely on personal experience. I feel like the world is covered with extroverts and evening type people. Morning people are forced to be introverts because they're awake long before the rest of the world, and go to sleep before everyone else does so we spend a significant amount of time with ourselves. We're the laugh of every party because the party doesn't start until after our usual bedtime and if we stay up late, we're going to wake up at 6am regardless. I'm assuming we have less friends. Despite my current situation, I am fairly satisfied with my life.

Now onto the neurotic psychos that the evening people are. There's also a simple explanation for this. Apparently there's enough of us morning people out there to warrant early start times for work. If evening people ran the world stores and offices wouldn't open until noon and they'd close at 9pm. Imagine if you could go to the dentist at 8pm. So evening type people are being forced to wake up before their sleep cycle has finished and are unable to fall asleep early enough to compensate for it. Being sleep deprived for the majority of your life can probably lead to some pretty significant psychological issues.

Unfortunately, our circadian rhythms (or sleep cycles) can't be changed, so we're stuck with what we've got. However, evening type people could do well in jobs that start later and end later like maybe bartending. So you could technically shape your life around your circadian rhythm and be perfectly happy-- so evening type people could be as happy as morning people.