Running on empty

I‘m sure this post is going to come with a fair amount of “I told you so!!”s but here I go. I haven’t been able to run for about two months now. I kept putting it off, work was extremely hectic and my knees had started to bother me. At first I thought the knee pain was related to a new migraine-prevention medicine I had recently started taking, but as far as I can tell, it’s unrelated. I kept waiting for my knees to feel better, I took motrin, it didn’t help. After a few weeks I finally caved in and called the doctor.

So it would seem I have tendinitis in my knees. She gave me some kind of anti-inflamatory cream (?!), a print-out of hard to read, hard to understand (the point of) “exercises”, told me to put some heat on it and sent me on my way. The cream you’re supposed to put on 4x a day. Which is ridiculous. Who remembers to do something 4x a day?? And a cream?? How is a cream I put on my skin going to penetrate through the cartilage of my knee and make this better?? And the exercises? Aside from the fact that I can barely read the print-out, I really don’t see how they’re going to make my knees feel better. From what I can tell in the picture (which is easier to see than the writing) it has you do things like: Sit in a chair, kick your leg forward and then back. Repeat 3 sets of 75 reps. (I’m not exaggerating on the repetitions – and that’s just ONE of the exercises!! There’s 6 more on the page like it.). As far as heat goes… do you realize how difficult it is to keep a SQUARE flat heating pad on a bent knee? WHY don’t they make a heating pad specifically designed for your knee?? I know they have those Therma-care heating pads for knees, but I think they work out to be $4 each and I would need two of them for both of my knees, every day for who-knows-how long.

So the short story is that I’m thinking I’m going to be dealing with knee pain for awhile. We’re also suspicious that the running probably had something to do with this in the first place. So… yeah. No more running for me for a good long while. If ever. I’m happy that the pain is only when I bend it so I can keep doing my other exercise classes (like Hip Hop Hustle and was going to start Turbo Kick this week too). And the bonus is that since I can’t bend down so easily anymore, I’ve had to get Zach to learn how to put his shoes on by himself… which really isn’t such a bad thing!!

(Ironic how I was running to be healthy and instead it caused me to be injured. I think I’ve mentioned before my love-hate (well, more hate) relationship with exercise? This is a good example of why that is… Something that is good for you shouldn’t cause you PAIN! At least Hip Hop Hustle is still fun and hasn’t killed me yet! LOL!)

Protecting your privacy at all costs

Speaking of healthcare issues, I thought this was pretty ironic…

The other night, I got a phone call. Now granted, on the caller ID, it did list the name of the insurance company that handles our prescriptions. But I know it is possible to fake this with the right equipment. So they called and asked to speak to me, and then said they needed me to tell them what my birthdate was. I asked why – they said it was to protect my privacy – because of HIPAA rules or something, they had to confirm it was me. So, I told them, “let me get this straight, you call ME in the middle of the night and then want me to fork over my personal information and this is to protect my privacy?? Sorry, I don’t think so.”

I told them anything they needed to tell me, they can put in the mail but I’m not going to freely give personal information to someone who randomly calls me in the middle of the night. Somehow I don’t think that’s what they had in mind when they wrote up the HIPAA Law.

In the back of my mind

When I was in high school, one of my cousins, who was only about 3 or 4 years old at the time, got very sick. It started out just like a cold, but quickly became something very serious. It seemed to just rip through him like wildfire. I’m not even sure what it was that he had (I don’t think they ever found out exactly), or what the symptoms were. It was as if he came down with some kind of really basic childhood cold or virus – and his body’s immune system did absolutely nothing to combat it. You’re not even aware of all the ways in which our bodies fight off all the bad things it might come in contact with… until it doesn’t.

From the time he first got sick to the time he passed away, I think it was a total of maybe about 5 days. It was pretty devastating at the time, but now as a parent, it provides a whole new perspective on that event. It’s more than just a terrible event that happened in the past. It’s an event that I live in fear of everyday. It’s always in the back of my mind – but even more so when one of the kids get sick. And while, logically, I know there was a unique set of circumstances that accompanied that situation and that are unlikely to be repeated (ie. the issue that his immune system completely shutdown for no reason), fear doesn’t need logic to thrive.

This whole H1N1 scare isn’t helping. The information is confusing and conflicting, and I think it’s partially because there is some inconsistencies with the way it’s presenting itself in people. I mean, I had it a few months ago – and it was probably the most mild thing I ever had. I had a bad fever for a couple of days, chills, body aches. I locked myself away from everyone else so I wouldn’t spread it and it was done. But I know other people get it and are completely leveled by it. And I’m not clear on what it’s doing to kids. On some websites it sounds like it’s particularly serious for kids under age 5. In fact, that age group is the only group of kids that they’re willing to give the vaccine to locally (yet, anywhere I know of, they’re out of it already – even though they just came in a few days ago! AND our pediatrician isn’t even giving out that vaccine AT ALL)

Last night after Zachary went to bed, we checked on him an hour or so later and he was sweating. (Something very unusual) We checked him and sure enough he had a fever. Not too bad, but still, enough to get my fears going. This morning, he still has a fever. We’re giving him Motrin. I called the doctor and they were mostly unimpressed and directed me to listen their pre-recorded information about the flu. So we are just “waiting and seeing.” At least he appears to be “normal” – which is what the doctor has always told us is the bigger issue. If he’s lethargic – they don’t care if his fever is low or high – it’s a problem. But nothing seems to slow Zach down. (Thank God!) And last checked, his fever has come down.

I’ll be glad when this whole swing flu thing is over. But when you think about it, we’ve had a whole zoo of these illnesses. Monkey Virus, Bird Flu, now Swine Flu… what’s next? I know I can’t put my kids in a bubble to protect them. But I have to admit that sometimes it’s tempting.

Trick or cute little useless toy?

I‘ve been debating for a few weeks about the possibility of getting cute little (useless) toys to hand out at Halloween instead of candy. On one hand, not buying candy means not having something very tempting in the house that *I* am very likely to eat (and really need to NOT be eating). As well, I feel guilty handing out food I myself am trying not to eat because it’s unhealthy. (Well, at least in mass quantities anyway) 😉

My one fear is that while I will not be personally contributing to the obesity problem in our country, I’m afraid the neighborhood kids might respond by deciding to contribute to the lack of toilet paper in the area around my house. Heh.

On the other hand, what would I hand out? I could hand out fruit or something – but what?? Or some kind of little prize/toy … which would surely end up in the garbage before too long and then spend the next 100 years in a landfill somewhere…

Maybe I’ll go middle of the road… and get little packages of goldfish crackers or something. It’s not sweets, it’s not THAT bad/unhealthy, and (except for the little package/bag it comes in) it’s mostly biodegradeable…

I know at least for my own kids – the real fun isn’t even the candy they get. It’s going around, showing off their costume, getting something (anything, they don’t even care WHAT) from all the neighbors. Most of the candy gets thrown out because they don’t even like it anyway. Zach usually has one bite of each thing and then spits it out. He’s a lot of fun to hang out with on Halloween! Very appropriate for the holiday: very scary! LOL! At least something like goldfish crackers… I mean, who doesn’t like that??

iGoTo the Jungle – iPhone App

TiGoTo the Jungle: $0.99 (at the time of this writing)

You can see some screenshots of the app on the website here.