Sunday, September 27, 2009

Ak-rowdy!

Congratulations to everyone who participated in the Akron Road Runner Marathon!!! Over 9,500 people strong, holy cow!!! Also congrats to Adam Rose, a Michigan teen who won the handcycle division! Rock on! He's only a sophomore! This has been one of the fastest growing marathons in the country! Who knows maybe Boston with take a backseat someday to Akron, OH! lol!

Running is not my thing, I can and will do when needed but my legs, more specifically my knees, do not like to run. I ran a leg of the marathon last year and it was painful. I have a lot of respect for the people that do run. It can be tough yet incredibly rewarding!

Keep on running and keeping Akron strong!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

30 Things About My Invisible Illness You May Not Know

The outline was borrowed from a blogger friend Jerry's post: http://t1d-runner.blogspot.com/

30 Things About My Invisible Illness You May Not Know

1. The illness I live with is: Type 1 Diabetes

2. I was diagnosed with it in the year: 1992

3. But I had symptoms since: A solid 4-6 months prior, who knew going pee 5 times an hour wasn't normal! lol!

4. The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is: Taking note over every food and drink I put into my body.

5. Most people assume: that I can't eat certain things and most of those things are items that no health conscious person should eat like little debbies. It's all about awareness. I'm aware and I can make it work so back off!

6. The hardest part about mornings are: waking up with a blood sugar that's way off, too high or too low. There's the frustration of trying to figure out what went wrong, but it also can throw your whole schedule off. A high blood sugar will mean that I shouldn't eat breakfast for a while. A low blood sugar will mean that I'll want to eat something right away. (I totally agree with Jerry here!)

7. My favorite medical TV show is: House. It intrigues me for two reasons, one, how can a Dr. that is so mean sometimes still be employed and two, how on earth do they figure out some of those cases!

8. A gadget I couldn’t live without is: Definitely my blood sugar meter and my insulin pump. I will be hard pressed to ever go back to multiple daily injections. I feel like that commercial, "life just got a little easier!".

9. The hardest part about nights is: trying to correctly judge what and when was the last time I ate. There's nothing like losing sleep because your blood sugar is too low and you have to get up and eat and 3am or your blood sugar runs high and your up every 45 minutes going to the bathroom until your insulin kicks in.

10. Each day I take blood sugars and insulin.

11. Regarding alternative treatments I: not an option here.

12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness or visible I would choose: hmm, i think the invisible one. You have more control over how it's delivered to strangers and people who don't know.

13. Regarding working and career: everyone is very understanding and proud of how I take charge and don't let diabetes run my life.

14. People would be surprised to know: how often I'm thinking about my blood sugar. (right on here as well Jerry)

15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been: it's not new anymore. It's just plain reality. I can cry, complain or pout all I want but it will still be there in the end so I choose to accept it.

16. Something I never thought I could do with my illness that I did was: ride my bike so much! I love it and it keeps me healthy too!

17. The commercials about my illness: are not aimed at my demographic, there are usually in regards to Type 2 diabetes. I'm ok with this for two reasons, one, it's more prevalent and two, what people don't understand is that for a large majority of people weight loss can cure there Type 2 diabetes. There is no cure for Type 1 at this point in time.

18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed is: not having to think so much about every bite or sip I take.

19. It was really hard to have to give up: I refuse to give anything up, I use awareness and moderation to keep my diabetes in check without having to sacrifice. Do I really need a whole elephant ear at the carnival or could I get by with a few bites?!?!?!

20. A new hobby I have taken up since my diagnosis is: cooking and baking! I love to do both! So much healthier too!

21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again I would: just relax and eat like there was no tomorrow, burgers and fries, steak, Boston cream pie, cheese cake, ... (Yep, I like your style here Jerry)

22. My illness has taught me: Never give up.

23. Want to know a secret? One thing people say that gets under my skin is:Should you be eating that? WTF!!!! Should you???? Get off my back.

24. But I love it when people: See me for who I am, not my disease.

25. My favorite motto, scripture, quote that gets me through tough times is:
I know it has to do with another Invisible Illness but: Livestrong. It means a lot if you think about it.

26. When someone is diagnosed I’d like to tell them: Embrace your diabetes, it's not going anywhere. If you try to fight it you'll only be killing yourself and that is just not worth it. The quicker you embrace it the better life will be!

27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is: My family needed to be just as educated as I did about how to control and manage diabetes. Let them be part of your "team".

28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn’t feeling well was: simply ask if I was ok and if I needed any help. Sometimes those simple questions go a long way. Please always be willing to extend your hand to those in need.

29. I’m involved with Invisible Illness Week because: I missed it, technically, but I'm always down for raising awareness! :)

30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel: Happy that you took the time to learn a little more about me! Thank you!!! :)

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Wow!

Can you imagine a world without preexisting conditions??? I think insurance agencies invented that word! lol However, the bad news, if insurance companies can't screen and charge based on these conditions then the cost for premiums or something else is sure to rise. Stupid economics.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Labor Day Weekend

Busy weekend with hundreds of miles driven! On Friday I went to pick up my brother to go and visit my Grandparents and Uncles in Buffalo, NY. After a crazy drive across Cleveland we made it to Buffalo at about 9:45pm. We proceeded to play with my grandparents new puppy named Daisy before promptly hitting the sack.

Full moon rising on our way to NY


Daisy


Daisy and Kevin


On Saturday we slept in a little and hung out with my Uncle Dave before my parents arrived joining us for lunch in Buffalo. After lunch settled for the most part we headed into downtown Buffalo with my Uncle Jaime, Aunt Cathy, Doug and Richard for some delicious wings at "The" Buffalo Wing Festival. We also saw the Black Widow (aka. a tiny Asian lady) destroy the wing eating contest killing 177 wings in 10 minutes. Craziness! Here are some pictures:

Entrance


Festival was held on the infield of the Buffalo Bison's Stadium


Eating contest


One of our samples


Entrance cluster f@ck


Once we got back from the wing fest we had some apple pie and ice cream with my Grandparents before hitting the road back to NE Ohio. We spent the night at my apartment which was nice to sleep in my own bed.

On Sunday morning Molly joined us to head up to Cleveland for the Air Show! It was awesome and a great day for the show. On a bad note it was a shit load of walk which wore my brother out big time. I was able to procure a solid chair for him when he needed a break which helped out a ton but I still felt bad that we had to travel so far on foot. Hindsight being 20/20, next time I'll bring the wheel chair. I would have been totally ok pushing him around but I know he wanted to do it on his own. We saw a bunch of awesome airplanes including my favorite, the F-15E or Strike Eagle for short. Here are the pics from that event:

Business end of a B-17


The Continental grill, how cool?!?!?!


Heritage flight with T to B: F-15E (my favorite), P-51 Mustang and the A-10 Thunderbolt


Me and Molly


Kevin and Me


After the show we went back to my parents to drop my brother off and pick up the dog before heading back to Akron.

Monday, I slept in until 11! It was great!!!! Then Molly and I headed out to her parents place in Youngstown for a nice, relaxing late lunch with her family and Grandmother. It was nice to ease back into the work we with a relaxing day on Monday.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!!!

Monday, September 7, 2009

Core Exercises

Does anyone know where I can find a good source for core exercises that are beneficial to cycling or overall strength training? I'm working on putting together my 2010 season of awe and I'm looking for some late 2009 early 2010 training techniques. Thank you for your help!

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Three Cheers For Kevin!

On this day last year Kevin was going under the knife and I'm sure a ton of other medical implements to have his tumor removed from his hip. They removed 2/3 of his femur, 3 quadriceps, 1 hamstring, a ton of hip muscles and inserted an artificial hip.

Here he is post-surgery:


I have no idea how he found his zen state. I think he pictured himself on the beach for my sisters wedding. He made it through many hours of laying on his back, days/weeks/months of therapy, the humiliation of having to have help every time he had to use the toilet, wheelchair to walker to quad cane to regular cane and how many Dr. visits, blood counts and scans???

Here's a picture of us in Jamaica back in May:


Living out those sandy days he dreamed about while laying flat on his back! Life is good!

What a difference a year makes! :)

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Big Valley MTB Race Report

Ok, so here's the skinny! I know I'm a little late in reporting but better late than never, right???

Saturday I woke up nice and early to test ride the course. I have never ridden at Camp Manatoc and it's about 7 minutes from my apartment. Also the little fact that 363 days of the year the land functions as two Boy Scout camps, Camp Manatoc and Camp Butler. However, I woke up at about 5:30 in the morning to the sound of down pouring rain. Boo! So I figured I would get up at 7 like planned and check the weather again. I think it stopped raining at 6:59 so I pulled up the hour-by-hour forecast on weather.com to see what the heck was going on. It looked like the rain was done and the sun was going to come out at around 10. So off to bed I went for another 1.5 hours of shuteye to give the trails some time to drain.

9:30 Up and at'em! I got up, had some breakfast, took care of the dog, packed up and headed out.

11:00 arrive at Camp Manatoc. There was a full day of kid activities and swop meets going on all day Saturday along with a trail preview for $5. Awesome! I started unloading the car when I overheard the all to familiar voice ot Tenant Nabrowski a.k.a Nab and a small group of North Coast Mountain bikers! Great! I don't have to ride alone! So I got myself registered and ready and then we were off.

12:30 Heading out for out loop around the 9 mile course. All I have to say about the ride was mud, fun and mud. Little draining seemed to have happened throughout the morning. So after getting lost and 12 miles later I made it back to the car cleaned and packed up and watched the bunny hop contest and Huffy toss. Fun! Then I picked up my race registration and headed out to get dinner with my sweet!

3:30 unpacked and began the arduous task of cleaning the bike in prep for the race on Sunday. I got myself packed up and ready for the race and then relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Sunday
8:30 Up and at'em again! Got up and had a good breakfast, packed up and headed out.

11:00 Arrived at the Camp and get set up. It was pretty cold for whatever reason. Not more that 65 degrees I think. Good for racing though! Got myself and bike ready and headed to the start, well, hit the John then headed to the start! :) I also met some other guys setting up and shared my canopy with them since it was misting/sprinkling.

Red Rider representing!


Our "shop"


1:05ish - We were off and racing! I had a rough start after being jousted off my bike by an offending tree branch after connecting solidly with my bicep. Then roughly 5 miles in I was stung by a bee on my calf. I would have been ok with any where else but my calf and subsequent right leg cramped like a son of a gun on every big climb. It burned like a son of a gun as well. Apparently quite a few people were stung by these hornets. My leg is still pretty nasty and itchy. I felt pretty good in the first lap until all of this happened then I tired to collect myself and keep a good pace to finish the race.

I did stop once to help a fellow racer with a flat tire, she was out of CO2 so I gave her my extra to use. No luck. Gotta love tubeless!!!

My bloodsugar was great throughout the race holding steady and not dropping low enough to cause a scene. I like to think I do a great job of managing my fitness and diabetic needs. So far so good! Let's see at the next race!

Either way, I finished in 2:21:11. Great, no. Ok, no. Not a DNF, yes. I know I should arguably be racing in Novice Class. But how will hammering on people who have never raced before make me a better rider or racer. I'm taking my lumps now but learning and pushing for a better future. I may be crazy but I'm having fun and eventually will start finishing in the front of the pack. Someday.

Here are some more race pictures:

Heading throught the woods




Coming out of the woods


The aftermath, not too bad!


"The sting"


The location of the "joust"