Self Diagnosis

I have Raynaud's phenomenon/disease. Self diagnosed of course.

I can say I am 99% sure that is what I have. The reason I'm so sure is because my grandmother has it and it is hereditary often skipping generations. My sister has the same thing, I think she was diagnosed with it though and has a worse case with it than I.

What is Raynaud's you ask? It is is a vasospastic disorder causing discoloration of the fingers, toes, and occasionally other extremities. Here is a picture of my Raynaud's acting up. It is the toe next to my big toe (is that called your pointer toe?). I can tell without looking that it is happening because it feels like the tip of my toe is a rock. Not heavy, hurting or unresponsive. I can still move it around as normal and walk like normal.

Looking at Wikipedia it tells me that I should avoid caffeine as general care. Just one more reason I should quit drinking coke...

Hairloss...

My poor daughter has a hairloss issue. It is the result of food allergies. Do you know how hard it is to determine what your dog is allergic to? Every dog food has about 100 different ingredients and finding what the one thing is in that list is practically impossible.

It all started about 7 months ago when we took her to the vet to see why her ears get dirty so fast. We had noticed her hairloss but thought she was just getting her summer coat. The vet gave her a specific diet food and in 2 weeks we noticed her hair was getting thicker again. So we kept her on that food for a while (costs 2x the amount of regular dog food), trying to reintroduce other things into her diet. It seemed to be going well. I heard somewhere that dogs are often allergic to corn meal, grains, things like that. I checked her old food and sure enough all those wonderful things were in it. With that bit of knowledge I called around and asked pet stores/vets of food they recommend for dogs with food allergies. I was looking for something that fit the limited ingredients but didn't cost us twice as much as normal.

I was told that Eagle Pack Holistic food was ideal for this. So, I bought a bag for the pooch. We have gotten through about half of the bag of food and... her hair has thinned out again. So, I'm going back to the vet tonight to get the expensive special food. I am taking a list of the ingredients up with me. Hopefully the vet can determine what it is that she is allergic to!

Taste the rainbow...

No, no, no. That's for Skittles.

I was told that I look like a pack of Lifesavers.

Yes, I took my picture in the bathroom. I felt funny asking someone to take my picture.

Come and gone

So the marathon has come and gone. I'm not going to lie, it was tough. I will give a quick recap of what happened.

We arrived in Philly about an hour before the race began. Walked over to our color corral (line up by estimated finish time). At 7:00am they let the first section start. We didn't get our go ahead until 7:27am. As we were walking up to the start line my hubs saw 2 people from last season's Biggest Loser (7), Damien and Nicole. They were standing right next to us. I was so excited I had to talk to them. It's pretty cool seeing someone from TV right next to you, even if they aren't big name movie stars.

So, we start the race. Cruising along at a 10something pace. We didn't want to go too fast and burn out at the end. We started in front of the Art museum(Rocky's steps) and ran past the LOVE statue, through Chinatown, down to Penn's Landing, back up South Street, over to Drexler University, up to the Zoo (did you know the Philly zoo is America's first zoo?), down along the Schuylkill river (pronounced skoo-kull) and back to the art museum. That was the first 13. We were feeling ok. Slowest we've ran a half marathon but we were pacing ourselves.

Mile 14, the worst thing to face knowing you have another whole half marathon to run is a hill. Mile 14 was just that. It whipped me. Hubby pulled through and ran it but I had to walk. At the top my Dad and Step-mom were there to cheer us on. That was nice. Mile 15 was downhill. Normally this is awesome but my knees were not loving this. See, once your knees start hurting, you start praying that there are no more downhills, you actually want uphills. It's scary but true. Miles 16-19 I had to favor my right leg because of my knee. Somewhere in there I caught hysteria. Literally I began laughing so hard I couldn't run because it made all my torso muscles cramp. I was also crying from laughing so hard. I think this might have been my body's way to relieve the stress and pain. Once I was able to stop laughing my right leg felt better and I wasn't as tired.

We keep going through 19-22 hurting with each step. You don't want to stop though because walking hurts more than running. At mile 24 my left knee decides to flake out. I can't run on it, I can barely walk on it. It is extremely frustrating. I put my head down and focus on how I am walking so I don't tweak it and get the shooting pain. My hubs was so supportive the whole time. He was doing really well and was being sweet and staying with me. I started praying and asking God to let me finish the race running. I did NOT want to finish walking across the finish line. That felt like it would be a failure and anti-climactic finish. At mile 25 I looked up and saw balloons. These were the balloons of the 5 hour pacer. I couldn't believe it. We were ahead of her the whole race and she passed us. I looked at my hubs in disbelief and said let's try running. 1.2 miles left, 17 minutes until the 5 hour mark.

Praise God, I could run!. My knee wasn't doing that stupid thing it does, my back didn't hurt, I could breathe easily. My hubs was feeling good too. God answered my prayers! We finished the race running across the finish line. It's funny how you just start going faster and faster when you can see the end. It was so great to be finished! 4hrs 58mins. We beat the 5 hour mark.

My hubs explained it best when he was asked how his body felt. "It's a feeling in my legs that I've never felt before." People ask us if we will run another... we don't know. During the race we hated it. After the race you think back and it doesn't seem that bad. If my knees were not so crazy, I probably would... and it would probably be within the year. For now, half marathons are really nice. I think I will stick with those for the next couple races.

Maybe I will work on setting a PR in that distance. Do you think I can break 1hr 45min?

Maybe I will try!

My sister does it, why can't I?

Please take note before reading any of my posts that I was not a wiz in English. That is my sister. I was the number cruncher. I pre-apologize for any gramatical, spelling or other mistake I will make in any posts.

This Sunday is my first marathon. I will be running the Philadelphia Marathon with my husband. When I say running, I mean jogging. When I say jogging, I mean jogging and walking. Regardless of how I do it, I will complete the 26.2 mile race.

My goal was ambitious at first. I had every intention of completing this, my first marathon, in less than 4.5 hours. Training was going smoothly despite the groans and mutterings directed towards me before each run. We were cruising along and then came swine flu. Now don't get all bummed out for me. Neither of us had it that badly but the timing caused us to miss 2 big runs (15 & 14milers). That was the end. I knew it right then and there that the training would never resume to what it should be. Since that fateful week the longest run I have done was 11 miles. I still was running at least 4 times a week but nothing that was really preparing me for the race.

So, here we are. 6 days away. 6 days until my left knee falls apart. 6 days until my hamstrings tighten so badly I can't straighten my legs. 6 days until I can say I "ran" a full marathon.

6 days.