Life Update, March

Three big things have happened this month, in both Aphrodite's and my lives, which I've forgotten to share.

First, Aphrodite got accepted to the Master of International Studies program she applied for, and also received a TAship position which will provide her with full tuition, health insurance, and a generous stipend to live on. She's over the moon with happiness, and feels like her life has a purpose again, which is a feeling she's been looking for for a long time. She'll finally be taking a step in the direction of her goals (to earn a Ph.D in political science or international education). The program starts this fall. I'm almost as thrilled as she is, and couldn't be more proud of her.

Second, I'm finally on spring break from school, which meant the two of us got to go to her stepdad's beach condo for a long weekend. We used to try to make a point of going there every one to two months, not because it's especially close by, but just because when we're there, we never take any 'work' with us, so it forces us to completely forget about Life and its demands for a couple of days. We hadn't been there since October, and were really pushing the breaking point as far as stress. Three days of shrimp pasta (the one thing I can cook), walks (and runs) on the beach, coffee and doughnuts (two luxuries we only indulge in on vacations), lazy evenings watching DVD after DVD, and great sex (yeah, it has to be said!) recharged our batteries, and we're doing better this week than we have since Christmas. It's amazing what a little self-imposed laziness can do.

And third, back at the beginning of the month, I went home for two days over a weekend to visit my parents and run in the annual 15k held in my hometown. It's a wonderful race, with around 12,000 runners aged (this year) from 5 to 87. We cross two huge bridges and run through lots of nice residential areas, where people sit out in their front yards and cheer you on while their kids run up and down giving everybody high-fives -- and then finish on the field in the NFL stadium, watching ourselves on the JumboTron while hundreds of spectators cheer. I look forward to it every year.

I should explain here that something always happens to me before this race -- the first time I ran it, I had plantar fasciitis and shin splits for over a month and hadn't run a single step for the six weeks prior to the race. I made a dramatic improvement in the week before the race, and since I'd already paid the fee and my running partner had already booked her flight to come do it with me, I decided to run it anyway. I was super sore for the next week, but pulled a 1:59:41 -- 19 seconds under the time I wanted to beat. :)

The second time I ran it, Aphrodite, my running partner, and I were all at my parents' house, and somehow the stars aligned so that I ended up coming out to my parents the night before the race. (Aphrodite had gone for a walk in my neighborhood, which she's not familiar with and which isn't among the safest of places, and was gone for almost two hours. I got panicky, then tearful with relief when she finally turned up, and was trying to hide those emotions from my parents, who thought she was just my roommate, and couldn't, and they were questioning me, and... yeah... anyway.) Talk about timing. Luckily, my running partner, also a lesbian, was understanding -- she'd been there too. So Aphrodite and I were up all night crying and almost-fighting (she was upset that I had told them 'on the spur of the moment' without considering her feelings, as their guest), and I didn't eat or drink much of anything either, so I ran a horribly painful 2:02.

This year, my running muscles, nutrition, hydration, and emotional health -- everything that had been messed up in past years -- were fine, but something had to happen... so, of course, I got the flu and was out of training for two weeks. Plus my running partner bowed out at the last minute, which I was dreading, because it was going to make the race horribly boring. BUT, although I love running with her, I forgot about the fact that she's somewhat slower than I am, so I raced a 1:49 (10 minutes off my best time) despite not having trained very well. My goal is to eventually get down to about 1:35, but that'll take another year or two, I think... because honestly, what else can go wrong?! :)

Speaking of health, as long as I'm on a roll here... three things have come to my attention in the past year or two that concern me a little, but I'm reluctant to go to my doctor because I don't want to get slapped with that dreaded 'preexisting condition' label (I'll be changing health insurance at least two more times before I'll be set 'for good'). Don't get me started on the ridiculousness of our health care system, but here we go:

1) Hematuria. While still an undergrad, it was discovered that I had small amounts of blood in my urine. Too small to see with the naked eye, but consistently there (over 3 tests). My doctor wanted to check my kidneys, but it was near the end of the school year, and I wanted to wait to start that process... and never followed up on it. However, she did say that athletes, particularly runners, often have trace amounts of blood in the urine due to all the jarring. That would have eased my mind, except that I wasn't running more than two or three times a month back then because I was swimming 16 hours a week. So... that makes me a little nervous. I might wait for a weekend day when everyone's out of the office and run my own pee through that machine we have and see if the blood is still present.

2.) T-waves. We hooked ourselves up to a 4-lead EKG in my anatomy lab last week, and although my resting pulse was great (61 bpm, and that was while holding a conversation in a bright, noisy classroom), my T-waves (the part of the wave that signals the electrical stimulus for contraction of the ventricles, the most muscular part of your heart) were off-the-charts huge -- bigger than my QRS waves (the big 'spike' most people associate with a heartbeat). My teacher looked at them and said, "I have never seen T-waves that big!" She said it was probably nothing to worry about, that it's normal to have some variation among individuals, and looking online, one document says that can happen in athletes because our hearts are more muscular than other people's... but it still worries me a little, because elevated T-waves can also signal hyperkalemia (too much potassium) or a heart problem.

3.) Cholesterol. A little over a year ago, I participated in a clinical trial (I don't even remember what it was for, just that they were giving me $50 to have some blood drawn) and my results got thrown out of the study because my cholesterol levels were above normal. My triglycerides were fine (on the low side), my 'good' cholesterol was fine (on the high side), but my 'bad' cholesterol, while also technically fine, was on the high side, and my total cholesterol was about 10% above the normal limit. Which isn't huge, but as a 24-year-old lifelong athlete and reasonably healthy eater, it worries me. Another number was also high -- my c-reactive proteins, which are a general measure of inflammation in the body. The scale was 0.00 to 5.00, and I was exactly 5.00 -- .01 away from getting flagged for that, too. However, I had just run my first half marathon three days before the blood test, so I'm thinking (hoping) that the elevation of that number was probably just an indicator of my body recovering (inflamed muscles, tendons, etc.). The cholesterol wouldn't have been impacted by that, though -- and that worries me. I don't have a very strong family history of high cholesterol, I exercise almost every day, and I eat lots of low-fat, high-fiber foods... what more can I do?

Sorry for the long-winded post, but you know how I am... I get rolling and just can't stop! :) Anyway, if any of you have any insight into any of these things, please do speak up and put me out of my misery, because I'm starting to feel like maybe I'm not as healthy as I've always perceived myself to be... and that's a real smack in the confidence area.