The Africa Diaries Entry #2: May 20, 2010

First day in Cape Town, South Africa!! I’m so happy to be here. It’s really cool. Today I went on a day tour of a township called Langa. It is a really poor area in the Cape Flats. It was an eye opening experience. A lot of people live in squalor and garbage and there are animals everywhere. The government does provide fresh water, so that is good. I saw a pre-school there and got to meet some children. They were so happy and they loved having visitors. Even though I’m generally not fond of children, the kids were so happy that they made me smile and they made me happy too. They liked to pose and to get their picture taken and then look at it on the camera screen afterward. I gave a tiny girl my sunglasses.

 

After visiting the township I went to an apartheid museum and it was quite sobering and interesting. Then I went to visit Robben Island, which was also very interesting. People were isolated on the island for having diseases like leprosy and prisoners were also kept there. Nelson Mandela was a prisoner on Robben Island for 18 years. I got to see Mandela’s prison cell. The tour of the island was led by ex-prisoners and it was a really interesting tour.

Mandela’s prison cell

Inside Mandela’s Prison Cell

 

I met a girl named Alex who did the same overland tour as I am about to do, only starting in Nairobi and ending in Cape Town, she loved it, and told me it was amazing. I’m excited.

I’ve been trying to determine if water truly does circle the drain clockwise instead of counter-clockwise in the southern hemisphere. I can’t tell so far. The toilet water doesn’t really circle the drain so much as go straight down in my hotel room. Yesterday I took a bath and tried to watch the water go down, I still couldn’t tell. Again, it just seemed to go straight down. The water that comes out of the tap here is yellowish. It felt a little strange laying in a tub of yellow water, but the temperature was nice and I just ignored it. Before I let the water out I peed just to see if I could even tell there was urine in the water. I couldn’t tell. It was fun.

Tomorrow I will go on a hike and bike tour and I signed up for cage diving with sharks the day after that – yikes!!

The weather is really good and I like it here.

UPDATE: GWAR founder Dave Brockie, aka Oderus Urungus, found dead in Richmond home

I have been a GWAR fan for 20 years. Dave Brockie’s humor and creativity have always been amazing. Gwar was always my favorite band to see live. I’m so sad that he has been taken from this earth so soon. RIP Oderus Urungus and Dave Brockie. The world is a lesser place without you.

The Africa Diaries Entry #1: May 19, 2010

During 2010 I toured through Africa.  I kept a detailed journal.  I plan to share it, this was my first entry.

May 19, 2010

I’m in a hotel room in Cape Town, South Africa.  It’s taken over a day and approximately 23 hours of actual flight time to get here.  The flight from Phoenix to Minneapolis was fine.  From Minneapolis to Amsterdam was torture- crying baby, old guy telling war stories, young guy next to me invading my personal space and no leg room.  Flight from Amsterdam to Cape Town was surprisingly enjoyable.  I sat next to a young man named Will who is staying in Cape Town for 6 weeks to help arrange micro-loans for women.  Also next to a young woman named Desiree who is volunteering with horses, children and rhino tracking in Namibia.

As the plane landed my heart began to beat faster.  I have long wanted to travel to Africa, and now I’m finally here.  I was so happy as I got off the plane and my feet touched African soil for the first time.

I was picked up by a guy from the gap adventures tour company and brought to the Saasveld Lodge on Kloof Street in Cape Town.  It’s night so I haven’t seen much yet.  The city seems cool.  People drive on the left.  The city is extremely excited about the world cup this summer.  I won’t be here for it.  I’m taking a tour of Robben Island tomorrow.  I’m so excited.  I need to sleep now.

(at the hotel after incredibly long travel time)

I Love Gravy, My Special Old Doggie!

I have been trying to spend extra time with my little buddy, Gravy.  I adopted Gravy in 2007 and he was an older dog when I got him from the shelter.  I’m not sure how old he is now, but I know that he is old.  Every time I see a dog at work who looks like Gravy and approximately the same age, that dog is usually 15 or 16 years old.

Gravy has been the best little guy, and a great companion.  He is bursting with personality and a thinks that he is in charge of the whole house and that he gets to do what he wants.  He is always by my side.  There have been several times that I actually have looked for him around the house and even asked my boyfriend if he saw Gravy, and my boyfriend looked at me like I was crazy because Gravy was right behind my feet and I didn’t see him there.

A little over a year ago Gravy almost died.  I ran every test on him I could fathom, he had multiple blood tests, x-rays and contrast studies of his gastrointestinal system and I couldn’t find an answer.  He felt so yucky and wasn’t getting better with treatments that I tried and I was in the process of making final decisions for him and deciding how best to euthanize him and what to do with his remains.  He felt miserable but I still decided to give him one more chance and I took him to the specialist to get tests I couldn’t do myself, and he had endoscopy, ultrasound, and biopsies.  The short version of the story was that it was discovered that he had Valley Fever that wouldn’t test positive and helicobacter bacteria in his stomach.  He was treated and he rallied.  I almost couldn’t believe how well he did, and he has been doing really well since that time and back to his normal self, although he takes valley fever medication every day.

It’s been a year and three months of borrowed time now.  I have cherished and continue to cherish every day.  Over the past few months I am starting to see him feel slightly worse over time.  He still is happy most of the time and powers through most days.  He is sore a lot of the time and he has bad arthritis.  Most arthritis medications give him an upset tummy, which is unusual for most dogs, but part of Gravy’s valley fever symptoms have been a very sensitive stomach.  Some days he’ll stand staring at me and he is trembling as though he is working hard to fight gravity.  He can’t go on long walks anymore.  Most of the time he feels fine, but it is hard to watch him grow old and feeble.  I realize his days are limited and I’m so grateful for all the time I have gotten to share with this beautiful soul who has made my life so much better.

I recently started him on an injectable arthritis medication called Adequan.  I hope that will help him and he’ll have a lot more quality time with me.  I try to tell him every day that I love him.  I think he knows.  He’s the best!

Working as an Emergency Veterinarian, Thoughts From the Trenches

In this blog I actually am going to share a blog that I wrote in 2008.  For those of you who may not know me, I am a veterinarian.  I have wanted to be a veterinarian since I was 6 years old and worked diligently to achieve that goal.  In 2005 I finally realized my dream and graduated from veterinary school.  Since that time I’ve discovered that working as a veterinarian is a very difficult job.  Veterinarians work insanely long hours with sick animals and stressed out people and see very sad things.  Often, sometimes as often as every day, veterinarians are expected to volunteer their services or treat animals for free “because they care about animals.”   I could go on and on about it, don’t get me started about caring about animals…  I focused my entire life on caring about animals.  If there is anyone who cares about animals, it is your veterinarian.  The profession is riddled with guilt, and every veterinarian I know has spent his or her own money to save a stranger’s pet on more than one occasion.

Anyway, I’m coming up on my 9th year of working as a veterinarian.  I have never had the sense of delight with it that I had dreamed of as a child.  Don’t get me wrong.  I like being a veterinarian, but mostly I don’t like working as a veterinarian.  I like helping animals, mostly I like the people.  What I don’t like is that every day seems overly busy, sometimes chaotic and almost always has some crisis that requires me to stay late and work several hours past the time I was supposed to be home.  I have worked as a vet in day practice and in emergency practice.  Both are utterly exhausting.  Currently I work as an independent contractor, offering my veterinary services to hospitals who need shifts filled when other veterinarians are gone for conferences, vacation, or whatever.  I charge by the hour.  It’s the best gig I’ve had so far.  I can make my own schedule and I get paid for my time.  However, feelings of satisfaction and enjoyment haven’t exactly filled my soul.

Recently I have been attempting to find a way “out” of the profession, or at least a way to scale back my work hours.  I have always been very passionate about travel and would love a job in the tour industry.  I am currently applying to be a tour guide through a company called G Adventures.  I hope to find out about the position by the end of this week and my fingers are crossed.  If that doesn’t pan out, I guess I’ll have to look at other options.  I thought of working for the USDA as a meat inspector.  They are looking for people who have veterinary degrees.  It’s supposed to be a good job with nice benefits and decent hours, and meat inspection is very important, but I think it could be a new low for someone who is a vegetarian like me.  I really would like to work as a tour guide or a hiking guide or something related to outdoors or traveling.  I spend all my spare time fixated on traveling, hiking, or pursuing other outdoor activities anyway.

Anyway, I am getting off course.  What I wanted to do was write a short, introductory paragraph to precede a blog I wrote back in 2008.  At the time I wrote the blog I was working as a full-time veterinarian at a 24 hour emergency veterinary hospital.  I worked strictly the overnight shifts from 6pm until 8am… or more realistically 9am or whenever I got my cases all wrapped up, transferred and charts written, sometimes shifts stretched to as late as noon….

The photos from the blog are something I added today, and they were collected over time.  All photos in this blog were taken either by me, or by someone I handed my camera to.  I like to have photos of cases for lectures or presentations I may do.  No animals are ever mistreated or made fun of in any way in any veterinary hospital I have ever worked at.  Everyone in the industry that I have met has been nothing but utterly compassionate and caring towards every animal they came across.

So here’s my old blog from April 8, 2008:

Ugh.

I am so exhausted. I get my ass kicked every day I work. It’s now full on parvo “season”.   Parvovirus is a very serious gastrointestinal disease that causes extreme vomiting and diarrhea and is often deadly without treatment.  It’s like cholera, but for unvaccinated dogs or dogs with weak immune systems.  Most victims of the disease are puppies.

People who have parvo puppies rarely have money for vaccines, let alone thousands of dollars for treatment and it sucks.

I am so sick of people coming into the hospital with no money. What the hell do they want me to do? At my job we can actually “provide emergency first aid” on a payment plan called a promissary note, which for a parvo dog consists of one dose of fluids under the skin and some antivomiting medication and maybe also some antibiotics.  This treatment alone is almost guaranteed not to save the puppy, and the owners will need to seek additional care at a daytime veterinarian the next day or consider euthanasia.

Puppy being treated in the hospital for parvovirus.

Anyway, this “emergency first aid” plan can be set up with no money down, but I am so fucking sick of people with no money.  Sometimes I see 8 parvo puppies in a night with owners who have no money.  In my opinion, the owners need to pay something.  I usually tell people that they at least have to come up with the $105 emergency fee, if that is impossible, they need to come up with something.   It’s so emotionally draining and I am sick of it.  Last night, I actually made a lady go out to her car to dig up change to pay, I told her she had to pay at least a dollar. The receptionist, Nicole, felt so bad for the lady that she gave me a dollar and told me that she “saw the lady drop it earlier.” The lady actually managed to scrape up $3, including the dollar from Nicole at reception. The fact of the matter is that most people who set up these promissary notes very, very rarely pay anything at all, ever, usually not even one payment, and they usually end up sticking the hospital for the costs.

It sucks, and I’m sorry, but it costs money to have a pet, and having a pet is a privilege, not a right.  If you don’t have any money at all, maybe you should not have a pet. It is not fair to the pet. You are not doing it a favor.  I am forced to euthanize way too many cute puppies who could have had a decent life if their owners could have provided the proper care.  Last night I had to euthanize the world’s cutest puppy and it almost broke me. One of my techs did the nasty deed for me. You can only euthanize so many before you can’t do it anymore.

Oh, and what the fuck is up with every single night I work being a nightmare and crazy busy? It’s so draining. Last night on top of all of the parvo, there were a million other things coming in. Every time I turned around I was faced with another dying animal. I had a cat to unblock, which I literally couldn’t get to for about 4 hours because quite frankly it wasn’t dying as fast as the other animals around it. It’s so frustrating, and if the upper management of the hospital complains one more time about being slow or not making enough money (which they like to do), I’m gonna fucking take the nearest thing I find and shove it up their asses!  I had a dog who had been attacked by another dog and had wounds, and after I admitted it to the hospital and treated with pain medication and fluids, it took me 7 hours to get to in order to deal with its wounds due to all of the other shit going on in the hospital. The shit really hits the fan around this joint. It seems that single night is a catastrophe. I am so exhausted.

Clients are stressed, clients like to yell at me and yell at my staff.

It is really hard to be an overnight emergency vet. You give up your nights and weekends and change your entire lifestyle in order to subject yourself to people who are stressed and screaming and convinced that you only care about money. You have to deal with many, many dying animals and truly horrible and sad situations, with very rarely a thank you.

The poor puppy was attacked by another dog in the house

I rescued “Honey” and paid for her treatment for parvovirus. One of my favorite veterinary technicians is here posing with her. Honey came in with her three sisters as a very sick litter of stray pups, and the whole litter was dying of parvovirus. I was burdened with the task to euthanize them all. “Honey” was the last in line to euthanize and she was the most alert of all nearly comatose pups. She had just watched me euthanize all of her sisters and when it was her turn she wagged her tail and tried to kiss me. The euthanasia solution was drawn up and ready to go, but I couldn’t do it. I took her on as a rescue and treated her with my own money, costing me almost $1000, even with my discounted costs, luckily she survived and I found a family for her later.

Honey’s new family.

Nobody ever said the job would be glamorous. Here I am digging through vomit trying to count pills. A dog ate 50 pills of ibuprofen. I made it vomit in attempt to prevent toxicity.

This dog was shot in the face with a handgun

Some asshole superglued this kitten to a tree. It was found by someone and brought to the hospital. The person couldn’t get all the branches off the kitten and had to cut some branches that remained stuck to the cat. The poor kitten was very dehydrated. The kitten was treated and adopted by another veterinarian’s parents, who named him “Elmer”

Sometimes I think that this job is breaking me. It wouldn’t be bad at all if I didn’t consistently get my ass kicked every single time I ever set foot in the building.

My shifts at work are 15-16 hours long, and the ENTIRE time is always spent stressed out, things are always backed up, with clients who are angry and stressed out. I almost never get the chance to eat anything. I almost never get the chance to pee, and when I do, I have to go to the bathroom way out of the way so that I don’t walk by any clients because if I run to the bathroom where clients can see me they start calling to me “doctor, doctor, are the x-rays done on my pet yet?, how is fluffy doing right now?, and I just thought of 20 more questions…..”

I really think that I do like the cases I see, and I like to help the animals, but I see way too many cases at once and it’s overwhelming EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.  If I could at least have an occasional shift where I get to think or eat for one fucking second, my life would be better.

Sometimes I fantasize about going back to school for something else. It’s been my life goal to be a veterinarian. Sometimes I think… “okay, now I did that, time to do something else”

Maybe I will regret posting this blog later…. there are a lot of people I work with and love who will probably read it, but I guess now I’m too exhausted and drained to care.

I have to honestly say that it is never the staff that frustrates me about my job. They are hard working and go through the same shit I do. The stress comes from the shear volume of shit, and the frustration of the clients, and also upper corporate-like management running the show for which they have no idea how the show goes down. It should be the rule that the board of directors at this place should have to work one busy shift per year. They would probably change a lot of things for the better if they knew what the fuck the staff and vets had to go through to make money for them.

I may be reaching the snapping point. I need to relax.

I have the next 4 days off. It’ll probably take me at least 2 to catch up on sleep and wind down, then maybe I can relax a little before being thrown back into the meatgrinder…

I Have Fucked Up Dreams When I Work A Lot

I woke up this morning feeling as though I were in the pit of despair.  Then I remembered my dream (P.S. for those of you who may not know, I work in veterinary hospitals as a relief veterinarian):

I was at my mom’s house in the living room.  I had a large collection of squirrels that I had caught from the backyard.  I was sedating them, then killing them and then eating them.  After eating a few squirrels I discovered that I really liked to eat the ears and front legs the best.  They were crunchy and tasty.  I was munching on one squirrel’s front leg happily after I had already eaten off the ears and the other front leg and I was snacking down on the front limb as happily as Golem enjoying a fish in the movie, The Lord of the Rings. 

Suddenly the squirrel started squirming and moving and it jumped out of my hands and trying to run away on its back legs and half gnawed off stump-arm.  I ran after it and grabbed it quickly, horrified that it wasn’t in fact dead.  I clearly didn’t want the poor thing to suffer and I was appalled that I didn’t kill it properly before eating it.  I grabbed it and attempted to draw up sedating medications in a syringe.  It jumped away again and I grabbed it again.  I grabbed an anesthesia machine from the corner of my mom’s living room and turned the anesthesia on high and placed a mask on the squirrel’s face to get it to breathe in the anesthesia.  It was squirming and struggling as I held the mask to its face.  It again wriggled free and frantically started pushing itself across the floor with its back legs.  

My brother showed up with a syringe full of euthanasia solution to help.  I again caught the squirrel and held the anesthesia mask back to its face.  It struggled as I pinned it down and forced it to breathe through the mask.  My brother approached with the syringe of euthanasia solution and started poking wildly in the direction of the squirrel, nearly stabbing me several times.  I became angry with him and told him to wait.  He protested and told me that he never had the chance to euthanize an animal before and that I better let him do it because he wanted to.  

I turned and screamed at him as the squirrel still struggled under my hold, but with less strength than before.  “Just wait as second, you cannot stab this poor thing with a needle in its heart while it can still feel it, just wait for the anesthesia to work.  I promise I’ll let you do it and I’ll even show you how properly, but just fucking wait a minute.  Fuck!”  

At that moment my mom walked in and told me that I had the anesthesia machine hooked up wrong.  She fixed the tubes on the machine and walked away.  The squirrel began to struggle harder and again got loose and hopped away on its back legs, jumped over a baby gate that was blocking off the living room and then it ran into a crack in the wall, leaving a trail of blood from its severed front legs.  It was gone.  I laid on the floor and sobbed like a baby.  

I told my boyfriend about my dream this morning.  He told me “Shit, babe, you have seriously fucked up dreams.  I dreamt about women in their underwear”

The Green Tea Experiment

From left to right: Ruby, Isabelle and Rosemary on my bookshelf

I once unknowingly ran an experiment using rats and green tea.  I didn’t realize that I had run an experiment until after I had some results.  It wasn’t a very “scientific” experiment by any stretch of the imagination, but it meant something to me.

When I was about 20 years old my brother’s girlfriend at the time, Amber, had a pet snake.  Amber bought a live rat to feed her snake and the snake never ate the rat.  After about a week Amber decided to keep the rat in a separate cage.  The rat had babies.  Amber, my brother, and I all liked them and we loved to play with them all.  They were all really cute.  The babies were all very playful and they were very friendly.  They had a wheel to run on and they seemed to love it.  Also, for entertainment they jumped and ran all over the cage.  They would jump all over their mother and use her a launching board to jump through the air.  It looked like it was a great time for the babies, although no one was sure how much the mother rat liked it; she didn’t seem happy about it, but didn’t seem unhappy either.  She seemed to tolerate the babies‘ game.  The babies actually jumped on her so much that she lost hair over her back.

One of the baby rats

Amber wasn’t able to keep all of the rats and needed to find homes for them.  She decided that it would be more fun to keep a baby than keeping the mother and I agreed to take the mother and also one of the female baby rats.  Other friends took other babies and Amber kept one female baby and named her Isabelle.

I named the mother rat Rosemary.  Her baby that I kept and took with her I named Ruby.  They were so much fun.  I played with them every day and found them to be very intelligent, gentle and playful creatures with loads of personality.  They would come when I called them and ate food from my hands.  They ran around my room when I was home and would actually go back in their cage to use a particular corner in their cage as their “bathroom,” and didn’t poop around the house.

Ruby and Rosemary explore a drawer in my desk

I had a lot of fun with them.  I’d hold them and pet them and sing them songs.  I liked to watch them run around the house.  Every day I would drink some green tea and quickly discovered that Rosemary and Ruby liked it too.  I would let them drink the left over tea from my cup every day.

After about a year, Amber needed to find a new home for her rat, Isabelle, because she couldn’t keep her anymore.  I eagerly agreed to take her.  I wasn’t sure how the rats would get along and I was a little nervous about introducing them to each other.  Even though Isabelle was Rosemary’s daughter and Ruby’s sister, I didn’t expect them to remember that fact and I didn’t really know if rats that were strangers would fight, or what would happen.

I took Isabelle home and was very surprised indeed by what happened when I introduced them.  I put Isabelle directly in the cage and stood back to watch.  Isabelle and Rosemary approached each other and Ruby stood in the corner and observed.  Isabelle and Rosemary sniffed each other for about 30 seconds.  Suddenly Isabelle started sniffing in a more excited manner, she started sniffing Rosemary all over her body.  Isabelle then started jumping in the air and spreading out her little legs when she jumped, as though she were jumping for joy and was happy.  She stopped for a moment to sniff Rosemary and touched her with her front legs and climbed on her.  The again Isabelle jumped up and down.  She then used Rosemary as a launching pad and jumped off of her back and through the air.  It was almost as though you could read Isabelle’s thoughts during the re-introduction to her mother.  “Hey it’s another rat, I haven’t seen one in a year.  I think I’ll go sniff her.  Wait just a minute, this rat seems familiar.  I think I’ve seen this rat before, I better sniff some more to be sure.  Could it be?  Yes!  Yes!  It is!  This rat is my mother!  I’m so happy!  I feel like jumping for joy!  I am so happy to see my mother again!”

The reunion of mother and daughter appeared so touching that it made me cry.  It truly appeared as though the rats remembered each other.  After joyous celebration (mostly on Isabelle’s part,) all three rats settled into comfortable life with each other.  They seemed to enjoy each other’s company when awake and later would sleep happily together in a pile in a little rat house in their cage.

Isabelle fit easily into life at my apartment.  She had just as much personality and charm as the other two and I enjoyed her very much as well.  She also would come when called and seemed to know her name.  She also became potty trained.  She also loved to eat food from me and would join in the daily drinking of green tea.

Having rats was so fun.  I enjoyed them every day that they shared their lives with me.  The saddest part about having rats is that they do not live very long.  Usually a rat doesn’t survive much longer than the age of three or so.

Isabelle was the first rat I lost.  She got big tumors on her body which grew very large.  One day she died in her sleep.  Ruby and Rosemary never got any visible tumors.  They lived about 6 months and a year longer than Isabelle, respectively.

It’s been over 10 years since I had them, but still fondly remember them as some of the most fun and cherished pets I’ve ever had.  I still miss them.

They say that green tea is supposed to help prevent cancer.  My experiment of three beloved animals seems to suggest that may have been true for them.  Isabelle went without green tea for a whole year while Ruby and Rosemary had it every day.  Both Ruby and Rosemary never got visible tumors while Isabelle grew large tumors all over her body and died much sooner than they did.

As someone who was educated in science, I am fully aware that my little experiment is complete bullshit.  It has no scientific basis or significance.  However, it’s enough to make me continue to want to drink green tea.  Besides, drinking green tea makes me remember the three beautiful souls that once shared my life and brought me joy.

Dogs are Excrement Factories; Sometimes There are Problems on the Production Line

Am I the only one who does this?  Using a permanent marker, I will clearly label the rag that I use to clean up shit (or piss.)  I never want to accidentally use the rag again for something else.  I don’t want to throw out the rag because I’m sure I’ll need to use it for something gross in the future.  I live with three dogs and it would be wasteful to keep buying replacement rags.  (Please see my previous blog, The Perfect ShitStorm.)  However, I also need to be absolutely sure that I will never wash my face with this rag or clean the table with it later.  I have a few scattered rags that are labeled “shit” and “piss.”  Labeling is very important.

Also, I have made up a new word, “Voop.”  It became necessary to find a new vocabulary term one day when I found some of the most foul material on the floor.  Upon inspecting it and preparing to clean it up, I couldn’t tell if it was poop or vomit.  I suddenly came to the horrid realization that it was both.  Some dog, who will remain nameless, went outside and snacked down on some turds, then he later vomited on the floor of the house.  As far as I know, the English language doesn’t have a word for poop-that-was-eaten-and-has-then-been-vomited-up.  So I felt obligated to make up my own word, voop.  Voop is no fun.  I used a “shit” rag to clean it up.  I don’t have a dedicated voop rag yet.

Hot Yoga? People Actually Like This?

So I guess I unconsciously have a wish to torture myself.  Yesterday I ran my first 5k, and I did better than I expected and apparently didn’t suffer enough, so I imagine it was a subconscious effort to inflict torture upon myself when I agreed to take a hot yoga class today with my friend, Jordana.  Jordana has been telling me that she likes these classes and she has been encouraging me to try it.  “Eh, being hot and sweaty isn’t really my thing.”  I would tell her, and she insisted that she loved it.  So today I agreed to go.  

I have never taken a yoga class before, ever.  I tried a few yoga DVDs at home previously and have heard other people talk a lot about yoga and I’ve done some yoga moves with friends before.  I know a few of the moves.  I know “down dog” and “up dog.”  I know “child’s pose” and two of the “warrior” poses, but really that’s about it.   Overall I would say that I’m a beginner.  

I arrived at the class today and Jordana was waiting for me.  She helped me set up my mat and a towel to cover the mat (for the sweat.)  The room was quite hot and I commented on it.  The doors to the room were open and she said that it wasn’t hot yet, it’s going to get a lot hotter.  She had told me prior to class to wear a sports bra and shorts to class and I did, but I was wearing a shirt too, and she told me I’d probably want to take my shirt off.  I did as she suggested.  

The class was very full, there were probably 20 women in the class and two men.  The instructor was a wiry looking blonde and she asked who was new to the class.  There were three newbies in the class including myself.  She announced to the class that with this many new people that she unfortunately could not heat up the room as hot as usual.  She told us that the goal of the class is to enjoy it, and if we start to feel dizzy or unwell that we should attempt to stay in the room, but if we needed to we should just lay down on our mat for a while.  The class was going to be 80 minutes long.  

The instructor closed the doors to the classroom and I could feel heaters in the room pouring heat onto my body.  It was like standing near three electric heaters set to high in a humid room.  The class did a series of sun salutations, which I did my best at, and I watched Jordana and the women in front of me so that I could learn how to do them.  I guess this wasn’t a beginning class, there was no explaining of the poses.  I started to sweat profusely.  By the end of the series of moves, sweat was dripping down my face and started to soak my towel.  In the moves where my head was upside down sweat actually dripped into my nose, and I thought that if I sweated much more I would drown.  

As the class went on it became harder for me to do the simplest things.  It was so hot.  There came a point where I was supposed to be stretching with my arms above my head while in a standing position that I thought I may pass out.  I became the first person in the class to lay down on my mat.  I laid there for a little while and tried to focus on breathing.  My whole body was drenched in sweat.  I have never sweated so much in my life.  I felt a tiny bit of cool air over my body and realized that the instructor opened the door slightly.  I almost immediately felt better.  

In a little while I managed to get back up and try to do the moves with everyone else.  The women in this class were so hard core.  I watched them do all these crazy moves, balancing on one leg with the other in the air above their heads.  One lady actually did a handstand while doing some moves on the floor.  Everyone was sweating profusely.  The woman in front of me was a total beast, she was super muscular and doing incredible moves.  She was literally sweating a puddle on the floor.  I watched sweat drip off of her elbows as she held a balancing pose:  drip, drip, drip.  I felt like I was struggling just to survive in the heat.  I exerted supreme effort while attempting to achieve lame, mediocre versions of the poses the class was doing.  I honestly think that if my only task were to stand in one place for the duration of the class, that I would have had to lie down occasionally to keep from passing out.  I couldn’t believe these people could do challenging yoga poses in this heat and humidity.  

Throughout the class I alternated trying to do some of the yoga moves with laying on the floor and drinking ice water.  Occasionally, when I must have appeared to be near passing out, the instructor would open the door slightly for a moment, and even the slightest bit of cooler air caressing my body felt like a dream come true.  Jordana kept up with the class and never had to lie down like I had to.  I wasn’t the only one who had to lie down during the class, but I was the one who had to do it the most.  For a moment, when I was laying there, I glanced up at Jordana doing successive sun salutations and thought ‘Holy shit, I had no idea she was so hard core.‘  I had just gained newfound respect for my friend who I already thought was pretty bad ass.    

For the last 20 minutes of the class I did very little.  I was just hoping time would pass quickly.  The heat seemed to be bearing down on me from all directions.  It seemed like there were a thousand heaters in the room.  My yoga mat and towel were drenched and squishy.  My hair was soaking wet.  I laid there and tried to remember all the times in my life when I was hot.  There was never a time in my life when I had come even remotely close to sweating this much, and as much as I tried I couldn’t think of any other time when I was ever so hot.  I was the hottest and sweatiest that I have ever been in my entire life.  I felt as though I was again near the point of passing out.  I had no desire to move ever again.  I wondered it this is what it feels like to die.  I almost thought that death would be a welcome escape.  

Then the class was over.  The doors opened and cooler air washed over me.  I thought that maybe I would live after all.  I still didn’t move and stayed in my supine position.  Jordana asked me if I felt ok.  I think I mumbled something about maybe being ok in a minute, or maybe I told her I wanted to die.  I don’t remember.  She told me she would meet me outside the room.  I laid there long enough for everyone else to have packed up their mats.  I looked around the classroom and noticed smears of sweat, pools of sweat, and water condensation over the entire classroom floor.  I mustered up enough energy to gather my stuff, pick up my sopping wet towel from my yoga mat and roll up my mat. 

I met Jordana outside of the room.  She looked energized and excited.  She optimistically and expectantly asked me “So, what did you think?”  It was obvious that she loved it, she was happy, and she felt great.  I didn’t feel good.  I felt guilty for not loving it.  Maybe it would be great if it didn’t make me want to pass out from heat exhaustion.  I could probably even tolerate the sweating if I didn’t feel so lightheaded and short of breath.  I didn’t think I could ever become accustomed to the extreme heat.  I thought maybe I needed some time to reflect on the experience.  I told her I wasn’t sure yet how I felt about it, but I thought that it was an interesting experience.  

I have now had the rest of the day to think about.  I decided I didn’t like it.  

 

Ran my first 5K. Didn’t Die. Life is Beautiful!

 

 

 

Today I ran my first 5K event ever!  Being able to finish a 5K race without stopping has been on my “bucket list” for a long time.   Today I achieved this goal.  Today was a good day and I’m very happy! 

I have always felt as though I was never a good runner, by this I mean that I never managed to run very fast or very far.  I was planning to take running more seriously last year, and I actually agreed to train for a half marathon in January with my friend Jordana.  But as fate would have it I broke my foot the morning after making the pact to run the half marathon.  I broke my foot in August of 2013, and the healing process has been long and slow.  My foot is mostly healed now (it still hurts a little, but I can do almost everything on it.)  In December I signed up to run the 5K course in the Sedona Marathon Event with some friends, and I decided that I’d walk the course if I have to, but I would at least try to run it.  

I trained for the event by running around in my neighborhood as my foot would tolerate it.  My goal each time I ran was to run as far as I could without stopping.  At first I couldn’t run much more than a mile, but I improved as time went on.  Earlier this week I actually ran 3.7 miles (a little over 5K) without stopping.  That was the farthest I have ever ran without stopping in my whole entire life.  I know that it may not be much to some people, but I was very proud.  

I felt confident that if the race was flat and at sea level that I could finish, but in Sedona, I wasn’t so sure.  Sedona has much higher altitude and it also has hills.  As a bonus added challenge to my goal, I have also been fighting a cold over the past two days.  I decided that I’d try to do my best anyway and see how it goes.  

Today the race started at 9:15am.  Me and three friends, Eric, Jordana and Carolyn, all carpooled up to Sedona last night and spent the night at a cute, locally run motel.  We woke up early this morning and had a light breakfast and then went down to the race.  

The “Sedona Marathon Event” consisted of a marathon, a half marathon, a 10K race and a 5K race.  Everyone who had registered in the race got a t-shirt and a “bib” with a number.  The bibs were color coated for the four different races, and every runner needed to pin their bib on their clothes in a visible location on the front part of their body.  

The full marathon started at 9am and everyone in the race had to herd themselves into a “corral” in front of the starting line before the race started.  At nine o’clock the runners for the marathon began their race.  Immediately the half marathoners corralled themselves at the starting line and their race began at 9:05am.  The 10K racers started at 9:10am and then me and my friends and the other 5K racers shuffled into the corral like cattle and waited until we could go at 9:15am.  

At the start of the race, I was jammed pretty much at the back of the corral and had to walk for the first few yards just because it was so crowded, but by the time I made it to the official starting line it was less crowded and I was able to jog at a slow pace.  There was a large mix of people in this race and the backdrop of the scenery of Sedona was very beautiful.  It was about 45 degrees fahrenheit and it felt quite cold.  

I concentrated on jogging a slow and steady pace that I thought I could maintain longterm in order to not ever walk or stop if I could help it.  There was a large variety of runners in the 5K.  Fit young adults were running, old people were running, disabled people were running, teenagers were running, even kids were running.  Little kids who had entered the race with their parents ran excitedly as moms and dads ran more steadily after them.  Some people were running with strollers.  Some people were wearing shirts or signs stating that they were running for cancer, or running for a loved one, or running some other cause.  I wondered what my cause was.  What was I running for?  I never really thought about a cause: just good health, I guess.  Yeah, that seems like a pretty good cause.  

My friends Eric and Jordana ran ahead of me pretty quickly, and they briefly looked back at me as though they expected me to keep up with them.  Yeah right!  Jordana kept the pact that she made back in August to train for the half marathon, and she ran it and finished it last month, and Eric, well…  Eric is a guy.  Eric entered today’s 5K on a whim.  He doesn’t even own jogging pants, and he was running the race in hiking pants.  I, however, did not for one second think that I would be able to keep up with Eric.  In all of my past experiences participating in active sports with guys, I have found that they annoying do great even if they don’t train, and they usually do better than me, even if I trained my ass off.  I supposed he would have no troubles in this race.  Of course he didn’t have any troubles, and he seemed to breeze through it, even beating Jordana to the finish line in the end.  My friend Carolyn ran more at my pace, which was nice for me, not that I really felt like I required a running partner.  For me the race was more about my own personal goals.  

The layout of the course for the 5K was sort of a circle.  The start and the finish line were in the same place.  The course ran down a paved path and then merged with the main highway.  After a short way along the highway, the course turned left onto a side road.  After a stretch on the side road, the course doubled back on itself at a turnaround point, and then turned right onto another road that circled through a hilly neighborhood.  After circling the neighborhood, the course headed back along the original path to the start/finish line.  

Along the first section I was getting passed by all sorts of people.  I got passed by old people, I got passed by people who appeared athletic, I got passed by people who did not appear athletic, I got passed by kids overflowing with energy, and I got passed by people pushing strollers.  I got passed by super skinny, 20-something year old girls, whose legs were so tiny I wondered how they carried themselves.  

By the point of the race where the course turns onto the side road, the shear numbers of people passing me seemed to decline.  The super high energy levels of some of the children were starting to visibly fade.  One kid lost his shoe and limped backwards along the course towards it.  Another girl, approximately 8 years old, sat crying with a skinned knee on the side of the road.  Two boys who looked 12 years old had stopped and were doubled over and panting, and another boy who looked 10 years old announced to his mom that this was really hard and he was going to run really fast so he could just get it over with.  

I kept up my slow and steady jogging pace and I began to pass up hoards of exhausted kids.  I also started passing several people who had begun to walk.  I made it to the turnaround point and doubled back.  Generally, people everywhere seemed happy.  There were people standing along the sidelines of the course cheering on the runners: “Good job, nice work, looking good” etc.  It started to seem warmer and the sun was shining and the day was really beautiful.  The views of the surrounding area and the big red rocks of Sedona were gorgeous.  I was actually enjoying myself.  

The course took a turn and went into the hilly neighborhood.  It went up a fairly steep hill.  I kept jogging, at a very slow pace, however I didn’t stop, and I didn’t slow to a walk either.  I passed several more people on the hill.  I found that I was one of the few people in my vicinity actually jogging up the hill and not walking, and it made me feel proud.   I passed the skinny legged girls on the way up the hill.  I had had my suspicions that their legs couldn’t really take them very far and now I was glad to know that I was correct.  

I made it up the hill, and by then Carolyn was behind me; she had to stop at a “porta potty.”  I didn’t want to wait for her because I was on a mission to see if I could finish without stopping or walking.  

People continued to cheer me and all the runners on.  I passed water stations without getting any, because I was worried it would break my pace.  I didn’t think I was skilled enough to jog and drink water at the same time, and I usually didn’t drink water on my practice runs at home anyway.  The downhill part of the course through the neighborhood was really nice.  I passed a boy and his dad; the dad was telling the boy that we were about 2/3 of the way done.  I actually felt pretty good.  I thought maybe I was going to make it.  I was amazed that I felt so good.  My foot was doing really well, although it was a little stiff, and my lungs were actually doing ok too!  

During the last third of the race I was passing numerous people who were walking, and it felt good to be passing people instead of them all passing me.  It was a nice feeling to know that some of the people who had smoked past me earlier couldn’t actually keep up that pace the entire time.  It made me feel more normal.  

It was really nice to see all the different people running the race.  It was inspiring to see people of different physical abilities working toward their own goals!  It was nice to know that my goal of running a 5K wasn’t necessarily a small goal, and although I sometimes felt like it, I wasn’t the “last person on the planet” to do it.  

As I rounded the last corner of the course, I saw the finish line in the distance and started to run faster toward it.  I felt really good.  I never would have guessed that I would actually HAVE FUN running a 5K, but I was having fun.  I was actually really enjoying myself.  I sprinted toward the finish line and felt so happy to know that I was completing another one of my “bucket list” items.  A group of people at the finish line were handing out medals to people, and a woman handed me a medal for finishing the race.  I thought maybe this was in error; I thought perhaps she thought I was finishing the 10K instead of the 5K.  Surprised, I asked her “I get a medal for running the 5K?” and she responded “Of course you do, good job!”  It was so cool, and it was nice to know that others understood how important these personal goals can be!  It may seem small to some people, but it is a big goal to those who have never done it before.  

It’s funny, now that I have checked “running a 5K” off my bucket list, I still don’t feel “done.”  Now that it’s crossed off, I think I might add “running a 10K” onto the list.