In which normal transmission is postponed by a bit of neurosurgery

Well, without wanting to sound too dramatic, I have been in hospital this week. I got home yesterday and am still trying to fully comprehend the last few months! Well, obviously I went silent on the blogging front and part of that was that it all just got too hard. The marathon went well, then there were the two disastrous half marathons, followed by an awful 80km cycle race in Featherston. It was cold, wet and very windy. I cycled most of the way on my own, got poured on, hailed on, finished ten minutes slower than I did last year, and injured my back. I spent the last 15k in excruciating pain, wanting badly to just stop and let the SAG wagon pick me up.

After the horrid race I got a cold which knocked me out for another couple of weeks, during which time my back refused to settle. I got the physio's permission to try the next race on the Taupo lead-up schedule, a four-loop 100k'er in Waikanae which was mostly flat. In the end I made it round one loop, with the back injury taking all the power out of my legs. I didn't have it in me mentally to keep going as I watched pack after pack fly past me.

At the same time I was battling more hormonal issues. My doctor and I suspected I was going through premature menopause, so I came off the pill so we could really see what was going on. I'd been blaming the poor training and the roller coaster of emotions on that. However over the last month it felt more like depression. I couldn't run because of my back, I couldn't seem to cycle for peanuts, I lost my appetite so was eating crap in an attempt to just enjoy eating SOMETHING, and my swimming wasn't going to be ready for the Rotorua half Ironman. In fact, my bike form was so dire that I even doubted I'd be getting around the Taupo Cycle Challenge.

To make it worse I then started suffering from increasing migraines. I spent Labour weekend on the sofa with no energy to do anything, with my head pounding, kicking myself for not cleaning our untidy house or running or cycling. Jo and I had been planning a Rimutaka incline run but I was in no state, and the Gearshifters had headed out to Paekak hill without me after I failed to keep up with even the slowest riders (having the day before finished second to last in the time trial).

I battled my way through work this week but by Wednesday night it was fairly clear there was something more ominous going on. I wanted to get through Thursday before heading off to hospital. I had to sit in on two interview panels and the Immigration Bill was due to go through its third reading. I didn't want to miss the event I'd been working towards for nearly four years, and I didn't want to miss celebratory drinks! I somehow made it through the interviews but twenty minutes into the third reading my workmates were bundling me into a cab and I was off to the A & E. Six hours in the waiting room in horrendous pain (nearly crying each time they called out someone else's name), then six hours out the back, where I at least had a cubicle for most of it, I finally made it onto a ward at 3am.

By way of explanation, on top of my four autoimmune disorders (Addison's Disease, Hypothyroidism, Pernicious Anaemia and Premature Ovarian Failure) I also have Hydrocephalus, or water on the brain. I was diagnosed at six months, had a shunt inserted to drain the cerebrospinal fluid, and managed to live a fairly normal life after that. I've been lucky in that the shunt remained unblocked for nearly 15 years. However it seemed my luck was finally over. The increasing buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in my head was causing a rise in intracranial pressure, horrific headaches and nausea. I was not in a good way!

I spent the next day waiting for surgery that never came, on nil-by-mouth and a drip, and then most of the next day as well. By the end of the next day the intracranial pressure had increased to the point where I was sleeping most of the time anyway. Finally I had the operation. I thought I'd just be getting the shunt repaired, but the surgeon recommended an endoscopic third ventriculostomy (slight crustiness warning). This meant that they drilled a hole in my skull and inserted a probe through my brain and actually made a hole in the wall of one of my ventricles to enable the fluid to drain away more naturally. The video I've linked to above shows the probe being inserted into a guy's skull and the hole being made in the ventrical. It explains the procedure quite well.

Because they'd actually made a hole in my brain I had to spent another couple of days completely flat. It wasn't a particularly pleasant time. The change in brain pressure caused the poor organ to freak out a bit so that I apparently didn't always make a lot of sense, and I had a reaction to the Tramadol I was on. I had some extremely unpleasant auditory hallucinations. It sounded for all the world like there were flies buzzing around in my head. Plus I was on such a high dose of my cortisol medication post-surgery that I was completely unable to sleep.

Thankfully my cortisol medication was dropped just enough to finally enable me to get a little sleep. I also took myself off the Tramadol and the hallucinations gradually eased. To my surprise I was hauled off for another CT scan which showed the procedure seemed to be working and my ventricles were returning to a normal size. With no signs of any brain bleed I was slowly allowed up and, with the exception of a brief vertigo attack, I was able to convince the physio and occupational therapist to let me go home. Question from the physio "So, what kind of activity do you usually do?" My response: "OK, really?" followed by a brief description. He decided I'd probably be fine after that! I mean I was at the gym doing shuttle runs and burpees the night before I was admitted to hospital FFS! And yes, hello stupid!

So now I'm home with seven clips in my skull and some reducing brain-pressure related disassociation. All things considered I'm feeling remarkably good. However obviously the Taupo Cycle Challenge is off, Rotorua is off. I'm feeling bad about being so hard on myself over the last few weeks when there was obviously something wrong. I don't know how many months my shunt's been blocked, as the pressure builds up gradually so it could have been affecting my training for some time. All I know is that it's good to know I came second to last in our time trial for a reason!

My plans now ... well, I don't think I should really have any because I have no idea how long I'm going to take to return to normal. I just wish I could have the very cute hospital physio as my very own to develop my comeback plan! I think I should probably just take the next couple of months to get better and enjoy myself and slowly rebuild the muscle I lost lying around in bed not eating. Sigh!

I'm feeling so much better that I'm contemplating a little time on a stationary bike next week, and then some walking with a little running thrown in after that. I'll get a PT to throw a rehab weights programme together for me so that I don't completely lose my muscle. Once the wound in my head heals I'll be back in the pool a fair bit I think.

So, well, that's my life! How's everyone else?! Mike - planning to travel to Welly for that U2 concert? :)

Now that I'm back you'll probably be getting reasonably regular updates on my rehab. I have a new pink pair of MiAdidas and a cute pink and grey 2XU set of trishorts and singlets to try out, so you can bet I'll be wanting to get some use from them!

An Email Exchange

On Thurs, Oct 7, 2009 at 9.05 A.M, [Pip] wrote:

I may have just died and gone to heaven
Though it would be a Leo-style "must have more, can't have more,
must have more" kinda heaven ...
http://www.pimpthatsnack.com/project/302/1
Pip

[Note: Leo was a friend's cat who was notorious for his inability to stop eating until his plate was clean, even if that plate was a bowl of melted icecream with chocolate sauce]

Husband:

and only 10,000 calories! :) (How many circuits of Taupo is that?)

Pip:

Er, that's about three times around the lake. No worries!

Leonie:

yeah Hamish, Pip can do that BEFORE breakfast, then go back and run it twice before lunch!

Nic:

But would she have the mega-egg for breakfast (between the cycle and the runs) or before? or after?
and how many times could she so around if she put 10 shots of espresso in it?

[Note: I'm also notorious for my extreme reaction to caffeine]

Pip:

Definitely not for breakfast- too much sugar and it would cause serious gastro issues! I'm contemplating whether it would be possible to pour some of the fondant into the feedbag on my top tube, every now and then reaching in and scooping some out instead of sucking down gels on the bike. The chocolate would melt in my shirt pockets, and that would just be nasty. For similar reasons it wouldn't be terribly portable on the run, but I imagine that, combined with a little chocolate milk, the egg would make a great recovery meal.

Give a calorie intake target of only around 200 calories per hour during exercise though, and even allowing for around 600 calories of recovery meal intake, there'd still be plenty of egg left over for my supporters!

And I'm now wondering how I ever wound up in a universe where I sit at my desk on a Thurday morning calculating calories burned during exercise versus the calorific contents of a giant Cadbury crème egg and its nutritional value.

Pip: (a few minutes later)

Thinking about it, I'd probably be able to add 5k per hour in speed on the bike per shot of coffee, and drop 30 seconds per kilometre on the run (these are genuine calculations, btw). I'm sure if I thought about it I could calculate the reduced calories burned as a result of the reduced exercise time resulting from the coffee intake, but I should really stop now and get some work done ...

Leonie:

Picture me LMAO right now

Another Poem

I'm having a bit of a rethink about the direction of this blog. I'm toying with the idea of leaving Blogger for greener shores, and broadening out the scope of my posts. If I do so then I'll be making a commitment to post more often and more widely. I'll finally get around to creating that blog roll and I'll be posting on a variety of topics. If I decide to make the switch I'll start posting more commentary and more links to other sites. There'll still be the training posts most of you read this blog for at the moment. However there will also be a return to more regular poetry posts. If I get my act together I'll be posting on the issues that are important to me, and I'll be posting on daily life and happenings here in Wellington.

In the meantime, here's another (still very draft) poem! This was inspired a few weeks back by a news article stating that the current government is looking at loosening up the rules around overseas investment in New Zealand.

That Which Was Ours

They came across the border
when our eyes were averted,
too busy looking inwards
to notice the attack from outside.

They took us on the beaches
first of all, our defences weak,
their firepower stronger.

While we were still dusting the
sand from our arms and gathering
together the possessions we had
clutched to ourselves as we
scrambled to retreat they
turned on our utilities.

Before we knew it our
water and our power
were no longer our own,
left begging at the
doors of strangers to
cook our last suppers,
scraping together cash
to pay for enough light
to see as we tucked our
children into their beds.

But it will all be ok, they
crooned to us, as we lined up
to fill buckets so we could
heat water for our weekly baths.
You see, things are more efficient
this way. Your dollars
are still your own.

So we sat on cliff tops
looking down at the waves below
us while we sipped on Pepsi and
Bud, unable to afford to drink
what used to flow freely from
our taps. We kept bees for
the wax and felled trees from
the local reserve
for firewood.

That which was what ours
was not truly quantified
until it was listed on the
asset sheets of those that
came.

It's all about performance

You know you're a cycling geek when you find yourself laughing hysterically at a video like this! Although I had a few twinges of feminist guilt at doing so ...

Anyway, funnily enough it IS all about performance. At least, it's all about this Sunday. If certain other Wellington bloggers hadn't already posted their own ambitious goals (you know who you are) I wouldn't be feeling my own performance angst. It doesn't help that my last race attempt was a dismal failure.

So, the game plan is to just go out there and run the race that plays out on the day. That could mean just finishing, or it could mean hardening up and sprinting it. I have no idea! My training has been more consistent this time around and I'm feeling more tapered. I ran a good solid 6km on Tuesday at a pace Dave thinks I can maintain, and 4km today at what was supposed to be easy, but was a bit faster than that. However ....

Anyway, it's not like I can do anything now other than continue to try to put myself in the right frame of mind.

Inspiration

A Poem

Because it's been a while. This poem was a response to a Read Write Poem prompt. I have also recently written a second poem, a response to an article on the current government's plans to open up international investment regulations. Unfortunately I thought I'd emailed to my hoe address, but apparently not. Posting it will have to wait for another day. Neither are my best work, but it was so good to be putting pen to paper again that I think it's still worth having them online.

Spooky

When the cancer

spread to his brain he

began seeing five cent

coins on the floor.

My uncle spent hours

on all fours groping around

for the invisible currency,

keeping him happy.

After he died the same

coins materialised

in the corners of

our bedrooms and

sat gleaming on

our desks, shelves and

coffee tables,

gleaming in the

twilight, winking up

at us from the floor.

Diversifying

Well, I'm ashamed to admit that yesterday's ride left me feeling remarkably shattered. Only 50k, but much hillier than anything I've done of late. So come 1.30 and facing stupidly gusty winds, predications of rain and thunder storms and general lethargy, I did, in fact, not go riding with Dee. Nor did I do that 18k I was supposed to be running.

So what did I do? I downloaded 90 minutes of kicking RPM tracks onto my iPod, then drove in to town to Extreme and sat on one of their old yellow spin bikes for a bit of a pain fest. Yes, I had a grin on my face the whole time, and yes, sweat was dripping down my face.

I'm sure everyone else on level 4 thought I was insane, but hey, a girl's gotta do what she's gotta do. I'll just run that 18k tomorrow instead!

Fronting Up

I've written before about my complicated relationship with cycling. I have a tendency to talk myself out of really putting the effort in. I hate riding in the wind and at the start of a long ride my mind can sometimes get the better of me. I'm slow and I have a loathing of getting spat out the back of the pack.

Dee's been nagging me for ages to ride with her and the SANZ pack. Unfortunately, the first time she invited me along, she warned me that they were fast. Game over as far as I was concerned! Except that it's about time to start gearing up for Taupo again, and I have some serious goals for this year's ride. It's time I stopped making excuses for myself and laid it on the line. I need to stop holding back. I need to take a few risks, put myself out there, see what happens.

Which is how I ended up getting up this morning to meet Dee at Freyberg at 7.40a.m. (on a Saturday morning!!!) for a SANZ ride. If I hadn't told everyone there was no way I was backing out then I would have, er, backed out. Yesterday the weather forecasts were for galeforce winds and showers. I wasn't going to give way to my wimp tendencies though, so I sucked it up, got dressed, and headed off in the half-light to meet her.

The fast pack was planning to ride out to Porirua then through Titahi Bay and back to Wellington via the Haywards. Some of the slower riders were planning on turning back at Porirua. There was a girl there who hadn't ridden in a bunch before, and who was not feeling confident she could keep up at all, so I was quite happy to say I'd turn round at Porirua with her if she felt the need. I was talking myself out of the full ride and I hadn't even started.

It was windy as we set out, but it could have been worse. I quickly found myself at the back and as we headed up Ngaio Gorge it started raining. My sunglasses started to fog up and I battled my way to the first meet-up point. The new girl had turned around already, so it was up to me to keep up with the slower of the regular riders. I was cold and wet but my legs hadn't felt too bad on the way up the Gorge, so I was willing to see what would happen.

I ended up riding down the hill to Johnsonville with a lone rider, Chris. I'm incredibly grateful to him for sticking with me. We were only 100m or so behind the main slow pack, but in the wet I wasn't feeling confident enough to push it around the corners hard enough to keep up. We rode towards Kenepuru, expecting to regroup in Porirua, but when we got there we couldn't find the other riders, and when we got onto the Expressway they were nowhere in sight.

Wet, cold, separated from the pack. Chris made the decision for me, and we turned right at the turnoff to the police college and started climbing back up towards Johnsonville. At that point I was feeling slightly disappointed, and had we been in sight of the others I think I would have gone all the way to the Haywards. I was certainly feeling ok and could easily have gone the distance. And when I say I was the slowest of the slow pack I was still sitting on around 30kmph (in the wind and the rain and the cold), so I wasn't a slug, just a little out of my league.

I wasn't eating enough so the ride back towards Ngaio wasn't quite as powerful as it could have been, but then we were on our way back down the gorge and I was again focussing on cornering downhill and not sliding out in the wet. I was covered in road-gunge from sitting on Chris's wheel the whole way. My shoes were sodden, my feet were cold, and I wasn't wearing my leg warmers so my knees were bright pink from the cold. However I was feeing remarkably upbeat. I knew I could have gone the whole way and I was proud of myself for getting out there at all.

We settled in at Bordeaux with our hot chocolates and eventually we were joined by the others, all looking like they'd been out mountain biking rather than road riding. We were all mud covered and soaked. I sat there in my happy little bubble, knowing that I'd actually gotten out there and done it, and loving my bike all over again.

So I'm supposed to be running 18k tomorrow, tapering for the Five Bridges half marathon. However Dee is riding from Freyberg at 2, and I can't resist coming along. If need be I'll run after work on Monday. Cleo and I are going to get back out there again, and I can't wait!