I'm doin it wrong!

Just back from McDonaldland (that's the Valley YMCA, if you haven't been following)--an upper body weights session and 30 minutes of lap swim. Why is it that I can be realistic in most areas of life about my abilities, but when it comes to physical fitness I expect myself to do everything as well as everyone else out there? I have a good idea why: P.E. class.

Don't get me wrong, I am glad that I grew up in an era when they still had P.E. (That's "physical education" for my non-American readers.) I think the demise of P.E. in American public schools must contribute to the obesity problem in our kids. And P.E. does get kids to try activities that they might not otherwise try out, because they have to. I had some achievements in P.E. class, mostly in the last year that I took it, my sophomore year. I became a decent swimmer, because at my high school we were all required to take at least 1 term of swimming. I enjoyed it, so I took 3 quarters that year, and was teaching to other students in my last quarter. Another was the 1 quarter I took of basic P.E. that year, when I was absolutely determined to learn to make a lay-up shot. I never became good at it, but Coach Colleran was impressed by my determination and effort and gave me an A even though I sucked royally as an athlete.

And there's the problem: P.E. taught me that I sucked as an athlete, and when I grew up I just crossed athletic activities off my list of things I could do. I was always the slowest, the least coordinated, the least driven to stay in the game. All of our activities seemed to pit us against each other--whether running around the track, or playing half court basketball, or picking teams for any number of team sports. I didn't enjoy being picked last, or always finishing the race last, or never being passed to because I couldn't make a basket. What I didn't learn was that there were things I actually COULD do well--like sports that required endurance rather than speed. My coordination turned out not to be as bad as it seemed when I was a little kid. And I was a decent enough swimmer that I was asked to join the swim team, although my music activities precluded that.

So now, I'm learning to love becoming fit and being active, but sometimes I still have these scripts playing in my head, about what I "should" be able to do and how I fall short of that. Running is one example: I enjoy the Galloway method, with frequent walk breaks, and it makes sense to me, but I still have the nagging sense that I'm not a "real" runner if I can't run the entire distance without walking, even if it means I barf up a lung. When swimming laps, I have to stop after a few laps and catch my breath, let my heart rate come down a little, and take a swig of water. (Sometimes, I admit, the swig of water is just to make me look like I am not stopped solely to catch my breath.) The guy in the lane next to me was swimming nonstop laps when I got in the pool, and when I got out half an hour later he was STILL swimming lap after lap, like a damn goldfish. Why can't I do that? I'm doing it wrong!

The better question for me at this point is, why am I looking at his lane? Why am I not competing with MYSELF only? It's natural to compare ourselves to others, but often counter-productive. The fact is that most of what I'm doing these days was unthinkable last year. Usually I can keep that in perspective and celebrate that, but I have days, too. I have to remind myself that I'm miles ahead of my former self, who wasn't inactive, but certainly wasn't running, swimming or strength-training 5 days a week. Right?

Head Games--Part 2

My head isn't really staying in the correct mode to do a whole series on sports and concussions. I guess too many other things are going on, and this is a weight-loss blog, so I'm going to wrap it up here. But I do think this is an important issue. So I'm going to share the links that I've had sitting open on my computer for a couple weeks now.

"Iron Mike" Webster is one of the best and saddest examples of the sad consequences of multiple concussions. Here's his Wikipedia entry, which details some but not all of the causes of his eventual homelessness and dementia. There is also a 5 part series on ESPN.com about his career, his mental decline, and the impact on him and his children and wife, as well as the NFL's atrocious handling of veterans and disability.

Another former Steeler, Terry Long, died in 2005 and was one of the four former NFL players who were identifed post mortem as having chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Terry Long's final years were marked by poor business decisions and depression, and he was eventually found to have committed suicide by ingesting antifreeze.

Men's Journal ran an excellent article called Casualties of the NFL. It details some of the ongoing health problems of NFL vets, and the efforts of folks like Mike Ditka and the Gridiron Greats organization to get the NFL and the NFLPA (their players' association) to take care of the men who bring the dollars in for the owners and the top brass.

At the very heart of this whole concussion mess is Dr Elliott Pellman, who was the Jets' team doctor and became the NFL's concussion expert, despite the fact that he is a rheumatologist, not a neurologist or neurosurgeon. Dr Pellman has done a great deal of "research" which has been published, and widely criticized in peer review by experts in head trauma. He has maintained that there is no danger in returning players to play after receiving a concussion, despite the fact that all other literature available on the topic recommends that players be held out of play at least 7 days post concussion. He's even more of a tool than that--it was discovered a few years ago that he claimed on his curriculum vitae that his medical degree was earned at SUNY Stony Brook, when in fact he earned it in Guadalajara, Mexico. After that fact was made public, he resigned from the NFL's Concussion committee, but is still employed by the NFL.

The problem with this deception is that teams, from the kiddie leagues to the NCAA, look to the NFL for guidance in treating concussions. The NFL has a profit motive to keep their players in the game, and forms its recommendations accordingly. This puts players everywhere in danger.

Water Love

I think Spokane doesn't like runners. Either that or she wants to toughen us up by making us carry our own water. (Cities are female, aren't they? That's how we have sister cities.) It doesn't make a lot of sense, with all the sidewalks (jagged and perilous though they are, at least in my neighborhood), parks, and with Bloomsday, the largest timed race in the country, held in Spokane. But on my last 2 runs out in the city (out of my neighborhood) I have found exactly 1 drinking fountain. The first run was downtown, in Riverside Park. I am sure there must be another drinking fountain at least in the park somewhere, but I didn't see any others. Today's was in Manito Park, probably the biggest and most popular park in the city. No drinking fountains, unless you count the broken one covered in duck poo. Unbelievable.

In Portland, they have drinking fountains everywhere. In particular, they have funny things called Benson Bubblers, which are 4-bowl brass fountains that were commissioned by a guy named Simon Benson to give working men in Portland an alternative to drinking in saloons. No runner in Portland has to carry water on a run, provided that he or she runs between the hours of 6am and midnight and isn't put off by drinking from public fountains. There is even a special thumb technique to diverting the vertical water stream into your water bottle without spraying yourself, which I haven't mastered yet.



In Spokane, water is for wusses, I guess. I can get by for now, but in a few weeks it's going to start getting warmer, and I'll either have to start carrying water with me or get up early in the morning to run (horror!). In the end, both may happen. Until then, I hydrate before and after.

I ran up to Manito Park this evening. I ran through the Lilac Garden there and discovered that the lilacs are just starting to bloom. This weekend is the Lilac Festival Parade, so it's just in the nick of time I guess. I was kind of sluggish, actually, but still able to do 3.5 miles. Now that I've read some more of Jeff Galloway's book, I've learned that what I previously thought was his walk-run method of running actually was incorrect--I thought he recommended ratios more like 2 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking. In truth he isn't that regimented at all. In the beginning he recommends as little as 15-20 seconds of running and 60-90 seconds of walking, repeat as able. He says that even at the peak of his season's training he still will run 7-8 minutes and walk for a couple of minutes. The basic gist is to take walk breaks as frequently as you need them to keep running enjoyable and keep yourself able to do it for long periods of time. So now I use a combination of how I'm feeling and what my heart rate is to determine when I need to walk. I run probably about 3 minutes at a time on average, and walk for 60-90 seconds. I use the recovery feature on my HRM to time this--it is a 60 second countdown timer that figures out how much your heart rate recovers in 60 seconds. I walk while that is counting down--the beauty of that is that by the time it finishes, my heart rate is almost always back in the range that I (arbitrarily) set for resuming running, and I am ready to run again by that time. It's a method that's working well for me so far, and I'm able to increase the amount of time I run, while keeping the workout enjoyable for me.

In the PastaQueen annals, I got as far as another milestone date for me in her archives: March 13, 2007, the date I was banded. Interestingly, on that day she wrote about the first day of the year she was able to run outdoors on the trail, and how she now could count herself as someone who loves to run. I've posted something rather similar recently, but on that day when I had surgery I never would have predicted such a thing. I wonder if I had read something like her blog before surgery, would it have affected my decision to have WLS? I think it would have caused me to think even more than I did about it, but in the end I decided to do what I did not because I didn't think I could lose weight, but because I didn't want to regain yet again. It is quite inspiring to see someone who lost 210 lbs without surgery, most definitely. I honestly don't know if I could ever do such a thing, because it takes so much focus for such a long time, and because constant hunger is such a saboteur. But good on her! Truly, it has taken me over a year to lose weight WITH WLS, and the last time I was on a diet it took me this long to lose 35 lbs. I don't know if I could fight hunger and my brain long enough to get it all off--but if I could, keeping it off is the real battle. I'm not a bit sorry I was banded. But hats off to those who are successful long-term without surgery. I'm not going to get all negative and quote statistics about WLS losers vs. dieters. I just admire that there are people who can do it that way, and recognize that most of us can't, or don't, for some reason or another. This is a tough battle, and it's never over for any of us, no matter how we lost the weight.

A Pause to Reflect

Yes, I've been away. Did you miss me? Hubby is in town, so we've been out running together and doing gaggy "are they still newlyweds or what" stuff together. It's been nice.

(I don't know, are we newlyweds still? It's been almost 2 years. I guess we still are, maybe.)

I had an exam on Monday, and since our grades were due for the semester the same day, our teacher just emailed us our grades. I got an A on the exam and an A+ in the class, w00t! But the same day I also got back Jackie's evil Cardiac exam from last week, and did pretty poorly on that. The first poor grade of the year for me, and yes, it stung a bit. Hopefully I can ace the last exam and still get a good grade.

Weight is holding at its hormonally-induced, elevated level. A couple days and it should come back down a few lbs. I hope it's hormonally induced, anyway. I made cupcakes for hubby's birthday and we've been snacking on them, so that can't help much. They are red velvet cupcakes, from a (overpriced) mix I bought at Williams-Sonoma, and thank God I didn't have to answer a doorbell while baking them or I might have been investigated for homicide in my kitchen. Is that much red food coloring really necessary? Anyway, perhaps they don't help me get my weight back down...but whatever, I'm not terribly concerned at this point.

This week--scratch that, this month--has been nice. We had a few classes last week for our official finals-week break, and this week isn't really a break but two of our classes have ended for the semester, so we only have 2 classes anyway. One only meets on Mondays and we don't have an exam for it (physiology) for another month; the other class is Priniciples, which goes on and on, but is probably our most fun class anyway. So now we pretty much have one class per day until the summer term starts in June. It's so weird not having an exam this week and next week to study for. We can use the break.

I have nothing interesting to offer about the current state of weight loss today. I'm still reading PastaQueen's archives. For fun, because I was in the 2006 archive, I looked to see if she blogged on my wedding day, and she did: she posted her ebay auctions that day (August 13). She also posted on my birthday, August 19, when we were on our honeymoon. It took me back a bit, thinking about it. She had lost 160 lbs at that point, with 50 lbs to go to her goal. When I got married, I had been considering WLS for the whole year, but wasn't totally decided on doing it until I got back from our honeymoon and saw our wedding photos. I was devastated at how I looked. Isn't it interesting that our brains don't really register what we really look like until we see pictures?

Our wedding day was wonderful, we had a great time, and I'm glad I didn't obsess over losing weight before the wedding day because I wanted the day to be a fun celebration, not a "perfect" day designed just to have "perfect" photos. And our wedding was about as much fun as a wedding can be, if I do say so myself. Relaxed, intimate, and fun. But when we returned from our honeymoon I was forced to face my weight problem, and I was pretty depressed for weeks afterward. I felt kind of dumb being so down about it, but it was just a matter of facing what I had been in a bit of denial about. My hubby didn't really know what to do about it, actually. But I decided, when I came out of the funk, that I was going to do this lap band thing, and set up my battle plan (which is how I deal with stuff, I make a plan). I attended my seminar in December, and the rest is all documented in my own blog archives.

And here I am. I do feel like a different person in a lot of ways. I'm not "cured" of obesity, and I certainly could gain the weight back if I'm not careful. I have to keep exercising, and trying to make good choices, and working my band so it can work for me. Looking back on wedding pictures is sort of bittersweet in some ways. It's a record of our happiness that day and a celebration of our life. It's also a documented moment in time that I can look back on as the last time I went about my life without considering the health consequences of my lifestyle choices. I've gotten real since then. Sure, I'd love to be able to look back on pictures of myself as a slender bride, but in a lot of ways, I got a lot more out of the wedding that we really did have.

Lazy

I don't have much on my agenda today--go for a run, study pharmacology, make food for hubby's little birthday celebration, which we will have tomorrow. But I have been completely unmotivated all day long to do any of it.

PastaQueen, it's your fault!

No, of course it's not PQ's fault. But reading her entire archive on her blog has been my procrastination/distraction of choice today. Here's why I'm unmotivated today: it's an overcast, yucky day here, I'm hormonal, and perhaps the few drinks at the graduation banquet last night didn't help my energy level today, either. Also, I've been kinda down all week, for various reasons, including being hormonal. Money is tight, I miss my hubby, etc. School is flying by, but still feels like an unending stodgy march toward a distant goal a lot of the time. I know that's a contradiction, but deal with it.

So anyway, Saturday comes and I sleep in, and spend the morning and early afternoon reading PQ's adventures as she went from 372 lbs to 160. (Or so. I don't know how low she got, I'm only up to 2005, and in her recent posts she has stopped weighing herself, although she just ran a half marathon and published a book.)

Anyway, I finally got myself to walk to the store for ingredients to make vegetarian lasagna and cupcakes for my husband's 34th birthday (which was Wednesday, but he was in Oregon then.) I decided the best way to get myself motivated to run would be to have some coffee and cook. Baking the cupcakes would end up with me eating some of the batter, which always makes me feel like I've done something much worse than just eating cupcakes, so I'd definitely want to run that badness off. And Jeff Galloway's book recommends drinking a cup of coffee an hour before a run, for people who drink coffee anyway. I drink so little now (I'm back to my usual, pre-grad school coffee consumption, which is about a cup a week or less) that I don't think it's going to kill me. And if it helps me feel more like getting something done today, all the better.

I had a funny realization when I was preparing the lasagna. I make lasagna on the fly, no recipe--it's pretty easy, and it's always pretty good. But this time I decided to just use the half box of lasagna noodles that I had in the cupboard, because we really don't need that much pasta anyway. Making lasagna nowadays is sort of anxiety-provoking because who needs a big lasagna pan full of delicious lasagna sitting around? Not me, and not anyone else trying to lose weight. But my hubby loves my lasagna, so I make it for him for special occasions. So, now I was getting ready to put the lasagna together, and realized that I only had enough noodles for 2 layers. That didn't really seem good. I have this big fancy lasagna pan that I bought a few years ago just so I could make the perfect lasagna in it, and it's a fantastic pan. But this time it would end up with a sort of shrunk-down skinny little lasagna. I was thinking about how it was probably for the best, that we should have a mostly vegetable (and less pasta) lasagna anyway, but sort of disappointed in myself for not getting more noodles at the store and having a disappointing lasagna for my husband's birthday (hormones, anyone?), when it finally dawned on me that I could just use a smaller pan.

Duh.

It just didn't occur to me, because I was making lasagna, so I have to use the lasagna pan, right? So I got out a 8x8 square dish that I have, and bingo, problem solved. A good lasagna, but less of it, so we don't have to gorge ourselves for days on end or force ourselves to throw away perfectly good food in the hopes of sparing our asses a few unnecessary calories. Sort of scary that it took so much thought to come up with that solution. But there you have it, your future nurse anesthetist, tackling the difficult problems of the autonomic nervous system AND how to make a smaller lasagna. I think I've pretty much tapped my mental resources for the day.

Mystery Fill

Thanks to Lori for her informative blog (Love My Lapband) and the link to the PBS special, FAT: What No One Is Telling You. I watched it tonight (click on the link) and most of the science presented is not new, but the stories provide great perspective on the complexity of the issue, and how being fat affects our lives. I really enjoyed it, and hope you do too. Lori is a filmmaker, and her blog compiles a lot of current information she finds about obesity and weight loss surgery (lap band in particular) in one handy place. She's interviewing bandsters and putting the interviews on her blog. It's a great resource, so go check it out.

Today I studied for my exam, then drove to Idaho for my fill, with my new surgeon's PA, a big, bald, bearded, tattooed man named Brian. He's very nice, very shoot-from-the-hip; he used to be a respiratory therapist before going to PA school, so he's "down" (as the kids used to say). He saw that my surgery was done elsewhere, so he started giving me the spiel about how the band only does part of the work and we have to make diet changes and exercise and all that, but eventually he backed off that when he realized that I'm doing all that stuff, and my original surgeon really did tell me all that stuff, and I do actually need a fill. Once again, he accessed my band, like Dr Pennings did last time, and pulled out only 2.0 ccs of fluid. That's what Pennings pulled out 6 weeks ago (I was supposed to be at 3.2cc from my surgeon in January), and he put a 0.5cc fill in. So we repeated the process, 2.0 there, add 0.5cc. We talked about where the fill went--I've been banded for a while, and researching for a while before that, and I've been online on all the forums with other bandsters, and no one has ever been able to explain where fluid goes from the band. Is there a leak, or does the water move osmotically across the silicone membrane of the band itself, or what exactly? Everyone gives a different answer, but I think the answer is actually "we don't know." It makes sense that if there was actually a leak, since the band is under pressure, it would be EMPTY by the time it gets checked again, even if the leak was tiny. So it's hard to imagine that it's an actual leak if I still have 2ccs in there after 6 weeks. But where does it go? It's a mystery. If I go back for another fill, and it's 2 ccs again, I might ask for a hair more fluid next time. I do NOT want to be tight, but I would like to hang on to the extra "help" from the band a little bit longer.

I have a weird relationship with fills, though. I am of the opinion, through watching others' experiences with bands, that I should work with as little fill as I can and still lose weight, if I want to keep my band forever. I don't want any complications and I don't want more band surgery. It makes sense that the stomach doesn't like any more pressure on it than necessary, so I don't want to clamp the thing down and make it swell and have problems, which is the most common precursor to complications like slips and erosions, from what I've read. A lot of people really rely on "restriction" to keep them eating tiny, tiny amounts and even rely on barfing and "PB"s to force them to stop eating. I think that is asking for trouble, personally. I'd rather have to do a little more work on my end to eat less and keep my stomach healthy. That's my personal belief, though.

Anyway, I went on my run this evening, which looked like it would be rainy but ended up being very nice. I found a cool Google-based site for figuring out the mileage of a route, called (not so creatively) Gmaps-pedometer. Really, they could have come up with something better. But I like the site. It's simple and accurate (based on satellite mapping and all). I got the url off that running wiki that I posted a few weeks ago, which again I say is a great resource for people just starting out like me. I ran/walked 4.5 miles today! W00T! My legs are pleasantly achey now, in a good way. There was also another good site mentioned on the wiki (there are several there for figuring out miles ran) that is widely used and has many posted running routes for Spokane in it, so I'm looking forward to trying some of them out. It's called MapMyRun.com. Didn't seem quite as easy to use, although I didn't spend a lot of time messing with it, but it had more saved routes in my area than Gmaps seems to.

Ugh, the thing I hate about fills: liquids! Both surgeons' offices I have worked with have required 24 hours of liquids after a fill to keep from irritating the stomach and causing swelling. Emma's office also would say to "take it easy" after that, meaning not go eat car parts or chicken bones, I guess, and slowly work back up to regular foods. Brian and Pennings just say the 24 hours of liquids. I am hungry, having only had soup tonight. I don't want to "eat" more, since I'm going to bed soon, but I am hungry still. How did I ever make it through bandster hell? I hate being hungry! But fortunately, it's only until tomorrow afternoon. I may have to have some more soup before going to sleep. Grr.

Progress Pics

Today is a bonus no-class day. I'm on my way to Rocket Bakery to study, then have a fill at 3pm in Idaho. Then this evening I plan another run up the South Hill. The weather is gorgeous this morning--clear skies, about 50 degrees, and it will get warmer later on.

Photos taken today: tulips in back yard, and progress pics at 175ish lbs. I'll put up a pre-op pic too, for comparison. Have a great day.

Suffering vs. Working

Thanks for the great comments on yesterday's post! It does feel good to reach this goal. I did want to clarify a bit--by saying I didn't "suffer" for it, I don't mean to imply that it wasn't hard work to get here. The eating part feels easy after years of diets, and being hungry all the time--I had to learn hard things, like how to resist emotional eating (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't) and how to tell real hunger from other little mind tricks, but the band has done what it was supposed to do, which is suppress my feelings of hunger. I went through "bandster hell" in the beginning, and didn't have any real restriction until almost 4 months after my surgery. And my weight loss felt incredibly slow for the first 6 months. Actually, it always felt slow. It WAS slow by many people's standards, which was my problem: I needed to go by my own standards, and compared to how I've lost weight in the past, this was fast. But once I got to a good fill level (after 3 fills) it usually hasn't been hard to eat properly, because it's pretty much how I've always eaten. I used to eat healthy meals, but too much of them, and way too many snacks (mostly sugary) in between. Getting to a more reasonable daily eating plan was not hard with my band, and I'm thankful for that. That's what I had surgery for!

The main work has been my exercise, but it hasn't been suffering, because the more active I've become, the more active I've wanted to be. I've advanced my activity level based on how my body felt--when I felt like I wanted to push more, I changed to something more intense. I've been working out 5-6 days a week for over a year now. It keeps me calm and sane. In February I felt the urge to start running, so I did a little quick reading to make sure I wouldn't hurt myself, and I started running. Now (after some trial and error that I've detailed in these posts) I run 3 days a week, swim one day, and am hoping to resume taking yoga once a week. I also lift weights 2 days a week. This seems like a good balance for me right now, and I feel great. So while I have certainly worked to lose weight, it's become a lifestyle that I enjoy--and the band (and the running) allows me to have treats from time to time without gaining weight back, and eat out without destroying my weight loss efforts. This is what I mean when I say I haven't suffered.

Tonight is a great example of how I am not suffering now. I just got back from a really great run up the South Hill, which took me about 50 minutes. I was wondering a few weeks ago how runners keep from getting bored when they run. Now I know: they leave the treadmill and get outside. I brought my iPod with me "just in case" but wanted to try running without earphones, and it was great. Without a treadmill to punch in my pace and incline, without a timer to watch, or a window to look out onto the same parking lot, I made my own pace according to how I felt--ran whenever I felt like I could, walked when I knew I needed to. I didn't think about time at all--time spent out there, time running versus time walking, nothing. In my 50 minutes, I probably ran about half of it, maybe even a bit more--but that didn't matter. My heart rate was in my training range the whole time, and more importantly, I got to see Spokane by foot. I discovered that the cliff that High Drive sits on, looking over the west valley, is totally blooming in yellow wildflowers--not Scotch broom, or dandylions or California poppies or any other weed, but something that looks like calendulas or black eyed Susans or something. It's really pretty, and there are trails cut into the hillside that I'm going to explore soon. I could even see the restaurant that hubby and I had a great meal at a couple of weeks ago--and it's kind of a distance away. The weather was perfect--dusk, about 60 degrees and clear, very slight breeze. It felt great to be out there, and I realized I was no longer running just because I could, but because it felt great and I loved it. That is a real revelation.

So, yes, I am working, but I repeat: I am NOT suffering.

Head Games

I'm thinking of doing a little series of posts about sports and head injuries, and about the NFL in particular. I'm not committing to it, because of school mainly, but I've had some thoughts kicking around in my head for a while that I think I'll write about. So let's pencil it in for now: Head Injuries and America's Gladiators.

Yes, I am a woman, but I also grew up as the only daughter in my family. My father is a football man, my older brother as well, and especially on Sundays, if I wanted to relate to most of my family, sports were necessary. It took me some years to become a true sports fan in my own right, but as an adult I came to love football, and then baseball, and then all sports.

But along the way, I became a trauma nurse, too. There are trauma nurses who love full-contact sports like football, but a lot of us have a hard time watching them. The first time I was turned off of football was the fall of 2000, when Curtis Williams, a safety for the University of Washington, sustained a spinal cord injury in a helmet-to-helmet collision while playing Stanford. At that time I had recently started working in trauma critical care and had taken care of many high quadriplegics and seen the devastating effects of these injuries. Curtis was a C2 quad and died just 18 months after he was injured, at age 24. Over time I took care of football players while working at Harborview, including a Seahawk who had sustained a career-ending head injury--his third head injury in 3 weeks, actually, which resulted in surgery to evacuate blood from his brain.

Watching 350 lb men flying into each other's heads and spines lost its joy for me. After every field collision I was watching the man at the bottom of the pile to see if he was moving. I understand that professional athletes are paid well for the work that they do, which is often what sports fans told me when I would express my reservations about football. And I accept that injuries and danger are parts of the sports we love. But most sports don't place their players' lives at such risk. Nearly everything that makes a person who he is, exists in the brain. Most people do not understand just how devastating even a mild head injury can be, how long it can take to recover, and what an impact it has on the sufferer's life. As for spinal cord injuries, they aren't as common as head injuries are in football, but they are at least as devastating. Most people don't relish the thought of being completely mentally intact but trapped in a body that no longer works, and at the complete mercy of others to accomplish every activity of daily living, even to breathe. Certainly other sports have their risk of injury, and you can get a head or spinal cord injury doing any sport, doing anything really, but for the most part you don't have nearly as much risk of losing your personality or your ability to care for yourself as a baseball or basketball player. I can watch Ken Griffey Jr. wreck his hamstring again, or any number of NBA players wreck their knees and ankles, but a head injury? That's not what sports are about for me.

Over the past few years, I've been drawn back into football, and the major cases of obvious head trauma and spinal cord injury have seemed to be fewer, which lulled me back into watching the game again. I gradually became less concerned for the massive bodies flying about the field. Let's face it, it's an exciting game, not only the sport and its players, but the pomp and mania that surrounds the football season. But recently I listened to a public radio program called The Infinite Mind. The episode was A Different Kind of Sports Legacy: Head Injuries and Concussions. The show featured Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard football player who became a pro wrestler for WWE (as "Chris Harvard") whose career ended after a series of concussions left him in constant agony. He couldn't figure out why his concussion--which is an injury most athletes learn not to take very seriously, and actually can't even accurately recognize--wasn't seeming to clear up after months. So, being a Harvard-educated guy, and a medical consultant, he hit the stacks and started looking at all the published research about concussion and particularly post-concussive syndrome. He wrote a book called Head Games: Football's Concussion Crisis, which is an excellent handbook for laypeople about concussions and sports, and upon which I'll base a lot of my series of posts on. Chris learned a number of things that really startled him about concussion, but the main things that spurred him to write the book were that it is estimated that only 10% of concussions that occur on the field are ever diagnosed, and the worst thing you can do after getting a concussion is go back out and play, which is almost always what happens, from the pee wee leagues to the NFL.

The worst case scenario for athletes who receive 3 or more concussions is cumulative trauma encephalopathy, or dementia pugilistica. This kind of brain damage causes personality changes, progressive dementia, depression, and has led to suicide in several prominent former NFL players, and probably to the suicide and double homicide committed by Chris Benoit, the former WWE wrestler. Sending young athletes back out on the field too soon after a concussion can also cause a rare but devastating brain condition called Second Impact Syndrome, in which the brain loses its ability to regulate the size of the blood vessels and massive cerebral edema ensues, which can rapidly kill the athlete. SIS is much more rare than CTE, but receives a lot more attention--perhaps this gives the public the impression that the serious sequellae of concussions are very rare, when in fact for a football player, or a wrestler, or boxer, or anyone who receives numerous blows to the head, CTE is not rare but is certainly devastating to the athlete and to his family.

If the NFL took care of its players after they received these injuries, it would be easier to cut them some slack. But Mike Webster, "Iron Mike" to Steelers fans, left the game completely debilitated by the effects of an estimated 25,000 on-field collisions over the course of his 17 year career. Instead of enjoying his retirement and Hall-of-Famer status, Mike ended up homeless, living out of his car, unable to remember where he was at times, incapable of making sound decisions, and begging his children to stun him into unconsciousness with a Taser so he could get some sleep. When he died at 50, his brain was examined by a neuropathologist who studies CTE, and found to have severe, extensive brain damage consistent with CTE. While Mike suffered, he applied to the NFL's retirement plan for active players' disability, but was denied. The owner of 4 Super Bowl rings didn't even have health care insurance. His story is extensive and sad, but also illustrates the lack of regard that the NFL has for the men who put people in the stands and who make money for the owners, and also the lack of knowledge about the "invisible" head injuries, which often aren't as obvious when they happen as a knee in a brace, or a guy on crutches.

In future posts, I'll talk more about the 4 NFL players who were recently diagnosed (post mortem) with CTE, as well as Chris Benoit's case, which the media and public fairly quickly (and inaccurately) dismissed as "roid rage" and forgot about. I'll talk about how athletes are taught to play injured, how coaches pressure trainers and teams pressure doctors to get players back out there, and about other famous athletes whose careers ended with post concussive syndrome. I also might talk about what football could do to reduce concussions and their sequellae (no, it's not better helmets). In the meanwhile, I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of Head Games, if this subject interests you. It's very well written, intended for the public, and particularly athletes at all levels and their families. It's a quick read, check it out.

The big 6-0

I finally made it: 174, 60 lbs gone. 14 to go. Woo hoo! I spent the weekend in Portland, NOT eating like a perfect bandster, but I did go for a couple runs with hubby, which was lots of fun.

This week is a light one at school. We had a big exam today for A&P, which was hard and awful. Now I have IVs in the morning, 0545, then pharm at 0800, then done for the day. Weds we have airway in the morning, Principles in the afternoon, then we are done for the rest of the week. How about that? Of course we have a pharm exam the next Monday, so we'll be studying all weekend. But today was a No Study Day. My classmates and I went for a margarita after the exam, to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. I had an enchilada, and some rice and beans. I didn't eat much, actually, but I'm sure it was about 1000 calories, with the margarita and the food--greasy American-style Mexican food, mmm. The rest of my eating today was pretty slim, so overall I probably came in around 1500 calories, and did a lot of walking. Tomorrow is a run day, after school, and after delivering flowers to our program director, who had spine surgery today.

I can't beleive I made it to 60 lbs lost. It took me 14 months. A lot of people can do that just with dieting, but for me it's a miracle. And I didn't have to suffer for it--just ate less, tried to make good food choices 85% of the time, and lots of exercise. This is something that is sustainable as a lifestyle, not some severely calorie restricted diet with constant hunger pains. I've had no typical Bandster mishaps with barfing or reflux or too-tight fills, my restriction level has been pretty good for about 9 months, and no complications. And I'm almost at goal! Unbelievable.