Labs Labs Labs

    If you've ever trained for something like a half-marathon, or a marathon you can relate to what I have experienced for the last 3 months. At the beginning, as with most things, you are full of energy and determination. You stick strictly to the protocols of when you run, how far you run, etc. You're like a machine. Then somewhere around the month and a half mark, you are running further than you've ever run before and you start to get bored. In my case not only because its tough to stick with the schedule, but also because you're doing it alone. 

     Now I wasn't completely A-L-O-N-E, I had Poppy, the wonder dog. Poppy isn't the greatest conversationalist. Don't get me wrong, I talk to her while we're running, but usually her answer is just a smiley, panting face, looking up at me for a few seconds. I'm not sure how wise it was, but I took Poppy on every single one of my training runs, including the longest, long-run, of 12 miles. She was a little sore that night, but not because of the 12 miles, more because these miles were completed at Umsted Park, which meant a lot of time off-leash. All in all, Poppy probably went more like 14 or 15 miles that day because she never ran a straight path. It looked more like this. . .

      I love my dog's joy!  But the night after our 12+ mile run, Poppy was sore for the first time. It broke my heart to see her limp after getting up from her bed, so the next day I did what any veterinarian would do, I wrote a prescription for Adequan. Over-reaction? Probably, but I knew it couldn't hurt. It was a stretching experience just giving my own dog an intramuscular injection, but being a lab, she was a good first patient. 
     
     A few days ago I took Poppy in for a bath at our local pet store.  Whenever I am leaving to visit home I like to make sure Poppy looks her best for the dog walker. As I was signing the necessary release forms the attendant asked me how old Poppy was. I told her that she was almost 8 years old. The attendants response, "Well since she's O-L-D you will need to initial here as well." OLD?! I was shocked. "Excuse me?" I replied. "Eight is not o-l-d. My dog just ran 12 miles with me. She is the picture of health and is nowhere near being old."

      I think that people are so used to seeing obese labradors, dogs that are old before their time, that they assume every labrador has a shortened life-span but that isn't the case. Labradors are highly active companions that need regular exercise but are so easy going and food loving, that they will be happy to sit with you on your couch and eat popcorn.  If your labrador has a few pounds to lose, make it a team effort. Get your dog in shape, make it a goal for keeping them healthy as long as you can and I bet you'll find you are healthier too.

     The half-marathon was a total success! I ran the whole thing, no need for breaks. I was able to stick closely to the pace I wanted, finishing with an average of 10:22. I would have liked it to be under 10:00, but that can be a goal for next time. Its a great sense of accomplishment and I'm blessed that my body was able to withstand the training. I don't know if I'll do a full marathon or not, for now, I'm basking in the joy of crossing one more physical goal off my Life's Goals List. 

     If you're interested in training for a half marathon, there are plenty of good free protocols out there on the web. I just googled it and found one that would work for my schedule. Good luck!

For fun, here's a little information about Labrador Retrievers:

Poppy in our back yard in Dixon, CA 2012

 The Labrador retriever was established in Newfoundland, where they helped fishermen pull in their nets and caught fish that were attempting a getaway. Through various cross-breedings the line was perfected to be a true retriever of game and thus is found in the "sporting group." Labs thrive as members of an active family or as hunting dogs. They are considered highly trainable with an even temperament. Bear in mind. . . they shed. . . a LOT. Based on the American Kennel Club rankings, for the last two years, Labs have been the #1 dog in America. For more information about this awesome breed of dog, visit the American Kennel Club Association website at www.akc.org.

If you would like more information about Adequan, you can visit their website at http://www.adequancanine.us/ or for horses www.adequan.com. This is a prescription medication that you must obtain from a licensed veterinarian. If you have a dog or horse that has discomfort from osteoarthritis pain, then I recommend asking your veterinarian about this medication. It never hurts to ask and your veterinarian will know best if this medication is right for your pet.
     

The Burn Out

Its Saturday morning and I have no patients in the hospital! A rare and wonderful occurrence. While I am normally excited to try to squeeze in the morning pilates class at the Y, (Saturday mornings with Anette are the best!) today I decided a morning off was what the doctor ordered.

So now here I am, on this delightful Saturday morning and I couldn't think of a nicer way to spend it than sipping a cup of coffee and catching my friends up on my life.  By the way, with my cup of coffee I am enjoying some yummy blueberry muffins I made.
I got the recipe from a paleo recipe website. The link is underneath the picture, just look up the Simple Blueberry Muffin :)

Simple Blueberry Muffin from www.paleomg.com

     That segways nicely to one new life update; I'm trying the paleo diet. I'm sure you all had immediate, visceral, responses to that statement. Some of you thought, "cool!" However, the vast majority of you thought, "oh brother." Now don't rush into judgement. I'm not trying to lose a ton of weight or anything but I'm trying to see if its easier to develop lean muscle without all those carbs in my diet. Its a hard diet though, I'm not going to lie. No sugar. . . no potatoes, . . . no grains, which means pasta and bread people, no legumes, and no dairy. I'm not being crazy religious about this. For example, I still have milk in my tea and soy milk in my coffee, but I'm doing my best to stay within the guidelines.

     The idea to try the paleo diet grew out of a general desire to be more healthy and see more benefits from my workouts. A few months ago I decided that it was time to attack one of the items on my bucket list. With that, I looked up a schedule online and started training for a half marathon. Some of you may have noticed the facebook posts from mapmyrun. I'm currently up to 11 miles for my long runs and I have managed to maintain a 10min/mile pace, which is my goal.  Tomorrow, I'm supposed to run 12 miles, the farthest I will run prior to the half marathon on March 17th. I get nervous before every long run, afraid that I will fail, run out of energy, or not have the mental toughness to finish it out. Poppy has been training alongside me the whole way, like a champ. She helps keep me going!

MARCH 17TH!!!

     Finally, an update about the internship, especially since that's what this blog is supposed to be about.  I would be lying or at least withholding information if I didn't say that I'm struggling at the moment.  Start with a complete lack of motivation.  I think I'm just burned out at the moment.  It is so difficult to get anything done!  Many days I could fulfill all my duties by lunchtime and yet, there I am at 5pm still trying to get things accomplished.  It can be very frustrating and demotivating.  Add to that the fact that I get paid less than the technicians I work with (yes, literally and by 30%) and the fact that sometimes students really aren't nice and you've got a real winner of a career going.

     As an intern, you are actually the least important person in the hospital.  The students often think they know as much as you do, until it comes time to write their surgery reports or discharge instructions or do a procedure they've never done and then they look at you with that blank and innocent expression and say, "well I've never done this before." The kicker is when you get a student's evaluation and it goes something like this, "Dr. Riley had been up all night (actually, I had been up for over 48 hours) and while I understand she is tired, she's being a little cranky and she just needs to suck it up because that's her job."  Excuse me while I punch you in the face child.

   Speaking of students though, I don't want to leave you with the impression that they are all bad.  I spent Thursday night at a dive hotel, . . . where there were . . beeeed buuuugsss.  Yah, no joke. I was with a group of students (the awesome ones) and we took a trip to the foot of the mountains where we spent the whole day Friday castrating wild horses.  An amazing woman from the National Park Service came with us and darted individual stallions in the herd.  Once the stallion went down (usually 5-10 minutes later), we would anesthetize the horse and castrate it.  This was an awesome adventure with the students and it felt great to be doing something to help the population of abandoned horses. Once they are castrated they can be adopted out and find forever homes. What was not great. . . was the bed bugs. I actually didn't see any in my room, but apparently they like to travel room-to-room. We got home late Friday night and after putting e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g into the wash, I hit the hay.

Some of the great students I work with, rocking a castration

  I only have 4 months left in my internship and I want to finish strong.  I'm visiting home soon and I hope that it will revive and refresh me for the last push.  As far as the next stage, I'm looking for a job!  Ideally, I would move back to the west coast and do sports medicine and internal medicine.  Keep your ears open friends!

The Big D: where D = Decision

How many decisions do you make in a day? Probably hundreds; brushing your teeth before or after you take out the garbage, what you're going to have for breakfast, what kind of beverage you want at Starbucks and whether or not you've really earned that scone.  While it is likely, and for your sake I hope, you don't have to stop and pro-con these decisions, there are decisions that we make in our lives that take some serious puzzling over. . . . I was recently faced with one of these decisions.

The decision was weather to apply for residency in internal medicine or to seek employment in the private sector.

Throughout my academic career I've made some important, big decisions.  Yet, no matter how many times God has shown Himself to be faithful in guiding me through these big decisions, I worry. I worry that I will make the wrong decision and what would that mean? To help myself, I picture first one option in its most bleak, deplorable and soul-wrenchingly unhappy state, then the other.  As you can imagine, this does a lot to help eliminate fear from the decision making process.  For the present decision my imaginings looked something like this. . .

Residency:

I'm sitting in a foal box. I smell like Salmonella diarrhea. I haven't slept in 3 days, the passing of which I can only determine by the technicians changing shifts.  The only thing I've eaten over the last three days is fast food. I've put on 10 pounds. My research is falling apart, I can't seem to get my case report written, there's a student, who's totally smarter than me, asking me questions about acid-base balance and I've just been told a second foal is on its way in. I want to die.

Private Practice: 2 scenarios

Scenario 1 - It's my first on call weekend at the practice and my "mentor" has decided to head off to Yosemite National Park with his family.  .  . no cell reception. The emergency calls have not stopped all weekend long.  All I've eaten is fast food. I've put on 10 pounds.  Tonight, I've already sent 2 colics to a referral facility, one of which died upon arrival, most likely because I waited too long to send it in. The second fixed itself on the way and the owner is convinced that I just didn't know what I was doing and overreacted.  I arrive at my current call. . . did I mention that its cold and starting to drizzle?  When I arrive at the breeding farm, of what is quite possibly our largest client, the owner informs me that the horse is a newly acquired youngster, bought at a show a week ago. Apparently the horse started showing respiratory signs a few days ago and then he spiked a fever.  Oh, and its the weirdest thing doc, now he's acting depressed and seems a bit ataxic. I want to die.

Scenario 2 - I can't find a job

Faced with these bleak options I attempted to make a decision. Now truly I made my decision with a lot more truth and hope involved. In the end, I felt like God was asking ME, "what feels right?" No matter how much I wanted to drive myself onward, always pushing, never wanting to settle for "less." I kept feeling peace, when I thought of giving up the idea of residency for now.  I feel ready to start this whole life thing. To have a chance to dream about settling, rooting and investing. I may come back to a residency.  I'm not eliminating that option one bit.  However, I feel excited to see where God is going to take me.  I feel like I have room again, to dream about what might be.

Poppy at Medoc Mountain State Park