A new day (initially posted 2 May 2015)

I'm starting this blog, because I need to talk about things and say things and I know I won't always want to worry my family with it. Writing and the written word are my way of working through things, so this is my way of doing that...working through things and also to let family and friends know what is going on, without having to continually repeat things...which at this point only makes me cry.
Yesterday my husband, Trevor, had a fall while hiking. He's a seasoned hiker, who spent a lot of time on the mountain, we do not know exactly what happened, even though family and friends were with him, including my eldest daughter Seleste and my son Matthew, but they didn't see exactly what happened.
I was not with them and when Seleste, phoned me, at first I thought she was playing a joke on me (Trevor is part of a mountain rescue group and we always joked that he must never fall, because it will be embarassing for a rescuer to be rescued), when I realized she wasn't joking, all I could do was cry and my mind went blank and I had no idea what to do....but then I realized I was still in my pajamas so I should probably get dressed. By the time I got clothes ready, my younger daughter, Nicole had arrived at my house with her boyfriend, Kevin (they had not gone on the hike and Seleste had phoned her to tell her to come to me) and I asked them to take me to the bottom of Table Mountain, which is the mountain they were hiking on.
The news I had at that point, was vague and I knew it was a fairly bad fall and that he had a laceration on his head and it seemed that his shoulder was dislocated, but that he was conscious and talking. When I got over the first shock of what happened, I was not too concerned, I was thinking...okay, its a concussion, he will probably have to spend the night in hospital and have his shoulder strapped up.
The rescue team, Skymed, Metro Rescue Hikers Network and the Mountain Club of South Africa (forgive me if I've left anyone out), were all awesome. They were so concerned for Trevor and for all of us. Thank goodness for cellphones and whatsapp, because it helped me keep in touch with Seleste and Matthew on the mountain and with everyone else. There was quite a long wait till Trevors extration from the mountain could be arranged, but with him involved in mountain rescue, I knew all that was involved which took time.
When the chopper landed and I could finally see Trevor, that was when my panic really started. He was so pale and seemed to struggle to open his eyes when I spoke to him and his eyes were rolling back in his head....it was then that I had the feeling that things could maybe be worse than I had thought, but what the 'worse' might be...my mind just refused to comprehend. Nicole, Kevin and I followed the amulance to the hospital and then was more waiting, while Trevor's condition was assessed by the trauma doctor. After a lengthy and worrying wait, during which more family and friends arrived, including Matthew and Seleste who had had to walk down to mountain before they could come to the hospital, we finally got news from the doctor and it wasn't good news.
He told us that Trevor's condition was serious and that at that point in time, it seemed that he might be quadraplegic, but that they had called in a neurosurgeon for a consult. I'm sure all the blood drained from my face and I suddenly realized the full horror of this and that my thoughts of an overnight stay and strapped shoulder was way too far from reality. I didn't know what to say and in my head I just kept thinking it was some bad dream, that they must be wrong, that this is NOT something that would happen to Trevor. I think the only thing that kept me going, was that thought that it surely must be wrong...this can't be happening...Trevor is a hiker, a runner, an active person....this just can't happen to him...it just can't.
Later, we got more news....there was damage to the vertebrae in Trevor's neck and some swelling of the spinal cord, we were told that he seemed to have movement in his arms, but that we need to be aware, that full recovery of mobility with an injury like this was rare. Rare...that is the word that is keeping us all going I think...that means, there is still hope, even if its slight.
The neurosurgeon was great, he explained things in a way that was easy for us to grasp and later in the surgical ICU, the sisters were all great too and the anesthesiast too. All that helped a lot. Trevor was operated on in a 3.5 hour surgery to try to at least realign the vertabrae a bit more normally and the surgeon was happy with how it went.
Now comes the waiting game and many, many visits to the hospital. We have been told that it will be about 5 days in ICU, then a stay in the general ward and after that rehab, but it looks like it will be at least 3 months before he might come home again. At this point, I'm not sure how much Trevor has compreheneded about what happened and his condition, I'm hoping he will be more aware when we go visit him today.
I have done a lot of crying....when I go on fb and see the comments and messages...it gives me comfort, but each comment or message also makes me cry more....such stupid silly things make me cry now. Yesterday, just before all this happened, I had filled the sink to do dishes and when I got up this morning after having only about 2 hours of sleep, I decided that was something that had to get dealt with, but even something as silly as washing Trevor's mug just made me cry. Then I remembered that last night I had put the washing that has been wet in the washing machine into the tumble dryer, so I went to get it out and some of Trevor's clothes were in there, so of course, I cried again...then as I sorted out the washing...I suddenly realized that it might be a while before I need to wash any of Trevor's clothes again and so yet again I started crying.
I gave up for a bit and made a cup of tea, but then remembered that Trevor's glasses were lost on the mountain, so I needed to see if I could find his previous pair for him to wear. I seached high low in the house in all the places Trevor puts his things, but all I could find was a VERY old pair of glasses from too many years ago, at that point I just sat down on the floor and sobbed. I feel so helpless...I know what its like to not see well (I wear glasses too) and I can't even help him with that....nothing I can do can help him. I know when he is more aware, I can ask him where his glasses are and bring them to him or get him new ones....but it kinda devastates me that I can't even do the simplest thing to make him more comfortable.
I know that in the days and weeks to come there are going to be many such moments for me and for all of us and its just something we will all have to help each other through...There were a few times I broke down and cried yesterday at the scene and later at the hospital, but I find it difficult to cry when everyone needs to feel strong....its when I'm alone that I feel I can freely cry as much as I want without making people worry more. I know they won't mind if I cry in front of them....but this is who I am....I'm the person who prefers to cry alone and be strong when others are around....its the reason I asked to be alone when I got home last night....I needed that time to just be able to cry without anyone worrying about me, we all have enough to worry about right now.

Long time no blog

Well, its been a long time since I've written anything here LOL

We bought a new tent yesterday, so looking forward to going camping at Palmiet at the end of this month as we haven't been camping for a long time.

This is the tent we bought. I like it because it has a built in gazebo/veranda. It can be opened on all three sides or closed on all three or any variations thereof, so its easy to stop wind/sun etc but still have some open hair in front of the tent. The actual 'room' part of the tent, is a bit smaller than our previous tent but big enough for our blow up mattrass and our bags etc. I can't wait to use it.

I've also been finding some braai/camping recipes so we can try some new things, instead of the same old braai and toasted sarmies all the time. I've found some good ones to try. I'll blog about them after I've tried them so you know if they are worth it or not.

FAI (hip impingement) Diagnosis

For a while now I've been having pain in my hip, sometimes my groin, lower back on the same side while running. So I toned down my training to see if it would get better. It didn't, it got worse, so eventually I stopped training altogether for two weeks. After the two weeks, I tried walking only, but there was still pain.

I then went to my doc, who manipulated my hip some, poked and prodded the area while I was 'ow-ing' and 'ouch-ing' and said it seemed to be bursitis and a course of anti-inflammatories should clear it up. I limped home (all the poking and proding made it worse of course *sigh*) and started the anti-inflammatories, so that was another week of rest. At the end of the course, the pain was still there, so it was back to the doc.  He said a cortisone injection into my hip would probably be the next step, but needed to be done by an ortho. He also mentioned the possibility of X-rays and a soft tissue scan. He then sent me to an orthopaedic surgeon for investigation.

Now that I've started running and seeing the benefits in fitness and weight loss, any curtailing of that annoys me immensely :( I wanted to get back to running ASAP, so I was hoping for just the cortisone and no further tests - yeah I wish......

I went to my ortho appointment and he also prodded and poked and manipulated (and I ended up limping more again *sigh*) then said he wanted me to go for X-rays. Soooooooo, off to the radiologists I went, duly got X-rayed and limped back up to the orthos rooms to show him the pics. He took the pics out of the envelope and I was expecting the usual "There doesn't seem to be any problem there" that I have got every other time I've been for X-rays for anything, but instead he studied, looked, ran his finger over the pic in certain areas, looked some more, brought them up on his laptop, made them larger, looked some more.....By now I was getting kinda worried, I mean if nothing was wrong, he didn't need to look so closely - right??

He then put the pics down and looked at me and said "You have some impingement". I must have looked a bit blank, so he proceeded to explain and show me what he meant on the pics. A good explanation (better than I can give) is here: http://www.sportsortho.co.uk/article.asp?article=67

It didn't sound too bad I thought (at this point thats what I thought), but I asked some questions and he gave me some answers. There was also bursitis, so I duly got the cortisone injection into my hip, which wasn't nearly as painful as the ones I had in each shoulder late last year by the same ortho. He said I must have some physio and come back and see him in a month and we would take it from there. I then asked him the million rand question "What is the worst case scenario?" The worst case scenario it seems will be some kind of scope into my hip to see if there is any pathology. I limped out of his rooms feeling vaguely happy that I now knew what the problem was and it was being treated - little did I know.....

This morning I started doing some research on hip impingement, which I discovered is FAI ( the full name is in the article above) and boy did I start getting worried!!!! Then I discovered this blog http://www.understandingfai.com/2008/07/my-story.html and learned a whole lot more, straight from the horses mouth and I'm really thankful to Vanessa's blog because it gave me the best info possible, from the patients point of view. Some of it also scared the hell out of me, especially the painful MRI procedure (although she says the second was better than the first). I'm still in the early stages of my treatment though, so it remains to be seen how far I will need to go and I'm really thankful to my doc and the ortho that it was diagnosed quite early it seems so I may not have too much damage.

I'll let you know how things unfold further down the line :)

PS: One last thing, the ortho initially said 4 weeks rest and I moaned and groaned and mentioned my Two Oceans Half Marathon entry, so he relented and said 1 week rest and then very light training for a while thereafter :)

Camping in the Cederberg

This weekend we were lucky enough to go camping at Jamaka in the Cederberg :) Camping is something we do fairly often in the summer and normally I/we start preparing about a week in advance, checking all the crates of camping stuff, making sure everything is clean and everything is there and restocking what needs to be replaced. Food shopping is normally done about 2 days before the time, except for the stuff that needs to be bought at the last minute.

This time however, we only knew for certain on Wednesday that Trevor (and the other people going as well) had leave, so shopping, packing and everything else had to be done on Thursday evening as we were leaving early Friday morning. It was a big hectic, but all got done - if a bit haphazzardly LOL

*sings* It was a long and winding road......LOL well not really, but it was long and hot and I was grateful for our cars aircon.

There were two stop/go areas along the way in both there and back we had good luck, mostly just driving on through, but at the most we had to wait about a minute and a half :) When we arrived I was pleased to see that there weren't many people there, which I prefer as this is a LARGE campsite and the ablution fascilities, although nice enough, aren't really enough to cope with a full campsite. Setting up camp went well with a bit of 'sun tracking' to decide where the best place to pitch the tents would be to keep them as much in the shade as possible.

As you can see, Trevor was taking a well deserved rest in the hammock after doing most of the setting up. I did help though LOL. On the whole, the weather was nice if a bit too hot at times. The main problems were the strong gusts of wind (it was quite windy the whole weekend) and most of all, the midges, which were REALLY annoying *sigh* Luckily the swimming pool in the river is lovely so we spent a lot of time cooling down in it.

The campsite is lovely, with LOTS of trees, but you do need to pick your site carefully if you're there in the hot weather. Some of the sites are in shade all day, but others may have morning or afternoon sun or partial shade only. The website for the camp has a map of the (old) campground and if you click on the number of the site, you can see a pic of the site  http://nieuwoudt-farm.com/Welcome/index.html The mountains and vegetation is beautiful and this was the view from out tent in the morning...

On Saturday morning, Trevor and I decided to take a walk to look at the 'new' campsite and look for the horses that are there, because I wanted to take some pics of them. This is apparently where I got sunburned without realizing it :( because I didn't put on sunblock :( When we got near the new campsite and were crossing the logs across the drift with Trevor going first, I saw 'somebody' running to meet him LOL

He was a real cutiepie and followed us everywhere like a dog.

 I called him Bokmakierie but I have no idea if he has an actual name.

 Every now and then he would butt behind Trevor's legs, not with any malice, just a kind of pushing :) He even followed Trevor into the ablution block LOL. He followed us when we started back to our own campsite but when we got to the gate, we had to leave him behind, he wasn't impressed.....

Later in the day, the 'herder' drove the whole herd of goats and sheep through the campsite.

The rest of the weekend went by great with lots of swimming in the lovely cool water (luckily not too cold or I probably never would have got in).The temperature was 44 on the last day. This is the second time we have been to Jamaka and we'll definately go again because thank goodness its not tooooooo far along the gravel road and we found a better gravel road to travel on to get there, through Clanwilliam - much easier on our car.

Runaholic

Hmmm, I've come to realize something about myself and I'm not sure if its a Sagitarian trait or a Carol trait. I seem to 'latch onto' things and for a while they become all consuming in my life, then suddenly they take a backseat to the next 'latched onto' thing.... The things in the backseat always remain in my life, but aren't foremost anymore.

At the moment its running. If someone had told me six months ago that I'd be running now, I'd have laughed them all the way out of Cape Town, but here I am, fretting because I'm on rest days and can't go out and run :(  Running at the moment is my all consuming passion, and it seems to be all I can think about. I 'troll' the running sites, read running & health mags, scan adverts for running gear and am getting quite knowlegeable about running injuries and their solutions. Conversations and facebook statuses always seem to be about running. Geez, I must be quite boring at the moment to any non-runners LOL

To tell you the truth, I find it quite fascinating how obsessed I have got and I'm still shocked at the fact that i'm still running approx 4 months after I started. I used to read those articles about people who said that they couldn't get through the day without their run and I'd laugh and think "how pathetic, surely they have to be kidding", but no, they weren't and now I'm one of the pathetic ones hehehehe

Initially I was very firm on my intentions, I wanted to get fit, get healthy and lose weight, but wasn't really interested in running races. Oh how I was kidding myself :-) I was very genuine about that at the time and to be honest, that is still my main aim, but having set myself a goal of running a race and having done it and survived, something changed.

Yes, for me the training is still the most important thing, but there's something about running a race, that gives you motivation and a boost of confidence. Coming to the end of a race and having people cheer you on, even if you are right near the back of the pack. Mostly those people are strangers who don't even know you and yet still root for you. Its a great feeling :-)

Running has done a lot for me. Its making me more healthy, its getting me fit, its helping me lose weight, but the MOST IMPORTANT thing it has done for me is change my attitude and mood. Finishing a training session exactly as specified makes me so proud of myself and what I have achieved, its SUCH an ego boost to know that I CAN DO THIS!!! I get such a 'high' from running and it carries me though the day, through the week, through the month etc.

Having now done two 10km races and had my first 'runners' injury, I can now confidently say that I'm a runner. I'm proud to be a runner, in all my obsessed, boring to non-runner, glory *HUGE GRIN* (wanna check out my medals hehehehee)

ProSano 10km Road Race - hosted by Telkom Athletics Club

Sooo, yesterday the BIG DAY finally arrived, the day of our club race. Now, as helpers on the day, we had to get up at 4am to get ready and be there at 5am to do final setting up before people started arriving at 5.30am for registration. There were two problems with this, firstly, I woke up at 12am and couldn't get back to sleep so REALLY didn't want to get up at 4am and secondly, some peeps arrived just after 5am to register, before we were even ready - such eager beavers at that time of day LOL.

Our awesome sponsors ProSano, gave us GREAT long sleeved T's to wear, which made me very happy and a cap as well, great style, great quality. They also provided some great spot prizes for after the race. Their sponsorship helps to make this a great race, thanks ProSano :-)

I was helping out at the registration of Grand Masters - these are peeps of 60+ years who are doing the 10km run. What an inspiration they were, still running at their ages and in lots of cases getting awesome times too. One of my fav local runners, Vladimir Kotov also entered and won the race in his catagory. This guy is amazing, he just keeps going and almost seems to get better the older he gets LOL. I got my shoes from his shop in Century City and was very happy with his assesment and assistance in chosing shoes - and his prices are great too :-)

By this time I was starting to get nervous, as I was running the race too. Each person that registered at my table, was a reminder that I was going to be undertaking my second 10km race Eeeeeeekk. At 6.40am I had to leave my table to get ready for the race - it was now really a reality. So I took off my track pants and my nice ProSano T, got my USN sport drink and went to line up. My sisters-in-law, Tracy and Glenda were also doing the race, so I was chatting to them while waiting for the start.

And then the gun fired, I started my stopwatch and we were off. I let Tracy and Glenda go off in front of me, cause I'm nowhere near their level yet, they've been at this longer than I have. I had decided that I was gonna try do it in 1h20, but was a bit wishy washy in the beginning with regard to how I was gonna organize that. By about the 2km mark though, I had a plan. To get my 1h20, I knew at what time I needed to get to each km marker, so I decided that I would jog to each km marker and when I got there, I would walk for approx 2mins to recover, then jog to the next km marker.

LOL, my watch and those km markers became my friends and to get myself through it, I'd start taking to the km markers before I got to them (in my head of course, don't want those other runners to know I'm insane hehehe). So as I knew the 5km marker (for eg) was coming up, I'd start this conversation in my head "Where are you 5km marker, I know you're here somewhere. I'm getting to you, don't you be worried, I'll be there soon" etc etc. When I actually SPOTTED the marker the conversation would get more interesting hehehe "Oh there you are my angel, I see you, don't worry, I'll be with you soon, here I come..." All this said with a silly grin on my face cause I was so pleased to see the marker LOL. It may sound totally mental, but it woked like a bomb :-)

However, I have to confess, that at about the 5km mark, I was starting to think that I was seriously insane to be doing this and was really wondering if I could finish it. However, as I had a plan to get to the end, I just kept plodding on.

There was one drawback on the course though and that was running past a solid waste treatment plant (I can't remember at what point in the course it was, probably about the 3 or 4km mark I'd say). Eeeewwwww, the smell was disgusting, but on the plus side, it did motivate me to keep on running, maybe even a little faster LOL

Getting back to CPUT campus was great, because I knew that at that point I had about 2.5km more to go. All the way along, I was on track for my 1h20. In the beginning I was reaching most of the km markers BEFORE the time I needed to be there for my time, and that was great because it gave me more leeway when walking, I could relax and recover a bit more. In the last 3km's though, I was reaching the km mark exactly when I needed to so I had to make sure that I didn't walk for more than 2mins and I had to walk pretty fast when I did walk. It was back in the campus that Trevor, my hubby (who was doing marshelling inside the campus) got these shots of me running.

Thats me in the navy blue, light blue cap and black compression socks

At this point I was still on track for my 1h20, although I was VERY tired, so needed to work hard to keep it up. I was REALLY happy to see the finish line in sight and eventually finished in 1h19m which made me very happy. Having my two sil's there shouting for me at the finish was awesome too :-)  All finishers of the 10km race got a medal and a pair of socks which was great.

I was a VERY tired, but VERY happy runner at the end. The race in my opinion was very successful and it seems that ProSano and Telkom Athletics Club make an awesome team. A lot of work goes into hosting a race like this and if I remember correctly there were about 120 or so helpers on the day to make sure that everything went smoothly and it did. Well done ProSano and Telkom Athletics Club, really a job well done!!!!

Oh and well done to me too hehehehe

I'm very happ

Shin splints day 3

Well, yet another day and the shinsplints are still a problem. In all the research I've been doing and all the friends I've been asking, one product keeps coming up and thats 'a blue gel in a big tub which is for horses' that one can buy at a vet shop LOL. Well I never, runners really will do anything hehehe

I eventually found out that the stuff is called Arnica Ice and my awesome little local chemist (Bothasig Pharmacy) actually had it so I've bought a tub to give it a try. Its ingredents are: Arnica oil 1%, menthol 1% (and boy can you smell it LOL), camphor 0.6% and witch hazel 0.6% so it sounds a lot more natural that some of the other stuff. At R56.95 for a 500g tub, its not bad value either. I also checked with my pharmacist about the anti-inflamatories and I'm glad I did. She told me that I could take Inza (which I generally use for headaches etc anyway) and that I should take 1 or 2, 200mg tabs three times a day, BUT, she said that if I was running on Saturday, which I intend to, that I should only take the Inza today and tomorrow, then stop, because apparently it has an impact on the kidneys and so does running, so to combine the two would not be a good thing to do.

So, I'm now doing the anti-inflamatories x 3 daily for two days, I'm using the compression socks in the morning and will use the arnica ice afternoon and evening. Hopefullly all of that and the days rest until Saturday (I'm still not running) will make me okay to run the race.

Last night I also went to our final club meeting before the race on Saturday, I still can't get over the amount of work that goes into hosting a race and by the way LOL, I've been roped into helping too, even though I will be running on the day. Sooooo, that means that I will probably have to get up at 4am on Saturday morning to get ready and be at the race venue at 5am, ready to set up and help out. Then at 7am, I'll be running my legs off for 10km.....

Hold thumbs for me that all goes well and I'll be A-Okay to run on Saturday....