bitter magnet

if you haven't seen it already, you should really go out and see Michael Moore's new movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11." I'm no flaming liberal (i'm an independent), but i think the movie raised a lot of awareness of a really important issues that george w. bush screwed up on (re: 9/11, war in Iraq). And it's all based on actual facts/footage that for some reason were left out in the American media (some of that stuff is shown in BBC or on other european networks). I swear, anyone who sees this movie and still votes for W must seriously have his/her head examined!

well i *did* do some work over the weekend so i don't feel too bad. :)

so weekend recap: Thursday i noticed a worsening pain in my lower back (much like the piriformis/sciatica pain i had over IAP). It felt the same way--first like a really tight muscle, and then a sharp nerve pain that radiated outwards. It was on the right side...it was literally a pain in the ass. :) Anyways, i went to physical therapy again, and the guy did a deep tissue massage on it, which i think helped. Oh, and i started again on the NSAIDs, by just popping 4 ibuprofen's at every meal.

Friday morning i went to Olin College in Needham, to do some more light-emission experiments. This time I got to drive Civic Claire from Kresge (IMHO, she's better than the Focus Frieda that was there before). However all the driving was sooo stressful (both physically and psychologically) and the pain got worse when i got there. I was a bit early so i spend some time stretching in the parking lot (other folks must have thought i was insane). While i was in the lab, i didn't notice the pain as much, but when i got back (after going to wholefoods for a few groceries) i lay down in Ashdown and the pain got a lot worse. Michael came over and we took a taxi to MIT Urgent Care (3rd visit!). It took forever to get seen, but the lady was kind of helpful. She gave me some handouts on piriformis syndrome and ITBS (most of the stuff i already knew), an injection (to help the pain), and some prescriptions (Flexeril, muscle relaxant and Tylenol with codeine). I didn't feel much better with them (i felt drowsy as hell though) but i figured i should try to take them for a few days to let the muscles relax. That day we didn't get back till 4pm for lunch. Michael and I ended up watching "The Truman Show."

Saturday - in the morning, did some work (analysed all the data from first experiment in MATLAB). Watched "Tarzan" with Michael. I can't remember what else i did that day, i was soo tired and groggy.

Sunday - Still feeling groggy. It's difficult to hold a single thought in my mind. I do some internet searches on piriformis syndrome, and come across this interesting site: http://www.runningpain.com . It basically said that a lot of chronic pains endured by runners (sciatica, lowerback pain, hip/leg/feet pain) is a result of inner tension that has built up. Ok, so i bet you're thinking, that's a crock. I kind of thought that too, but after thinking about it for a bit, you realize it's not too crazy at all. I mean, if people get severe headaches and stomach ulcers due to stress, then it's totally insane to imagine that people can get leg pain from the same reason!

Anyway, the description also said that the pain tends to spread, which is true in my case. At first it was my legs, and then it was this piriformis/sciatica thing!! Also, coincidentally (or maybe not!) my stomach hasn't hurt for the past 6 weeks or so (maybe my mind decided to attack my knees instead of my intestines!).

Soo..i ordered this guy's book via Amazon, looking forward to reading it. I went of the medication yesterday (after breakfast on Sunday, no more pills except for vitamins and natural supplements) and am actually feeling better!! The ITB pain is still there, but the sciatic pain is 80% gone. :)

milestones: i was able to walk all the way from Fenway movie theather to Pad Thai restaurant (0.2 mi?) and then from restaurant to Ashdown (about 0.6 miles?) with very little pain. I was also able to sit through the entire movie ("Fahrenheit 9/11") without any sciatica pain. happy to be getting better!!

i went off the NSAIDs (read: ibuprofen) today, as i finished the prescription. it better be better from now on.

injuries are a bitch!

p.s. why don't i listen? at the TNT clinics, people were saying over and over again that stretching, massage, etc is really important. yet i didn't listen, and here i am.

argh.

it's such a nice day outside (sunny, warm), and i'm in the lab. :( work is going well, but when the summer rolls around, it's always so difficult to get motivated.

oh, and yesterday i went to physical therapy (it's called Back on Track, and i went to the one in Harvard Square) and it was really great--i think it helped a lot. The therapist used ultrasound therapy on IT bands (above the knee) and i think it helped to relax the muscle. Also, he showed me about 8 stretches that i have to do, 3x a day.

anyways, it's feeling better today, so hopefully i can run in a week. i'm crossing my fingers!!

i went to the power yoga class tonight, from 6:30-8pm. it was in the wang fitness center, which is the new place that opened a few weeks ago (near the Stata center). that place is actually pretty cool..it has locker rooms, a pool, and a bunch of machines. it's also a bit more convenient, since it's closer to my office (5 min walk) than the Z-center is (can be 10 minute walk, considering you have to cross Mass Ave).

Anyways, the class totally kicked my ass...i couldn't do a lot of the poses that everyone is doing. i'm pretty inflexible, and not very strong either (especially recovering from this IT band problem). however, it was cool to get some sort of exercise done, after a 2-week hiatus!!

Oh, and in other news, I got a call from the MRI dept at Mt. Auburn...apparently the radiologist there requested that i get *another* MRI done, this time with an injection (to make up certain fluids light up more or something). Argh! It's annoying because i have to go there on Thursday night (9pm) and thus postpone my appointment with the orthopedic NP (was supposed to go this Friday, but now since i have to wait until this MRI gets read, which takes a couple of days, i had to postpone it). Argh. Plus, they said i had to bring my x-rays from MIT, so i had to go over to MIT medical and get them.

Anyways, tomorrow i have to go physical therapy, and my chiropractor. Again with all the appointments for my sports injuries. arghh...when will i learn?? ;-)

yup, yesterday i got an MRI done on my left knee, at Mt. Auburn Hospital. It was pretty weird..i'm glad i'm not claustrophobic or anything--it would be torture if i was! Basically what happens is you're slid into this hollow casing, and then you hear these strange sounds (first this clicking sound, and then this loud blaring noise). It's so loud that they give you a pair of headphones with music to listen to (because you have to bear it for half an hour). You also have to remain perfectly still for the whole time (30 minutes in my case). It wouldn't have been so difficult if my various limbs didn't keep falling asleep!

Anyways, the people there were really nice..everything was over pretty fast (i got there at 5:15pm, and was out by 6:00!) I took the T back to SP where Michael was waiting, and we had our dinner of chicken apple sausages + wild rice mix(prepared by me!!) :) Then we took all our stuff to Ashdown (i biked).

Oh, and right before the MRI, Michael & I went and saw "Supersize Me" at Loews Theater in Harvard Square. It was $9 (no matinee price, apparently on weekends only the first showing of the day gets that) but it was still worth it. I already was aware of the obesity epidemic in the US (and how junk food was mostly to blame) but this movie really brought the point home. It was also really cool how it was directed, produced by the guy who starred in it...it must be so great to create a movie and then have it make millions (and also influence so many people)!

And off the subject-- my knee seems slightly better..the improvement is really slow though. It seems like it's improving by like 5-10% everyday..so it's hard to tell. argh!

...morning muscle cramps..OW. didn't take valium last night, because i don't want to be drugged 24-7. elevation does seem to help the pain somewhat, so i'll keep trying that.

at least i got a good night's sleep...about 8 hours. i didn't feel as tired, again probably because i didn't take the valium.

oh, and the masseuse mentioned that yoga would be really beneficial for me, to recover from my injury. since i just doled out $100 for summer P.E. classes, here's a possible schedule:

MON, WED: 6:30-8pm Power Yoga
TUES, THURS: Intermediate Pilates 7:30-8:30am; Shallow Water Power 6-7pm

anyway, i'll try that next week and see how that goes. My goal now is to be able to walk (pain free) by June 26, run by July 1st. If i can make it by then, then i can probably still do the half-marathon in July 11. I will have a sucky time since i will be taking walking breaks more often, but who cares. i don't want to have to cop out on yet another half-marathon!

once i get back on track, i'll still to the yoga probably, and maybe ad some strength training in there. i need a class to do strength trianing, since i never manage to do it on my own.

and so this (annoying) injury prolongs. *sigh* this morning the side of my leg was really burning & aching..i iced it a bit. i went to the orthopedic nurse practitioner at MIT medical, and got some xrays done as well. Was diagnosed with IT band syndrome (ITBS). Not surprising. I do have to go in on sunday for an MRI though, since the underside of my knee looks weird. I hope it's nothing!

and i watched American Wedding on my desktop (it was a recent addition to the SP DVD library), since i didn't feel like doing work when i was in so much pain. I made the mistake of watching the unrated version, and was pretty disgusted throughout (even though i'll have to admit a lot of it was funny).

Later on (around 5pm) i went to Cambridge Racquet & Fitness Club (where we have TNT clinics & practices every Saturday) and got a massage. Yeah, it cost $70 for an hour, but it was really great..i hadn't had a massage in several years and i needed one now more than ever. i think it helped ease the pain a bit. After that Michael & I drove to Trader Joe's in a Zipcar and got some groceries. When i got home, i made my favorite gluten-free muffins, plus a cheese omelette for dinner.

p.s. i got more Gmail invitations today! apparently Google thinks i'm a "trusted" user or something. cool!:)

yesterday, that is...who knows about today. Yesterday i still had pretty bad leg pain..it actually got worse in the afternoon. I could do nothing but sit there and feel my left leg tightening to the point that i felt a sharp burning pain. i got up and went for a walk, but that seemed to make matters worse. i ended up going to MIT urgent care again, have to pay $5 for a taxi to get there (MIT police refused to take me there, because apparently it wasn't serious enough of an emergency). the doctors who saw me put some ice on it, but that didn't help at all. they gave me some valium, which i took around 8pm (when i got to SP) and fell asleep arond 9pm. i woke up around 4am, and i could tell that it was working as a muscle relaxant, since i felt my legs weren't as tight anymore. that was some sort of relief.

i stayed in bed until about 5:30am reading (i finally finished Paranoia, a brilliant book). i was starving (i didn't have dinner the night before) so i ate some breakfast (luckily i still had some food left at SP). i called michael around 6, and he told me that he had a terrible night since they had been jack-hammering on Memorial Drive (from 2am - 4:30am!) He said he didn't want to call me since he didn't want to wake me up. Aw, how sweet! Anyways, i told him that i'd probably try to take the EZRide to a doctor's appointment tomorrow morning (my only means of transportation) and then go to ashdown to get my office keys, etc.

Argh. it's so frustrating, i haven't run in almost two weeks, and haven't done any cardio (elliptical training) for a week and a half, and my knee/leg pain is getting WORSE. i'm really worried because 1) if this continues, i'll be on crutches pretty soon, and 2) i don't know if i can continue with the trajining program, to eventually run a marathon. it sux, because since i had managed to successfully train for and run a half=marathon last year (all on my own), you'd think i won't have gotten messed up so early in the game. i mean, i have special motion-control stability shoes now, and i do stretch (ok, so not as often as i should) so you'd think i'd be better off. i guess my problem was that i was increasing my mileage, too soon (i was up to 20 mi/ a week before i stopped) and i was running/exercising when my muscles felt really fatigued. also i should have strengthed my quads more, at the first sight of knee pain. arghh, oh well, whatever. the damage has already been done, and the only thing i can do know is hope that by some twist of fate my leg/knee begins to get better. for starters, i'd like to be able to walk properly....

ok so yesterday we had two visitors from Mitsubishi (all the way from Japan!) come over to our lab. They had just come from an RF conference in Texas, and I guess since they were in the same hemisphere they might as well come visit us. So after showing them the lab downstairs, they gave their talks (about class F & inverse-class F amplifiers) and then we went to Legal Seafoods for lunch. I had the usual (tortilla, apple, and goat cheese salad with scallops) and it was really good, despite the fact that it didn't come with the dressing on the side, like i had asked (i wasn't going to wait another 15 minutes for another one!). Their coffee was good too!

Soon after lunch (we didn't get back until ~2:30), i gave my (very long!) presentation to them, sort of an update of my research in the past 6 months. I had 39 slides, and we stopped several times in between to discuss certain things (i even had to go in my folders and pull up some Excel sheets with some data) so it took about an hour and a half! Then Melinda gave her presentation (which was shorter) but took about an hour for the same reasons. By the time Joerg ended with his short presentation (15 min) it was past 5:30! We were about to head off to Union Oyster House for dinner, but when we mentioned it to our guests, they informed us that they had just been to that restaurant the night before! I guess it's such a popular restaurant (it's supposedly the oldest restaurant in America) that everyone tends to go there when they come visit here.

Anyways, as an alternative, I suggested the Blue Room (Niamh had mentioned it was supposed to be good, and I had heard good things about it), and we ended up going with that. Good thing, because the place was great (and expensive!). I ended up ordering a green pea soup & ham for appetizer ($6), Maryland soft shell crabs ($22) and then bamboo coconut & rice pudding ($6 for dessert). We also ordered a few bottles of white wine with our meal..my favorite was this white wine from Alsace in France, I can't really rememember what it was called but i remember what the label looked like...it was so delicious! Usually i'm not into drinking wine in general (especially white wine, i tend to like the sweeter stuff) but this was excellent!) I hope that I can go there with Michael someday, to celebrate a special occasion or something.

So I didn't get back till around 9:15 pm or so, to which i went over to Ashdown and told Michael all about it. He's so great to talk to, and so funny and sweet. Spending time laughing & chatting with him is the perfect way to end a good day!!

P.S. the only non-good part of my day was the fact that my leg muscles were still acting up. I'm still taking the ibuprofen & malic acid (suggested by Michael's dad) and it seems to be helping, but i kept getting muscles cramps in my upper legs. This morning i'm still getting some of that, which is worrying...i hope it goes away soon as i want to start running again on the Thursday. Yesterday i didn't wear my special shoes (i was wearing heels, since i had to dress up) and maybe that made a difference.

hopefully my legs/knees will be better soon...today was a gorgeous day but unfortunately haven't been able to go running (i haven't gone running for over a week!) argh...i guess this'll teach me to do a lot of strength training and stretching as well as running, so muscles don't crap out and screw my knees up.

anyway, today we went to the Old Manse in Concord...was really great. it's cool that Boston area has so many historical landmarks.

Yesterday, Michael & I rented a car for the day, so we could drive somewhere nice. This time we ended up getting a Pontaic Grand Am. We first ended up driving to Staples so Michael could look at office chairs (the one he had before hurts his back somehow), and plus we had a 12% off coupon, and it was the last day to use it. While we were there, Michael ended up helping this Russian woman speak to one of the workers there (she needed someone to translate). The Staples people were really grateful for him helping out, so they told him that when we got to the checkout counter, to ask for the manager and he'd give us a coupon. So when we did finish shopping (we ended up just getting two crates of water, plus a recycling bin and some trash bags) we called for the manager, and the guy gave $5 off coupon! It was pretty cool since we had already saved 12% on our stuff, so we only ended up paying $10.

Anyway, when we finally got back from Staples we had lunch (the leftovers from Bombay Cafe takeout, which were good), my leg continued to be hurt pretty badly. I didn't know what else to do, since they kept cramping up. We ended up going to Urgent Care at MIT medical, and i was seen pretty quickly (no other patients were waiting). The doctor said there was no sign of a mensical tear (whatever that means) and that my joints looked ok. She prescribed 800 mg of Ibuprofen (which is 4x as strong as the kind you get over-the-counter) for the inflammation. She told me to keep walking, as just stopping all exercise all together could make it worse. Weird. Although i was confused about that, i sort of believed it as the pain was really get worse on Friday when i was just sitting in my office doing nothing.

Anyway, by the time we went and filled the prescription (we had to go to Inman Pharmacy on Cambridge St, cuz it's covered by insurance) it was around 3:30..we didn't end up taking off for our "day trip" until 4pm! So we drove for an hour to Ipswich, to see the Crane Estate at Castle Hill(from the description on the website, it looked really interesting, even though we weren't going to be able to take a tour of the actual house). When we finally got to the entrance however, the guard informed us that it was closed for the day, since there was a private event (a wedding). ARGH! I guess it was our own fault for not calling in advance (the website suggested to do so), but what can you do. So instead we took went to the adjacent Crane Beach, where they just let us in for $5 (it costs $10, but we only had $9 left and the guard was nice enough to let us squeak by). We parked the car in the lot and just walked along the beach, which was pretty amazing! The sand was really white and smooth, and it felt great to walk on. The water was freezing though (i don't understand how some managed to swim in it...it wasn't a hot day or anything) but after a while our feet got sort of used to it (i think the just became numb). We took a lot of good pictures (Michael brought his tripod, so we were able to get more pictures of us together).

After the beach we asked some of the local people where a place to eat was, and they were nice enough to tell us how to get to downtown Ipswich. We got there, and the town is so cute..there's Ipswich First National Bank, Ipswich Party & Paper, Ipswich this and that...the town was the perfect small-town America, with its brick buildings, churches and narrow streets. I looked up the demographics and apparently, Ipswich is a town of only 4,161 people! That's really tiny...I thought i came from a relatively small town (Santa Rosa, CA which has 130,000 people).

Anyway, we went to a Thai place there called "Thai Rice Cuisine" which was pretty good (Michael had pad Thai as usual, and I had scallops & cashews dish). The drive back to Boston was ok except the getting into Boston part..the traffic near the Tobin Bridge was totally rotten. By the time we got home is was like 10pm and I went straight to bed, since i was all headache-y from the sun + the mega-doses of ibuprofen (at dinner, i accidentally took double the dose, so i had 1.6 grams of ibuprofen running through my system..!)

ok, so i'm taking a few days off from training, since my knees are giving me some grief. i think i just started increasing my mileage too fast, and i didn't always stretch as much as i should. last week i did a total of 20 miles, and i felt exhausted. this week, i didn't go to practice on Tuesday or Thursday (but i did go to the gym 2x)..hopefully i'll be ok to go to practice tomorrow. I'm supposed to run 8 miles, but we'll see about that. i just hope it goes away in a few days. when my back was messed up in January/February, i didn't run for like 2 months (ok, it was also below zero outside).

also, i'm up to almost $1200 in my fundraising for Team in Training! That's basically 2/3 of the minimum i need to raise. I am so amazed at everyone's generosity..people i don't even know are donating $20, $50! Anyways i can't believe i've raised so much money for such a great cause..it's really empowering! Also, i can't believe i actually signed up to run 26.2 miles in ONE DAY...if i'm having a hard time with 20 in one WEEK!! Well, i guess that's what training is for.