Category: Health


On Being Sick

Filed Under: Family News, Health by breandan — Comments Off
2/15/2011

The past few days it’s been all I can do to get up in the morning and keep going throughout the day. I’ve become host to a virus that infects the lungs called RSV. What’s worse is that my soon-to-be two year old son got it first. It’s not as bad as it was when he got the same infection last year, and we were worried about his ability to breathe, but it’s still pretty bad. He feels crummy pretty much all of the time, both awake and asleep, and has been very trying for us as parents to deal with. Coupled with the fact that I’m also sick, and moving through a fog at all times, yeah… family life is a little strained right now.

We’ve been doing all the usual things – drink lots of water, try to cut down on known allergens (dairy springs to mind), early bedtimes, all that. It’s just that the boy wakes up in the middle of the night, and he wakes up angry. This morning, he woke up at 3:00 AM, and wanted to get up and watch TV, eat food, drink water, read books, play with trains, and most of all – for mommy to hold him. He really wanted none of those things: he just wanted to do things that he likes, I assume in hope that it would make him feel better. (If you get him a glass of water, he throws it at you. If you get food, he throws it at you. If you turn on the TV, he screams at you until you turn it off. Etc.)

He’s also cutting his two year molars now. We’re on the edge of sanity these days. Advice?

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My Office

Filed Under: Health, Work by breandan — Comments Off
1/12/2011

The weather in my office has reached a sustained level of insanity. The cleverly designed nuclear furnace attached to my wall (disguised as a heater) is set to “MOLTEN SODIUM”. Nothing I can do about it. It’s also below freezing outside. Can’t change that either, as my weather control satellites are broken.

My options are:

a) Sit in my office with my door and my window open, where I alternate between boiling and freezing

b) Close my door and leave the window open, where there isn’t enough airflow, and I slowly roast

c) Close the window, where I break a sweat in less than 20 minutes.

Of course, being sane, I choose a). This has the nasty side effect of exposing me to sonic torture as the HVAC system located below my window comes on and off, as well as general road noise. There’s also the occasional odor of the street – carbon monoxide has never smelled so good. These factors combined make my sinuses try to kill me every day that I come to work, and have started waging war on my brain.

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Preparing For A Half Marathon

Filed Under: General, Health by breandan — 2 Comments
6/14/2010

My brother and I have started training for running a half-marathon this Fall. Yesterday was the first morning of exercise. Today, the agony. Soreness, stiffness, and all around aches – and it’s not for a lack of stretching. It’s simply that I’m way out of shape and I need to get myself back up to form.

My brother has been running on a treadmill for a long time now – a few years – so he’s got a bit of a leg up on me, and has to slow down to accommodate my speed. Time for me to set up – I need to get into a regular routine of aerobic exercise and endurance training if this is going to work at all.

So – here’s the plan. 100 days to 10 KM is a decent place to start, but I need to move this a little faster, as 100 days takes us to the half marathon in Raleigh – and 20KM is 13.1 miles, not 10KM. This means I need to do at least 3 miles on the bike every evening as a baseline aerobic training. Ideally stepping that up over time to 10+ miles a day. And, the hard part: getting up even earlier every morning and putting in 30 minutes of jogging/walking, switching to mostly jogging as I go.

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