Updates
Halfway Through the Meditation Challenge
In April, TheChallenge.org website kicked off a month-long meditation challenge that is being supported by The Way app, created by Henry Shukman. Henry's book, "Original Love" was one of my favorite reads of 2024 and I'm sure will be one of the meditation books I reread frequently. While I've had a daily meditation practice for ten years, this challenge timed perfectly with my surgery and provi...
8 days in the hospital, 2 abdominal surgeries, a partially collapsed lung, 2 vasovagal crashes, the last of which happened on the endless stair climb to our place, but I got to wake up to this sunrise view of the Monterey Bay.
I am out of the second procedure (abdominal surgery) and things went well enough that they canceled the third. I've been on an epidural for pain management for the first time and it is a game changer. When I sent a picture of my IV pole stack to my youngest, she said it looked like R2D2.
[My IV Pole with Epidural]
I was out for a 10k + strides workout in gale force winds and saw the KION news team filming the storm near Lover’s Point. I got some funny looks running past them
strava.app.link/j06D3oHBMQb
If you're in Santa Cruz tomorrow evening, I'm giving a talk about being an athlete with an autoimmune disease and the intersection of inflammation and exercise Thursday, December 5th @ 6 PM at the Resource Center for Nonviolence!
Thank you to Haley Feuerbacher and The NliveN Movement for putting this together as part of the NliveN Movement's December of winter wellness events.
"During a time ...
I’ve discovered “intimate comedy night” may be the most anxiety-inducing social activity with IBD. I'm not sure if you've ever been to a comedy show and seen what happens when someone gets up to go to the bathroom, but that is the fastest way to get the attention of a professional comic. Luckily, Helen Hong had us laughing from minute one, and got intimate with her own cancer story and the anxi...
Despite one-off insurance contract issues, I made it to my monthly Remicade infusion. Tomorrow, I’ll be doing two 5k runs for Ostomy Awareness Day - a 5k for each ostomy I’ve had.
After two months of recovery from abdominal surgery, I am finally back running. Interestingly, I immediately felt some of the IT/deep glute soreness that was around after my marathon. Factoring in the surgery, that effort really took a toll on my body!
The first week of my recovery from a procedure to repair a defect from my previous surgery has gone pretty well. The wound vac is doing its job and healing is certainly moving fast, but it is weird to live with a fish tank pump attached to your belly.
I talk a lot about the importance of getting enough protein, especially while healing (30% or more than baseline) and the impact of inflammatio...
Some More
August, 2024
July, 2024
May, 2024
December, 2023
November, 2023
September, 2023
August, 2023
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June, 2023
April, 2023
September, 2022
July, 2022
June, 2022
May, 2022
April, 2022
April, 2021
December, 2020
June, 2020
May, 2020
April, 2020
January, 2020
December, 2019
June, 2019
May, 2019
April, 2019
March, 2019