a coupla things.
the other weekend we all went to the US Women's Triathlon Series race in Federal Way. i wasn't so sure about this race for a few reasons - one being that my knee is still a problem.
there was an expo there and we had a booth and it was sunny and warm and awesome. it was so great to hang out in the nice weather, talking about triathlons and stuff, and just chilling out without a care in the world. ok, i was a little concerned about getting dehydrated by sitting in the sun so much but what's a girl to do?
in the morning after waking up in the 4s, i stopped or swung by 3 starbucks in the hopes of getting some coffee, none were open. i made th hr drive down to the race site, and parked about a million miles away. this was actually pretty good since the ride from the lot to the race site turned out to be my warm up. it was so fun to see all the girls in transition! the race was so mellow and it was just so fun to see everyone. we were racked by wave, so we were all over the place but we all met up for some pre race chatting.
we meandered to the water for a warm up swim, but a minute after ignoring the "swimmer's itch has been reported at this beach, swim at your own risk sign" they said we had to get out of the water for the race meeting, etc. so no swim warm up. the water itself was really warm so that was nice, but it would have been good to get a few more than 3 strokes in before hand but it was what it was.
it was a deep water start which was kind of cool, and the swim was good. the water was warm but it was foggy and hard to see the buoys. i was sighting often which was good because every time i was very off course, at least what i could tell as being off course since really i was siting off of other people a lot of the time. i swam all the way to the end to the point where the volunteers reached down to lift us out. they were grabbing my arms before i even stood up. i think i swam more than 750 since i was so far off course all the time.
transition was 1/4 mile run up through some grass and through the parking lot. transition was nutty and they through in the run through the parking lot to even it all out. t1 was quick once i was actually in it - no socks, no gloves, and out i went.
i was riding hard from the beginning. they totally shut down some major roads so there were no worries about cars or anything, that was very cool. there were some hills, but not any long sustained climbs but i started passing people, and i even started lapping people on the 2nd loop. i also got to see every one of the girls i knew that were out racing, so that was pretty fun, too. i did not get passed by anyone. i didn't take my garmin or hr monitor, i was just going hard and that seemed to work out pretty well. i wound up with the fastest bike split of the day! thinking back there were a few places where i think i could have even ridden harder.
i wasn't sure what to expect out of the run. the tape from PT stayed on, even after the 40 minutes in the pool the day before, and i think it helped. i didn't have any pain! at least not in my knee! i was huffing and puffing and working pretty hard. i will admit i wasn't going all out, but i'll also admit i was a bit afraid too, even step expecting it to begin hurting. i was going at a comfortably uncomfortable pace but frankly i was just worried about getting it done. despite all the huffing and puffing i was feeling like i was going pretty slow. the only chatting i did was to tell the police man who was riding a police bike that he really should be wearing a helmet (next time i saw him he had put one on!), but i was surprised that no one was catching me. eventually one girl did and she flew by me, she was out of site almost instantly. the 4.1 miles went by pretty quickly and I was really happy to be done. and as a bonus, i won my age group! yahoo! what a fun race it turned out to be! it was so fun to have all the girls out there and it was a good confidence booster after having had such a rough couple of racing and training weeks.
i have since run one more time since then for 10 minutes with no pain. my knee was all taped up again, but i have been swimming like crazy and aqua jogging and using the elyptical, and doing some good mtn biking and road riding. i did my first wednesday night mtn bike race this week - wow! its been a long time. i realized it was only the 2nd stand alone mtn bike race i've done this year, which is very different than last year. i am eager to get this whole racing thing on the road again.
other news, pawpi seems to be getting better. the vet called to say that the antibiotics she is on this time should get rid of what they found in her bone cultures. she seems like she is recovering quite well, too. she is pissed off having the cone on still, really i can't blame her since she has had it one a lot since february.
this coming week is going to be crazy busy at work. crazee. followed by a weekend of camping at colchuck lake. we're taking the kids and hiking in. yikes!!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Thursday, July 08, 2010
pawpi
yesterday pawpi went in for a 2nd surgery. she is definitly the most surgeried upon one in the family.
a little back story. in february we noticed that pawpi's face wasn't looking quite right. she's a puffy cat, so for her face to look unusually puffy was pretty extreme. having the extra puff on one side helped to distinguish that something was wrong.
we gave it a day then called the vets that first week in february. they said it looked like one of the other cats must have scratched her and it was infected. they shaved her cheek a little, lanced it, pushed the goop out and then gave her some antibiotics.
it seemed like it was getting better then it got worse. she went back to the vets, more lancing and goop and antibiotics. then she got the cone which she seemed to have a love/hate relationship with. she loved to lick the plastic. lick lick lick, all day long. who needs the plastic bags and paper towels to lick when there was plastic right infront of her face. the other cats however did not like the cone and wouldn't get near her. she had to re-learn how to go up and down the stairs and would bump into everything. she went to the vets a few more times, about once a week and they would give more antibiotics but she was dripping juices ALL OVER THE HOUSE. it was terrible. she looked horrible and it was aweful.
a few days before we went to las vegas, she had surgery to insert a drainage tube. this was an option from the beginning, but since she is an older cat they wanted to avoid putting her under if they could. they did some biopsies at the same time and checked out her teeth which apparently were in good shape. when she came home she had no whiskers on that side of her face, a giant clear plastic tube sticking out the top and bottom of her face and a bunch of stitches. it looked super scary, but she seemed ok with it. she just did her own thing.
we decided to board her at the vets while we were gone, which was a good idea because after writing a note to the cat sitter that said "pawpi looks terrible, but if she starts to look more terrible, please take her to the vet" we decided that it would be a good idea to not worry the cat sitter like that. she stayed there 5 nights i think and they took good care of her. meanwhile they took out the tube and then later the stiches.
she stayed on the antibiotics and she seemed like she was getting better. her whiskers started to grow back and the cone even came off! she was still going to the vets pretty much every week, and they stopped charging us each time, thank goodness, but we did have to pay for the antibiotics each time.
after a few more weeks the vets said she wasn't healing. it looked better but the hole wasn't closing. there was somethign going on inside that was causing the hole not to heal. the antibiotics were helping with the secondary staph infection but not healing her.
so we took her for a 2nd and 3rd opinion.
a friend suggested a vet in west seattle which is about 23094523 miles away but the recomendation was very good, so eric took pawpi in. we found out that pawpi had lost about 2 pounds since this ordeal began. thats 28% of her body weight. that is like me loosing 38 pounds!!! they suggested the same thing as the others - CT scan. On the drive home, eric let pawpi roam freely in the back of the station wagon. it was a warm day and there was bumper to bumper traffic, so much of the drive, pawpi stood on her hind legs looking out the back window. a car with two ladies pulled up next and called over to sirus who has his window open "we like your cat!" to which sirus replied "her name is pawpi. we have two more cats named nadj and seamus mccat but they are mean cats" and i guess he went on and on.
eric scheduled a CT scan. pawpi was put under and they did the scan. then eric and the kids looked at the scan with the CT person. seamus said it was very cool. eric said it was kind of freaky. he said they looked at pawpi's head with no fur, then they took off her skin and her muscle so they could look just at her bones. they said her cheek bone was all messed up and there was obviously something wrong with it. they said there was no tumor, but some or part of her cheek bone would need to be removed. they also said she had an abnormally thin top of her head. we suspect that all that patting on her head we like to do is actually probably jiggling her brain.
back to the vets in west seattle, he took a look at her and did the surgery that day. the vet was scheduled to leave for vacation, but stayed so he could do the surgery and said it was a good thing they did it that day because her cheek bone was so messed up, that parts of it had turned black and when he pressed on it, puss came out. how horrible is that!! so he actually did more than he planned on when he was in there, scraping away the bad bone, taking biopsies and hopefully, hopefully making her better.
she came home yesterday and has been a little not like herself. she is normally the nicest most mellow cat, but she now does not like eric. she bolted out the door which is very unusual since pawpi doesn't run and eric had to chase her down, making a pro baseball out fielder's flying leap to grab her before she ran out into the street. she has also been running from him whenever she sees him.
its been 18 visits to the vets, 2 big surgeries, one CT scan, 3x under general anesthetic, multiple shavings and lancings, too many days to count with the cone and lots of trips in the box. i guess i would be pretty pissed off, too, but we are hoping its the pain medicine and that she will be back to her loving self in no time.
a little back story. in february we noticed that pawpi's face wasn't looking quite right. she's a puffy cat, so for her face to look unusually puffy was pretty extreme. having the extra puff on one side helped to distinguish that something was wrong.
we gave it a day then called the vets that first week in february. they said it looked like one of the other cats must have scratched her and it was infected. they shaved her cheek a little, lanced it, pushed the goop out and then gave her some antibiotics.
it seemed like it was getting better then it got worse. she went back to the vets, more lancing and goop and antibiotics. then she got the cone which she seemed to have a love/hate relationship with. she loved to lick the plastic. lick lick lick, all day long. who needs the plastic bags and paper towels to lick when there was plastic right infront of her face. the other cats however did not like the cone and wouldn't get near her. she had to re-learn how to go up and down the stairs and would bump into everything. she went to the vets a few more times, about once a week and they would give more antibiotics but she was dripping juices ALL OVER THE HOUSE. it was terrible. she looked horrible and it was aweful.
a few days before we went to las vegas, she had surgery to insert a drainage tube. this was an option from the beginning, but since she is an older cat they wanted to avoid putting her under if they could. they did some biopsies at the same time and checked out her teeth which apparently were in good shape. when she came home she had no whiskers on that side of her face, a giant clear plastic tube sticking out the top and bottom of her face and a bunch of stitches. it looked super scary, but she seemed ok with it. she just did her own thing.
we decided to board her at the vets while we were gone, which was a good idea because after writing a note to the cat sitter that said "pawpi looks terrible, but if she starts to look more terrible, please take her to the vet" we decided that it would be a good idea to not worry the cat sitter like that. she stayed there 5 nights i think and they took good care of her. meanwhile they took out the tube and then later the stiches.
she stayed on the antibiotics and she seemed like she was getting better. her whiskers started to grow back and the cone even came off! she was still going to the vets pretty much every week, and they stopped charging us each time, thank goodness, but we did have to pay for the antibiotics each time.
after a few more weeks the vets said she wasn't healing. it looked better but the hole wasn't closing. there was somethign going on inside that was causing the hole not to heal. the antibiotics were helping with the secondary staph infection but not healing her.
so we took her for a 2nd and 3rd opinion.
a friend suggested a vet in west seattle which is about 23094523 miles away but the recomendation was very good, so eric took pawpi in. we found out that pawpi had lost about 2 pounds since this ordeal began. thats 28% of her body weight. that is like me loosing 38 pounds!!! they suggested the same thing as the others - CT scan. On the drive home, eric let pawpi roam freely in the back of the station wagon. it was a warm day and there was bumper to bumper traffic, so much of the drive, pawpi stood on her hind legs looking out the back window. a car with two ladies pulled up next and called over to sirus who has his window open "we like your cat!" to which sirus replied "her name is pawpi. we have two more cats named nadj and seamus mccat but they are mean cats" and i guess he went on and on.
eric scheduled a CT scan. pawpi was put under and they did the scan. then eric and the kids looked at the scan with the CT person. seamus said it was very cool. eric said it was kind of freaky. he said they looked at pawpi's head with no fur, then they took off her skin and her muscle so they could look just at her bones. they said her cheek bone was all messed up and there was obviously something wrong with it. they said there was no tumor, but some or part of her cheek bone would need to be removed. they also said she had an abnormally thin top of her head. we suspect that all that patting on her head we like to do is actually probably jiggling her brain.
back to the vets in west seattle, he took a look at her and did the surgery that day. the vet was scheduled to leave for vacation, but stayed so he could do the surgery and said it was a good thing they did it that day because her cheek bone was so messed up, that parts of it had turned black and when he pressed on it, puss came out. how horrible is that!! so he actually did more than he planned on when he was in there, scraping away the bad bone, taking biopsies and hopefully, hopefully making her better.
she came home yesterday and has been a little not like herself. she is normally the nicest most mellow cat, but she now does not like eric. she bolted out the door which is very unusual since pawpi doesn't run and eric had to chase her down, making a pro baseball out fielder's flying leap to grab her before she ran out into the street. she has also been running from him whenever she sees him.
its been 18 visits to the vets, 2 big surgeries, one CT scan, 3x under general anesthetic, multiple shavings and lancings, too many days to count with the cone and lots of trips in the box. i guess i would be pretty pissed off, too, but we are hoping its the pain medicine and that she will be back to her loving self in no time.
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