Work Hangover Wednesday: Time to Scramble

Another two crazy days at work. We're so busy, we don't even have enough chairs for all the patients. We're bursting at the seams.

It makes the long day go by fast, and there are plenty of interesting stories, sometimes sad. But the personalities and the attitudes of so many of the patients are what amaze me, their resilience and willingness to do what they need to do even when they feel like they are living in the pit of hell at the moment.

It always helps me appreciate that what's bugging me on any particular day is not so terrible. When you just got done working with a sick, sick patient all day and as they are leaving they want to give you a hug, that is really cool.

I have nothing to complain about, really. Then why do I feel like one big itch, I don't know how to describe it but maybe the ashes I've been breathing are affecting my brain.

Perhaps my general irritation and annoyance is just an extension of my hormonal state of the past week or so. I feel like everything and everybody is getting under my skin. It's nothing and no one in particular, and everything and everyone. My conclusion is that it must be me.

If I were a dog, I would snarl and bite. If I were a Buffalo, I would pout, put my nose to the floor between my paws, and pretend to be ignoring my people.

If I were President, I'd be

Baberaham Lincoln.

NOT!

I do need to get out of town. I probably need a real vacation, the kind where you don't go with a run as the main event. Imagine that. A week at the beach?

Unfortunately for many people around here, getting out of town is not really possible, or they are stuck. This High Park fire, while the growth rate slowed over the past 24 hours or so, could flare up again if the winds and temperatures pick up. It's 44,000 acres and only 5-10% contained. Lots of structures destroyed or damaged, lots of people evacuated or being prepared for it. Visibility is not good in town and it's been raining soot. Ashes everywhere, in the windowsills, doorways, and on every flat surface there's a gritty texture.

I'm also concerned about some friends who have not been evacuated but potentially are the next ones in the path of the fire, depending on which way it moves. It's hard to be away and not being in contact, or knowing what's going on.

And that is the situation for our buddy Dale, who was going to crew for us in the Black Hills, but he lives in an area near here that is vulnerable to fire, and two years ago he and his wife had to evacuate, and they have animals.

Dale has decided it's best for him to stick around given the fire danger and the threat of the High Park fire moving south toward him. It's unfortunate but understandable and we know Dale feels bad about having to back out, but he's doing the right thing because right now anything can happen, and it can happen fast.

Which leaves Ed and I with decisions to make. This is where our creativity will be put to the test. We have the Rocket and we have the weather on our side, it's been cool and even raining in South Dakota. Car drops, out & backs, and piecing the trail together might all be necessary. We'll have to be on our toes and use our brains.

So that's the challenge. We'll be on the phone this evening discussing the plan. I'll post updates to the blog as we go. I'm not sure what this will look like, but we'll make the best of it.

Work Hangover Wednesday: Running In My Own Shoes

Running (or walking, as the proverb goes) a mile in someone else's shoes, you can never exactly retrace their steps or footprints, because only one person truly fits in their own shoes. So I run in my own.

Yesterday I got a chance to say goodbye to someone who inspired me, sort of indirectly, but in a very profound way that has impacted my running over the past 5+ years, and going forward. I know this isn't going to make a lot of sense but it's one of those days when I just have to vent on things that happen, and I can't share details. I can only share the emotions and what it means to me.

She has no idea how much her experience has affected me. She doesn't need to know, and I don't feel the need to tell her, because she hardly knew me at all in life. The family she will leave behind understands, and that's more important in this case.

Why am I talking about death in a running blog? Because it's part of my life, everyone else's life, and everyone's running. Even if you're a runner, you're going to die eventually, just like non-runners. And I hope you'll have lived a good deal healthier and more enjoyable life into your older years than most non-runners.

Death is part of what I do. I deal with it in some way almost every day at work, but we're all on the continuum of life and death all the time. They are one and the same, but how you experience it depends on your perspective. You can choose to be dying, or you can choose to be living, regardless of your state of health, attitude, and approach.

I see a lot of people who are dying, and most of the time, they're not the ones with cancer. I take care of a lot of patients who are being treated for infections and wounds as a result of their own self-neglect. Some of them are trying to die, more consciously than not. I can think of a lot quicker and less painful ways to do it.

Don't get me wrong, many, if not most, of the patients I see are nowhere near death. They will probably end up dying in old age like many of us, from some freak thing that happens with their bodies at age 80 or 90-something, that has very little to do with cancer.

What I do at work is odd. It's making the best out of bad situations. Taking a person and the people they are closest to, where they are, at their most difficult, sensitive, fearful, and vulnerable moments, and making that moment as comfortable, peaceful, and maybe memorable for them, if they have the luxury of time.

It's not that I have to put a positive spin on bad things, I don't. I don't say things they want to hear, or that their families want to hear. I just work with the moment, and put my effort into making that go well. I bring a lot of boxes of tissues to the bedside or chairside.

I say what I can, ask questions, and then I call the counselors, social workers, chaplain, or massage therapists, maybe all of them. I can't be those things to people. I can be their nurse, I can carry out the physicians' orders and make them comfortable, and figure out what they need and do everything in my power to get it for them.

I find that I don't often agree with the decisions that patients and family members make when it comes to end of life. It's not how I would do it. It's a time of heightened emotions and stress and it brings out the worst in a lot of people.

Too many people are in denial or ignorance about how close death is, and get taken by surprise when they think it's still far off. They don't see the signs because they don't know what to look for, or what it looks like. Most people would rather not know anything about dying, and I don't blame them for that.

Even people who are in the business of dealing with people at the end of life are not always well-prepared when it's someone they love who is dying. These people need non-judgmental support. They have to go through it in their own way, and we can't possibly understand the path they traveled in order to arrive at their world view. We can only run in our own shoes.

But it doesn't matter what I think. What does matter is that the dying person gets their say, and that things are carried out on their terms, as much as possible. I just keep my mouth shut and carry on with my work, preserving the person's available options until they make a decision, as long as there is nothing that is going to cause harm to them.

Right now it's hard to imagine dying when spring is everywhere. I think that when I reach the finish line, I'd like to die in November or December, when it's cold and gray and the leaves are turning brown and crunchy, and there isn't a lot of nice weather to look forward to for a while.

I don't want to be buried in a cemetery, where my headstone would be lost among the crowds. I'd rather have my ashes scattered by people who knew me and where I'd want to be. At this point I'm torn betweeen Devil's Cornfield in Death Valley, and the slopes of Mt. Silverheels behind our cabin. But that could change someday.

When I was running in the cemetery last week, I saw a headstone that had a person's Ph.D. degree carved in next to their name. I don't think I've ever seen that before, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's common. I wondered if it was the person who died who wanted that on his grave, or if it was a family member who made that choice. Was that what the person wanted to be remembered for?

I also wondered if the aliens who land here in another couple of thousand years will know what a Ph.D. was. Will they care?

I hope I don't have any regrets when I die. What I do want to feel is that I lived my life as fully as I could have every single day, that I did the things that were meaningful to me, and that I am happy with the end result, even if it doesn't amount to something tangible to someone else. I feel like I do a good job of that. Money, toys and things really don't matter, they lose their meaning in death. Love is all that really matters at the end of life.

One thing's for sure, whatever you leave behind, whether it's money or things, it's only the wretched people who are left behind who will fight over the carcass, and that's sad. The thing that turns my stomach the most is when someone dies and the family members fight each other over what's left. I've seen that in happen my own family and that's why those people remain distant relatives.

When I reach the finish line, I won't have anything left. I hope I spend my last dollar on running shoes. Besides, I'll have to work until I croak to make ends meet, like most of my generation. That's okay, because I will have enjoyed the long adventure, and I'll be setting my own PR that no one else will ever beat.

In my own shoes.

Banished to the Cave

Yesterday I read the excitement in multiple posts on Facebook and some e-mails I got about people getting into this year's Badwater race. That is such a great feeling, and I had just a tiny bit of envy, because I truly wish I could run it every year. There are so many races and adventure runs out there to do, and I will do as many as I possibly can find the time, money, and energy to do.

My friend Paul Grimm got in, he was delirious when he e-mailed about it. He has what is shaping up to be a dream team of a crew.

I've been home the past couple of days not doing much of anything. I have some kind of upper respiratory thing going on. I did my long run on Saturday and then Sunday I had a sore throat going into the evening. I wondered if I was getting sick. Dennis was starting to get the sniffles and was coughing, he said he didn't feel so great. I considered calling off work for Monday but I wasn't sure if I really was sick. So I went to work Monday.

That was a mistake. It was a busy, crazy, chaotic day and I ended up staying late because we were so busy- we still had 6 patients at 8 pm and several of them were far from being done when I was supposed to go home at 8:30. By then I still had a sore throat and I was trashed. So I called in sick for Tuesday. Tuesday I slept most of the day. I slept until 8 am and then napped from 2 to 5 pm. Funny how you can feel worse after sleeping so much. My voice was a little raspy and soup and tea felt pretty good, but my brain was nonfunctional.

Wednesday I was still tired, snotty, and raspy. More napping, though I did get a little writing done. Just as well, we had killer winds, with gusts being reported up to 80 mph. Not a nice day for running anyway.

Today I feel pretty decent but just a little extra snot, a sore nose from blowing it. It snowed a bit overnight and it's cold and windy this morning. Good day to hang out in the woman cave. I'll go out later bundled up and take the girls for a few miles.

The big news is this morning I just took a jump in phone technology. I've been increasingly annoyed with my old Blackberry and have been envying the smartphones everyone has. I also needed something that was capable of taking decent pictures and videos on the run, and the Blackberry can't do that. The pictures were grainy, and there's no video feature. I got tired of lugging both my camera and Blackberry along on runs when I wanted both.

I went to the phone store and looked at different phones. I had a hard time deciding between the iPhone 4 and 4S, there was a $100 difference in price and the thing that annoyed me about the 4s was the Siri feature, which talks to you. Cell phones should be seen and not heard, as far as I'm concerned. I don't really use mine as a phone anyway, except when I'm out of town. It's more of an e-mail, camera, occasional texting or browsing device. But the thought of having something yakking at me, even if I can turn it off, seemed excessive. I'd be saying "Shut up" all the time. I don't like to be around TVs, and I get annoyed with anything that talks excessively.

The 4S did have very nice video and photo capability, and that was the only place where I hesitated. I think I'll be satisfied with the iPhone 4 for now. I figured if I really want to upgrade I will just do it in the future. I am so bad at upgrading to new technology, I always wait to see what else comes along. It took me forever to get this new laptop, and I've been cussing at my Blackberry for too long. Eventually it's time to give up the old coal-fired technology with the 8 track drive in it.

The only running news I have for today is that tonight I'm going to be talking with Skortman Ed about our plans for adventure running this summer, and then I'll post more about it soon.