So, the thing about updating this thing is that it comes down to guilt. Life gets really busy, and then i’m trying to balance time to read my bible, spend time with my family, etc, and this always falls to the bottom of the list. Always. That, and it seems that nothing of journaling interest seems to happen. And then my database goes down, and I find myself fixing SQL database entries and thinking to myself, “I never write anything anyway, why am fixing this again?”. So, I guess an update is in order.

The biggest news: I have a tumor. On my left foot! I’ve had a small lump behind the ball of my foot, it’s been there for a while, but as I was starting to have some heel pain, I had it checked out. After a contrast MRI and ultrasound sessions, it’s been determined that it’s not a cyst, or scan tissue build up, but it is in fact, a tumor. What kind of tumor, is unknown because I’ve not had a biopsy on it yet, but one thing is for sure: it needs to come out. Currently, I’ve been to several area doctors and surgeons and they’ve referred me to OHSU for a vascular specialist there. I’m waiting for that pre-op consultation in April sometime, but they tell me I’m supposed to be in a wheelchair (or at least off my foot, I’m assuming) for at least 6 weeks. This is because it’s on the bottom of my foot, and if I disturb the healing at all, there will be issues with the scar tissue and with any type of walking after that. Not really looking forward to that, other than to get past it and move on. I’m not sure exactly when this is going to happen either.

The second is, that i’m getting a septoplasty. I have a deviated septum that’s causing sleeping issues (snoring, Apnea), as well as some periphery problems with sinus and hearing. I went in January to have my right ear checked out because I had some serious hearing loss in that ear. About a year ago I had a perforated eardrum (read: hole in ear) and I went back in to see if that had re-occurred. It had not in fact, but I did have an issue with drainage and my right Eustachian tube is blocked, and my ear is filled with fluid causing about 10dB of hearing loss. And now, in the last few weeks, it’s caused some serious vertigo and some nausea, as well making it fairly difficult to do some tasks accurately, like running sound, and even phone calls on that side. I was going to put that off for a while, but the vertigo and hearing loss is really starting to impact me, so I went ahead and scheduled it. The septoplasty involves a resection of the septum in outpatient surgery, and for the most part is going to put me out of commission for a week. I’ve scheduled it for a Wednesday (March 7) so that I have from then over the weekend to heal before coming back to work the following week. They say that most people can come back to work after a week, as long as I don’t do any heavy lifting or bending over, things that can cause pressure change and damage the healing process. Looking forward to being able to sleep at night, and have my hearing back. Dr. says it’s congenital; I’ve never known what it’s been like to breathe right in the first place, so that’ll be neat.

A friend of mine turned me onto a book called The Runner’s Handbook : The Bestselling Classic Fitness Guide for Beginning and Intermediate Runners. The cool thing is that it covers everything about running, but also covers wellness information about eating right, motivational techniques, lifestyle management, equipment, injuries, etc. I really like it because it’s literally has you start from the beginning. Assuming that you’re a couch potato (raises hand) it has you start walking for 10 minutes. then 15, then 20 and so on, until after 2 weeks you can do a half hour easily, and then you just go on from there. Of course, i’m going to get all nerdy on it, and buy the Nike+. Rocky has been showing me his training log on the Nike website, and if you use the Nike+ hooked up to your iPod Nano, it uses a pedometer type device coupled with software on the iPod to record your metrics during a run. Then, you sync it up to the Nike website, and it logs everything for you, graphs it, and makes suggestions to tune your routine to get the most out of your run. Fancypants. Anyway, i’m a bit of a long way off from that now, until I get the surgery and go through the recovery. If i’m lucky, i’ll get to START running in late June at this rate, but i’m still looking forward to it. At least the weather will be better when I start out.

Here are some pictures from the last couple months: