More good news

I thought I'd take some liberties with my work time and write a quick post. I went to the cardiologist again today for a follow up appointment after my abortive cardioversion two months back and a month of amiodarone.

It was more of the same with an ECG and echo, I didn't even see the ECG but I assume it was fine, the echo concluded that my heart was of a normal size and my Ejection Fraction was 50% which is fantastic! So now it seems that my only real problem is my heart rythm which misbehaves from time to time, and still doesn't allow me to have full capacity while exerting myself.

I was however able to get hold of the report for the cardioablation that my previous cardiologist performed in 2004. Dr Guerra is going to contact an electrophysiologist and we will consider another ablation as the technology has improved greatly in the passed few years, but only if the other doctor thinks its worth the effort.

So perhaps there is some more hospital time in my near future, but if it is successful then I will feel a lot better ALL the time!

As for my MSc, it's pogressing slowly, but progressing, I had to take a bit of a break to catch up on the reading that I should have done, thats pretty much done now and I should be able to continue writing, and hopefully be finished by the end of the year latest.

All said the news is encouraging, I'm not going to say I'll write more often again, cause I probably won't but I'll try :)

Somewhat wasted day

I got to Dr Guerra's rooms at 7:20 this morning, the expected traffic did not materialise. It was a day of waiting. Good thing I took my book, and a new one just incase I finished that one! Had an early ECG that showed I was in arrythmia, so we went ahead and I was admitted for the day. This time instead of spending hours waiting in the reception while they found me a bed I was sent straight up to the ward... it looked like this might be a quick one.

I got my own room which was and wasn't cool, atleast when there are nurses rushing around you feel like you can't be forgotten. Every now and then someone would traipse in and do and ECG or take blood or put a drip in. But mostly I lay back and read my book, napped, read some more. Finished my book, started the new one. I watched 10 o'clock go by then 11, then 12 at 1pm I got up and went to find out what was going on.

Apparently i was in a general ward and for the procedure I needed to be in the high care ward, but there weren't any beds there currently so I waited and waited while they juggled patients around to find me a bed. Finally at about 2:30 I walked into the high care ward, much to the disgust of the other patients who were variously wired up or being beaten by physio's. I was soon to be wired up myself, but mercifully there was no physio to beat me... or perhaps...

Anyway as I lay there on the monitors one of the sisters came and asked what the problem was, I dutifully answered the usual questions, and then she said, "But you're in sinus rhythm", which was kindof what I though from my appointment on Wednesday morning. Anyway they were most puzzled and said you couldn't cardiovert someone in sinus rhythm blah blah blah. Eventually the doctor came and was a little puzzled himself, but a few minutes he returned and concurred that he thought I was in sinus and could go home. At first I thought he was joking, but apparently not!

Seems the amiodarone has done the trick for now, and I should keep taking 1 of these nasty tablets for the next month! But the proof of the pudding is in the eating and I will only know for certain whether his call is right once I go for a test drive so to speak. I'm gonna give the drug some more time to do it's work and only go for a walk on Monday, then I should know the true verdict.

Another visit to the doc

The past few weeks haven't seen me improve much, infact nothing has changed, I can't run and when I walk fast uphill my heart goes ballistic. I decided perhaps it was time to go see the doctor again. So I phoned up early on Monday morning and had an appointment for just an ECG this morning. The ordinary ECG didn't show much, just that I had an eptopic (unusual/unexpected) beat every now and then, well probably every 5 beats actually.

Fact is, day to day I feel fine, it's just when I exert myself that I feel shody. So they put the ECG cables back on and put me on a treadmill. After 3/4mins I was walking fast at a relatively steep gradient and I could see the ECG measuring between 180 and 210 beats per minute. My heart should never go that fast! Anyway, I think what happens then is my blood pressure drops and I start to feel terrible. So once I'd cooled off I went to speak to the doc again and he said he thinks the bad signals are originating in one of my pulmonary veins and that I should go see an electrophysiologist (I think) to talk about a possible PVI (Pulmonary Vein Isolation). Another option however is a drug which I mentioned in an earlier post which modifies heart rythm but is only available in SA towards the end of the year, not too long to wait I guess...BUT if I'm on those drugs I'm on them for life, if I have a successful PVI then I won't need those specific drugs.

Decisions decisions. Whats happening in the meantime is I am already preparing for ANOTHER cardioversion on Friday. I'm taking amiodarone which is the nasty brother of the other drug coming onto the market. So hopefully things will be better again by the weekend. Whats more I seem to have picked up another cold which is getting me down a bit. Oh well, I think I'll get into bed and try write some software, or some thesis.

Mixed Feelings

I went for an "unscheduled" run this passed Saturday, a friend is going to be in Europe while the local branch of his company does a fun run, so he's got a bee in his bonnet that he needs to get fit. Anyway I went for the run on Saturday evening and well my heartrate jumped up to 180+ and refused to stay down if I ran at all! I still ran intervals, but from then it was clear that my heart was no longer in sinus rythm. Once again I can't identify one cause but I know what the joint causes probably are. This time I'm not sure it's worth going for a cardioversion, but if nothing changes by this coming Monday I'll give the doctor a call. So thats got me feeling pretty bleak, I had kindof gotten used to the idea of having a heart that beats regularly and I was really looking forward to getting off Warfarin. Believe it or not I think perhaps part of it is the lack of regular exercise recently so maybe if I build myself up again gently things will fall into place again.

The other side of the coin is that my masters is going really well, it feels like I'm making very good regular progress and the light at the end of the tunnel is definitely shining brighter. There are a few wrinkles that still need to be ironed out but it seems like the learning curve is getting gentler. As for my writeup well thats stagnated for a few days, but my supervisor has promised to add to the incentive by hounding me for a chapter every week. Whats more he discussed with my boss that I should get half of my day to writeup, so there will really be no excuse! I think I might still need to do a lot of work at home tho, cause that feels right and I'd really like to have this done sooner than later.

Really good day

I went for a really nice 5km run today, not very fast, about 39 mins which is pretty pedestrian, anyway I was chatting about where I am with my project at the moment, and I realised just how close I really am to finishing this project! I mean I've known I'm almost there for some time and there are certainly a few niggly things that I need to sort out, but on the whole, most of the problems are solved. The only major task that needs to be completed now is the software. It just sortof struck me properly this time.

It's about time! So with renewed vigour I came home showere, had a quick bite to eat and then sat down to tackle the software again! Ofcourse a vnc connection over wireless and through vpn is REALLY frustrating and I gave that up as a bad job, to be completed in work time! Then i thought I'd start preparing some of the illustrations! Which require a drawing package, but who knew that this would also be dead slow!? So I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll have to do text only writing at home, and all the other niggly little things will need to be done at work. Which sucks a bit, but oh well such is life.

All in all I think my writeup is coming along slowly but surely. I think I'm almost done with a first draft of one of my chapters. Without drawings it's only 7 pages long, which is perhaps a bit sparse but i'll ask my supervisor to give it a read anyway. Much of the most difficult chapter that I need to write has already been written, as a sortof article I started to write, so I'm almost 2 chapters down! But still, the clock is ticking, I haven't worked out the days left lately, but I know I'll be alarmed!

A bad week

This week has been rather bad for both running and for my new mission. I only got two 5km runs in and there appears to be a problem with my polar getting interference from Melodie's monitor, which effects my results and makes me a little nervous at times. Showing me a heart rate of aroung 160bpm, when I'm pretty sure it's only around 110. We'll have to work something out, but I don't understand why it's happening now, when I had no trouble at the 2 Oceans.

I spent much of last weekend preparing for a presentation i needed to do on Wednesday and my first session with a new student I will be tutoring. I've been considering tutoring as an extra income, because lets face it, we can all do with a few extra bucks. Then I went away with work for Wednesday and Thursday. Pure laziness prevented me from doing much on Friday or Saturday. So all this adds up to not a lot of work happening on the new mission. I plan to get a few pages written today, but I have to watch the Formula 1.

Two Oceans Finish

I bought some of the digital prints taken by the ActionPhoto guys at the Two Oceans. These are the best two I think. The first one shows my discomfort,
the second shows my relief. That's Melodie, my regular running partner, who puts up with all my running issues.Hopefully the next pics will be grad photo's... hehehe

In the beginning... there was Word... but I prefer LaTex

I've officially started my writeup! Well actually I wrote the very first words a few weeks ago. My supervisor suggested I put together a Table of Contents to get my thoughts into order. I know theres a better way to do this... write up as you go! If I ever do ANOTHER degree thats definitely what I will do.

I managed to write about 2 pages tonight, and to add a few more things to my contents page. I also started adding people to my acknowledgements and adding items to my Appendices. I wrote my undergrad thesis in Word and I found it a nightmare and vowed that if I ever did it again I'd use LaTex. Ok, so I didn't but I did know before starting this degree that I would!

I really dig it, it's more of a programming language than a word processor. You need to tell it explicitly what you want it to do, which may sound rather daunting to anyone who hasn't programmed before, but it's not that difficult to learn. What do you get for the extra bit of effort? EFFORTLESS compiling of your document, no worrying about getting things to look right, or fonts changing mysteriously. If you need to insert a figure, everything below your figure doesn't change it's formatting. Whats better, if at the last minute you were to decide that you really DO need that introduction, theres no going through your document checking that all the numbering changed correctly or that the figure references are correct. LaTex does that all for you.

Anyway, thats my 2 cents worth about LaTex, perhaps I won't be as happy with it after 100 pages! Nevertheless it feels good to have made a start... anyone think I'm wasting time blogging about this? Should I rather be writing up?

My first run back

I went for a slow run this afternoon. It actually turned out to mostly be a walk, which was fine with me, I'm still nursing my chest and runny nose, but it was nice to do a little bit of exercise after lazing around for so long. It was just 4km, nothing too strenuous. It was also fantastic that it is winter! I much prefer running in winter, I feel like I can breathe so much easier! Only problem is that by the time you are finished with your run it's pitch dark outside!!

Ok so tonight is the first official night of my new mission. I'll get to it! Hopefully I can squeeze out 2 or 3 pages before I fall asleep.

The new Mission

It's not what you think. I'm not going to stop running, but for now I'm not going to have a running mission. I'm busy completing my Master of Science Degree in Mechatronics Engineering through the University of KwaZulu-Natal. My thesis has always been something over the horizon, but I would have liked to have it complete by June/July, but if I'm honest, the passed month has done me no good! Most of my efforts were concentrated on being certain of completing the race on 11 April. Then I got home and got sick, what it adds up to is almost an entire month of very little work.

I did a little mental arithmetic earlier and if I write a modest length thesis of say 150 pages and say that I have 94 days till the end of July, that means, modestly, that I need to write 1.6 pages a day if I work every day and there are no interruptions. But you can probably count on not being able to write for at least a quarter of those days, so I can comfortably say I need to be writing 2 pages a day and probably more like 3 or 4 a day.

Thats quite a Mission!! As you'll have noticed I've changed the blog a bit to recognise this change in direction. I won't be blogging content as that presents serious intellectual property issues, but I will try to describe my progress without going into detail. I guess this may change some of the readership, but I promise I'll get back to my exercise goals as soon as I've done this.

What now?

I've spent the last two years working towards agoal that I completed last Saturday, now I'm trying to get my mind around the fact that I got there... I actually got there! Also I'm trying to decide what to do next. The obvious thing is that I should continue running, so why haven't I? Well actually I'm sick at the moment and have been since I've got back from Cape Town. I've had a niggling cold that doesn't want to properly lay me flat, but also doesn't seem to get better. So I've been miserable for the passed week really.

But maybe it's a good thing, I'm giving my knee a good rest and perhaps by the time I feel healthy enough to go for a run again I'll have thought of another goal that makes sense. I've thought about doing the 94.7, or the Argus again, but maybe I should just work on running a better 21km?

D day

I considered another title for this post but that would mean you didn't have to read any further, so I'll try to build the suspense.

I slept very badly last night, obviously I was a lot more nervous than I'd first thought! I tossed and turned, got too hot and too cold, looked at my watch regularly, received late good luck sms's and finally it was 4:30 and time to get up. I hate getting up before the sun, it seems so unnatural. After an apple for breakfast we were driving to the start, picking up Melodie on the way. Next thing, we are bunched up amongst a thousand other runners waiting for the start... 20 minutes... 10 minutes ... 5 minutes... 1 minute... 10 seconds... the start gun goes off and nothing happens! Not for a good minute and then another minute to cross the start line!

Then it was a fast walk for the first 10 minutes, which didn't quite work because I had terrible shin splints, so I ran a bit anyway, but my knee wasn't bothering me at all. Had a Gu at the first refreshment station outside Wynberg Girls and found that the little, but rather steep uphill at Carr Hill hardly bothered me at all. About 2km down the road on Constantia road my knee started bothering me mildly, but go progressively worse, I don't know how, but I managed to keep running my intervals which were 55/65 seconds run and rest respectively. My heart behaved well and I had a lot of energy, it was just really a question of controlling my gait to prevent hurting my knee. I managed to continue up Southern Cross drive at about 8min/km but running downhill proved pretty difficult and I didn't pick up any time as I normally would.

We got to the 15km mark in just under 2 hours which was exactly what happened last weekend and my knee was probably in the same shape. Thereafter I could steadily feel my legs getting more and more stiff as my altered gait took it's toll. I was convinced they were going to cramp up. Once again the little hill onto the M3 felt fine, but the little uphill coming into UCT seemed to hurt more than any other hill yet. Managed to run most of the way to the finish, but even the crowds looking on couldn't keep me from taking a few meters walk down the home stretch.

In the end my time was just over 2hours 48 minutes, considering everything I think thats fantastic and I can hardly believe that I did it... all the hard work, the bitching and moaning on my part and the early mornings where I really would have prefered to continue sleeping. They all paid off and I finished!

Now whats next?