How is this relevant?
| November 20, 2015 | Posted by Melinda under Uncategorized |
There hasn’t been a lot of posts here, and truthfully there hasn’t been a lot of pony time either.
“Oh pah!” (you say). “Of course not! You just gave birth blah blah blah”.
So….that’s not exactly the reason. The newborn stage being what it is (cry, eat, sleep, cry, eat, sleep), writing, running and riding (and reading…) are pretty compatible.
You wanna know what isn’t compatible? Having a swollen optic nerve that no one can figure out the underlying reason for. Because that means lots and lots and LOTS of doctor appointments and tests.
Which are “stat” because eye stuff is really scary, which means they are getting me into whatever center has an opening, which means I’m driving 1 to 1 1/2 hours one way to various offices.
“There’s no way you’ve had a medical thingy every day for the last month”.
Umm…way.
One ophthomologist referred to this as the million dollar work up, and if it isn’t a million dollars (yet), it’s damn close.
Now, from my last post where I mentioned this vexing little issue you may have been under the assumption that this was nearly wrapped up. “Pregnancy induced optic nerve drusden”. I thought we were at the end of the road too. But the latest specialist I was sent to yesterday who is neuro ophthomology trained doesn’t think so. And alas, I agree with him. It would be atypical drusden and my clinical signs don’t really match. Fortunately there is a test for drusden so we can confirm one way or another and I’ll be getting that procedure done on Monday. As well as another whole battery of screening and diagnostic tests that haven’t been done yet including lumbar puncture on Wednesday (with a pressure measurement and CSF fluid analysis) and another blood draw for a few infectious diseases that were missed on the first round of blood testing (like Bartonella).
Unlike the old joke about masturbation will make you go blind, I’d like to submit a revision that it’s pregnancy you have to worry about…
How is all this relevant and why is it here on the blog? Because it is significantly impacting my endurance stuff – mostly my horses (I’ve been able to run regularly through this thank goodness).
Endurance is more then just the time and the miles logged into the training schedule.
Part of the “story” of doing endurance successfully is not letting the short-term setbacks throw you off course, and figuring out how to work around the long-term changes that life throws you. Pregnancy was the former, vet-school was the latter. It remains to be seen what category the “eye thing” will fall into. Either way if you are a fellow endurance adventurer experiencing a similar hiatus because of “stuff”, I hope it helps to know you aren’t alone. For those of you not on hiatus, please continue to write and share your adventures because it helps me remember there is light at the end of this tunnel.
I’m assuming you (like me) could use some good news now.
- My running is going SO WELL, as long as I keep in mind I’m 5 weeks post-partum and pat myself on the back once in a while instead of lamenting that I’m not *already* back in marathon shape. It is so nice to have a back up activity or two that makes me feel alive. It’s easier to stay positive about the pony situation when I am busy doing other things I love too (and yes, I have at least one more back up activity – playing music – if I can’t be active at all).
- I crunched the AERC data on older endurance horses and number of seasons and have some interesting thoughts to share with you….SOON. In fact, I sat down to write *that* post and got distracted by writing *this* post. It’s practically written, I swear!
You know that nagging feeling that you’re forgetting something and then you just say oh well and hit the publish button? The other bullet point of good news I wanted to share, is that depending on what it is even though the vision changes have been going on for six weeks or more, the vision changes may not be permanent 🙂
not permanent is really important! keep us posted!
Hoping you get some positive news soon. Thanks for sharing about how you hang in there though mental reasoning and mental strength – takes things from being inspirational to educational 🙂