A pink moon?

Heading home from my after dinner walk I had a beautiful view of an almost full moon in front of me - and it was pink! That's a new one for me. I've seen pink clouds, and a pink sky at sunset, but I've never seen it reflected in the moon before. Beautiful...

Have you ever seen a sea gull pacing?

I have! I was out walking early this morning when I heard a noise - a loud noise, at that. I followed the sound, only to find a single sea gull pacing back and forth in front of the door to a building. Do you think he (or she) was looking for a friend?

By the way I assume that the gull was OK since there was no trace of it on my end of the day walk...

A bike ride? Almost...

I woke up today thinking it would be a Saturday without cycling. A downpour woke me at 4:30 AM - just in time to retrieve todays newspaper from its (plastic-wrapped) spot in the middle of the rain. I luckily fell asleep again, and awoke to a very wet day. Ah, a walking day. But wait - in the afternoon, the sky grew lighter, and the pavement was drying out. Time to attempt a bike ride.

As I headed off, my neighbor expressed concern about my being on a bike and the distant thunder we heard. My bike headed out anyway - with me, of course - but we didn't get too far. I turned home after only a half a mile when the thunder got stronger and it started to rain. The rain was light, but given the forecast I decided to be careful. I put the bike in its usual shelter - in the dry garage - and came inside to quickly change into walking togs. I headed out, luckily with an umbrella. After I'd been out only 10 minutes, an incredible downpour started. Even with the umbrella I was soaked when I got home! Hopefully I'll be able to wander out again later on foot. The bike will have to wait for tomorrow's forecasted sunny, cool day.

A walking day afer all...

An evening walk watching for rain

I've gotten into the habit of walking in the early evening. Looking at the sky I almost stayed home - but quickly decided that the worst that would happen would be that I would be very wet! I headed out with an occasional glance at the sky, listening to ever-threatening thunder. I exchanged a few words with a fellow walker who also decided that getting wet wasn't that bad, especially given the current temperature - warm, with more than a touch of humidity.

Home again with the sky getting ever grayer. I'm mostly dry - just a bit of sweat! Time for a cool shower...

Light show!

Wow! There were some pretty powerful thunderstorms that rolled through here this afternoon. We were sitting in the office listening to crashes that turned out to be thunder, and yet the sky above us was still bright and blue. As I drove home under a sky that was more blue than gray, I could see cloud to ground lightening strikes that looked to be not too far away.

I love watching storms, and yet I hope for good biking weather. Those two things don't go together at the same time!

Twelve weeks? It's hard to believe...

...that it's been 12 weeks since that fateful day when my bike and I did a flip on the way to work. I've published a journal of my crash and my journey back to me - and I'm still on that journey. You can read it at denisegoldberg2004crash.blogspot.com.

Sleep, sleep, no sleep!

I really wish I had control over my body, but since my little crash of May 20th it seems to want to get more sleep than it's getting. As in, I appear to need at least 9 hours of sleep a night, but most nights I'm fighting to get eight! This week is a good - or should I say bad - example. On Monday night, the last time I remember looking at the clock it was just before 2AM, and I woke up at 7. Five hours is not good. The next two nights I managed about seven hours of sleep, and as a result I've been pretty tired today. I wonder if my exhaustion level at this moment means I'll finally get a good night's sleep tonight...

Walking morning and night...

I'm still not back to my normal level of cycling, but I have been managing to walk in the morning and in the evening - with my work hours sandwiched in between. Squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits are there for my viewing enjoyment, and I have to say that the rabbits make me laugh. Recently I saw a pair of them chasing each other around in circles!

It's 4 o'clock in the morning...

...and I've been wide awake since 2. This really isn't a good way to satisfy my body's craving for sleep! It's really odd - I've been having trouble falling asleep almost since my accident, but over the last few days I thought it was getting better. But waking up at 2am after only 3 1/2 hours of sleep - and staying awake - is not a good sign. I'm going to go try to fall asleep again, but I have my doubts about whether my body will cooperate. I wonder how my Saturday will turn out with a definite sleep deficit...

On the good news front, that dizziness I was experiencing yesterday seems to be gone. Here's hoping that it stays gone once the daylight rolls around. I was hoping to get a bike ride in today, but as of right now the rain is pouring down. The forecast doesn't sound totally dismal - hopefully once the daylight shows up and once I get my morning fix of watching the final time trial of the Tour de France (live) I'll be able to spend some time in the afternoon on one of my two-wheeled cycles. Here's to hope!

Another dizzy day...

Today was another one of those dizzy days - not as bad as last Wednesday, but dizzy nonetheless. I felt like I could drive, so I headed to the office hoping it would go away. Not today... I guess that means I won't be riding my bike after I'm done with work for the day.  Work time? Well, I stayed in the office for all of three hours before the dizziness kind of freaked me out. I headed home, but I'll be putting in some more time this afternoon. On these dizzy days, I'd prefer to finish work at home so I don't get to a point at which I shouldn't be driving.

I really wish I knew what caused these days... and whatever it is, here's hoping that they disappear soon!

I thought I was light-headed, but it turns out....

...that I'm really dizzy! I went to see my doctor this week, and it turns out that what I was describing as lightheadedness is really dizziness or vertigo. I guess I should have known that... Does that mean that I'm a dizzy broad?

(Sorry, I didn't really mean that - I typically don't use the word broad to describe a woman. The combination of the two words just makes me laugh!)

And a short step backwards...

...at least if seems that way. On the good days, bad days front, unfortunately today was one of the bad ones. I woke up this morning feeling extremely light-headed, and that feeling has pretty much persisted all day. I have to say I feel better now (in the late afternoon) than I felt this morning, but I'm still not back to what (in today's version of my world) passes for normal. I really wish I could see the pattern. I don't have too many of these days, but I can't figure out what causes them. My guess is lack of sleep or not eating the right food - but I had plenty of sleep last night, and I'm really paying attention to eating the right food, both the amount and the nutritional value. I'm baffled...

Here's hoping that tomorrow is closer to a normal day!

Slow steps forward...

I'm still having good days and bad days, although the good ones outnumber the bad ones by far. I think my biggest problem is my own impatience and desire to be back to the normal version of Denise. While I know that full recovery will take a while, I've been pushing myself - from an exercise standpoint at least - to try to see continued improvement. I was up to walking an hour to an hour and a half a day. Then I added in biking - and oops! forgot to decrease the amount of walking I was doing. I fixed that problem, and I've been doing a much better job of balancing those two activities along with working (part-time still), eating, and sleeping. But I'm still impatient!

I guess I want those slow steps forward to move a lot faster!

Mass General may be a world class hospital...

...but their attention to patients after discharge leaves something to be desired. I was supposed to see a neurosurgeon 4 weeks after discharge from the hospital. The appointment was actually made for 5 weeks after discharge, and it was supposed to be last week. It was cancelled by the doc due to emergencies, a perfectly valid reason. As you know if you've read my blog entry from last week, my replacement appointment was another two weeks out (since the doc only has office hours one day a week!), and I wasn't too happy about the delay. Today I almost went through the roof when I listened to a phone message from the doc's office after I got home from my morning at my own office. That message said that my new appointment was scheduled for August 12th, and that if I had problems and needed to be seen before that I should go to the emergency room at MGH. As it turns out, the doc's office made a mistake and somehow scheduled two appointments for me, so I'm still on for late next week. That's a relief to me. And although they don't know it, I'm sure it's also a relief for the doc's office because I was definitely not going to accept a change from an appointment on July 1st (the originally scheduled time) to August 12th without making some noise and complaining to the hospital and anywhere else I could figure out that made sense.