Medical Update

Yesterday I went to the Orthopedic to get my cast put on. He did an x-ray before putting the cast on and saw that the part of my radius that had the large break was not perfectly aligned. He showed me the image, and if he hadn't pointed it out, I wouldn't have even noticed the offset, but I did see it. He said he wanted to get a CT scan of it to see if I need surgery. He said because I'm so young, it's important that it heals correctly.

So that afternoon I went to the imaging office and got the CT scan. They sent the information directly to my Orthopedic, so now I'm just waiting to hear back from my doctor.

I'd rather not have to go through surgery, but I do want my wrist to heal well and not give me problems later on. Please keep me in your prayers that God will heal my wrist one way or other.

Memorial Day Weekend

Well, my long weekend started out with a bang....or should I say break? Thursday night I was playing volleyball at my league in Oakland. I was playing up at the net when I got a set that was far outside. I was moving backwards to reach for it and I tripped on the base of the pole, twisting my ankle and then landing on my wrist and breaking it. My wrist looked like it caved in and then bulged out like a crooked road. The pain was excrutiating, but the other players were very supportive, getting me ice, calling the ambulance, and a couple guys on my team even drove my car home for me since I took the ambulance to the hospital in Berkeley. They called my roommate, Marisol, for me and she came out to the hospital to sit with me and give me a ride home. Oh, and my friend Scott from my volleyball team followed me to the hospital and stayed until Marisol got there. He was really sweet as well.

My other friend, Sonia, and I were planning on leaving at 6am the next morning for our road trip to Oregon and Tahoe, so I asked Marisol to call her and let her know what happened. Without me even asking her to, Sonia drove out to Berkeley from Concord as well! I feel so lucky to have a couple of really good friends here. They are super sweet and I don't know what I would've done if I had to go through all that alone. Especially since right after Sonia came, the doctor reduced my wrist. This meant the doctor was on one side of me and the nurse on the other side and they pulled my wrist and reset it in place! Even though they had just put more morphine in my IV and injected two shots of something else into my wrist, I still cried out in pain and squirmed in my bed! To make a long story short, my ankle turned out fine, just a little sore, and my wrist was broken with multiple breaks in the radius and a small fracture to the ulna. We ended up leaving the hospital at about 2am. I am now wearing a splint and a sling and I go in today to get a cast put on.

As for the trip, Sonia and I still did our road trip, we just left a little later and she drove the whole way. It was so great to visit with my family (I was really wanting my Mommy at that point) and it was great for Sonia to meet everyone. She was amazed by their cabin and took lots of pictures.

On Sunday, we got back on the road and drove down to Lake Tahoe where her parents were staying in their timeshare. This was my first time at Tahoe and it was beautiful! This time I took most of the pictures. Sunday evening we went out for sushi with her parents and then stayed in their condo. Her parents are very nice and interesting people. Her dad is from the Czech Republic and her mom from Slovakia, so I love hearing their stories about how they came here and all of their travels.

The original reason for wanting to go to Tahoe was for Sonia and I to train for our Tahoe Relay that we have on June 13th. Well, now that I have a broken arm, I won't be running the race so we're looking for someone to replace my leg of the race. Sonia still got up Monday morning and tried to run 4 miles of her uphill portion, but she said she died at 3.5 miles....maybe it's a good thing I'm not running.

That afternoon, we all went for a hike down to a beach area of the lake. It was absolutely gorgeous! After we we finished our lunch on the sand, we started to hear thunder and heavy clouds began to move in. It was the neatest thing! It just started sprinkling as we were leaving. What a great day! Even with a broken wrist I was able to have an awesome weekend!

What a workout!

Lately I've been trying to amp up my running. For one: I'm training for the Lake Tahoe Relay next month. Two: I want to run a marathon by the end of the year. Three: I just feel out of shape and want to work on that. I've been running, but I can only push myself so much on my own. I've found that some of the sports stores around here offer free group runs in the evenings, so I decided to try one out last night. Well, I went to this particular one once before back in the fall, but I haven't gone since.

I just wanted to share the little story of last night because, looking back on it now, it's kind of a good one!

So I started out running with the group kind of towards the front (there were a few guys who were way ahead of me and I didn't even attempt to keep up). We ended up running in Shell Ridge rec area, which is up on the grassy hills with oak trees. It was a beautiful place and I was running well, keeping up with these two men. People started dropping off and turning back. I told myself I would run 30 minutes before turning around. I had a volleyball game at 8, so I couldn't run any longer than that. Well, the men came to the turnaround point right about that time, so I turned with them. They chatted with me a little bit, then slowly got ahead of me. I could still see one guy up ahead, so I just followed where he was going. Suddenly I didn't recognize the trail anymore. 'Am I going the right way?' I thought. The guy ahead slowed to a walk and I was able to catch up with him. "Are you part of the group run?" I asked. "No. Are you?" he responded. Oh no, I was following the wrong person! He helped me figure out which way I wanted to go to get out of there and so I took off, hoping to catch up with the group.

I got off of the trail and back to the streets, but it didn't seem like the same streets we came in on. I kept following the street I was on and looked up at the sign to see what street it was. 'Marshall Dr' haha, how funny is that? This was not the right street, but I kept following it hoping it would lead me to a familiar street. Well, it just seemed to keep winding around. It was a really pretty street with adorable houses and lots of shading trees but if I didn't find my way back soon, I wasn't going to make my game. 'At least I know I'm going the right direction,' I thought, because I was running toward the sun. 'Wait a second...the sun sets in the west and I'm pretty sure the store is north of here, so I'm not going the right direction!'

It seemed like a friendly enough neighborhood, so I decided to wave down the next car and ask for directions. Along came a car, and I stopped and waved, but apparently I'm not good at waving down cars because the lady just waved back and kept driving. Then I saw a couple doing some gardening in their front yard so I asked them for help. They were very sweet and seemed so excited just when I said hi. They eagerly directed me out to the main road, but I was a lot further down from the store that where I left from (and also downhill), but I had to hurry to get to my game. So I pushed up the hill, keeping up my rushed pace that I had been running for the last 10 minutes or so.

I finally made it back to my car at 7:50, so I had to immediately drive to my volleyball game. Good thing I brought my knee pads and volleyball shoes with me. I ran into the gym where my team was already warming up. Luckily they hadn't started on time. They were all relieved to see me since; they were starting to get worried. It'd be a great ending to my story if I said that we won.......but we didn't. :( My team hasn't been doing so well this season. Oh well, they're fun to play with and I definitely had a good workout last night. I ran for over an hour (and fast too, probably about 7 or 8 miles) and then I played volleyball for 45 minutes. If only I could keep this up every night, I'd be in great shape!

Hiking

Shortly after I moved here, I bought a book called "100 Hikes in the San Francisco Bay Area" and I haven't done any of them yet! So I decided to this weekend, and I have to say it was awesome! My goal now is to do all of them....eventually. It was a great day! I started out by driving to Berkeley because there were a few stores I wanted to go to there, then I went to the hiking location which was at a National Park just east of Berkeley. It took me a little while and some turning around a few times to find the location, but the drive was beautiful, so I didn't mind. So here are some pictures:

The spot where the trail started was called Inspiration Point. Can you see my car in the background?

Here are some pictures of the trail. I ended up doing about 9 miles and I'm proud to say that I ran about 80% of it and hiked the rest.

There's Mt Diablo from the view looking East. Mt Diablo is just east of where I live, very close.

Also to the east was San Pablo Reservoir. People boat and fish out there but I don't think you're allowed to swim.

And here I am in front of San Pablo Reservoir. I hate having to take pictures of myself, but hey, that's what you do when you're alone. :P

And to the west, there was a view of the San Francisco Bay. I don't know if it is visible to you in this picture, but straight ahead is the Golden Gate bridge. It's kind of hidden in all the fog, but I could see it pretty clear when I was there along with the tall buildings of downtown San Francisco and the Bay Bridge.

On part of the trail, I passed through these groves of Eucalyptus trees. They've always reminded me of Santa Barbara. Berkeley seems to have a lot of Eucalyptus trees. I wish I could've captured the smell, I love it!