30 before 30: #4 Run a 5k or maybe even a 10k

I've always wanted to be a runner but never really believed it was something I could achieve. I mean, how many runner friends do you have who say "Yeah, I used to hate running too but now 5 miles is nothing." Oh please!

Well... 5 miles still feels like a lot to me, but a 5k? I can do that. I did that yesterday before breakfast :)

When I heard about the Giant Race and getting to finish ON THE FIELD at the ballpark, I knew it was the race I wanted to shoot for to fulfill my 30 before 30 5k. So I recruited some buddies, bought the "Get Running" app for my iphone, and had gave myself plenty of time to get from zero to runner.

I remember every step of the way to get from 1 minute intervals... to 2 minutes... 5 minutes... 8 minutes!! I couldn't believe when I was running 8 whole minutes in a ROW! It makes me feel almost foolish to admit that those were legitimate milestones that I had to train for, sweat for, and discipline myself in order to accomplish.

My most vivid training memory was when I was running outside in Tahoe and listening to "Glorious" by Newsboys, surrounded by mountains and snow and trees and sky and just feeling light on my feet and light in my soul. I remember realizing that I'm not trying to be a runner anymore... that I *am* a runner.

I spent the last few weeks trying to squeeze in training runs between classes and clinicals and ended up with two goals for the race: 1. Run the whole thing. 2. Do it in under 35 mins. I knew with Jenn Kleist at my side with her "Don't Stop Believin' 5k" mix blaring and encouragement flowing, it would be a piece of cake. We all went to the game on Friday night (I never thought I would be praying for a win against the Astros, but good job Giants!) and came back to my house to sleep before the race on Saturday am.

It was FREEZING at the starting line, but Matt Cain (!) was there to start us off down on the south side of the China Basin. The route took us from there around the park by Willie Mays Plaza, up the Embarcadero to the turnaround at the Ferry Building, and back down to the ballpark. Along the route was a gospel choir from Oakland (awesome), a cheer squad (only in SF would there be a 20:1 male to female cheerleader ratio!), and a bunch of family/friend onlookers. I felt GREAT the whole race... just so exciting to be around THAT many people running, running alongside my friends, and reflecting on how far I had come.

To end the race, we turned into the ballpark and were hit with a bunch of cheering friends/family in the stands as we ran along the track to the finish line. I could not stop smiling. Man, what it must feel like to play on that field and look up at the stands at a sell out game! It's so beautiful and loud and energizing. We got our medals... and water, yogurt, bananas, bagels, cliff bars, coconut waters... Timmy bobbleheads... and race tshirts. Yay for swag! There were tons of booths to visit, more runners coming in, and a kids race to watch (so cute!) before we left and went to get a well-deserved bloody mary at 21st Amendment :)

The final results are in and I met both my goals! Definitely ran the whole race and came in at 33:49. Here are the full 5k stats:
Overall: 1290 out of 3466
Women: 612 out of 2129
F 25-29: 181 out of 500
Finish: 33:49 Pace: 10:54

Thoughts on all this:
I'm thankful to my friends who agreed to do this with me and stuck it out from training to finish line. I was so much more motivated in the training I did alone this summer just by knowing August 27th would come and I'd be running with you. So THANK YOU Nicku, Renee, Jenn, Jen, Jess, and Higuera (yay for doing our first race together!).

I'm going back and forth on if I am surprised I did this or not. I feel like I really knew all along I would do it and do it well, but I remain amazed at what we can make our bodies do if we are mentally disciplined enough to do it. Four months ago, I couldn't run a mile. Now I can run 3.1 miles and feel great about it. It's something I have stuck with for no other reason than I set a goal for myself and I wanted to achieve it. So I did. And I'm proud.

Finally, the elephant on the blog is that this 30 before 30 specifically says "Run a 5k and maybe even a 10k." Let's just put it out there in the universe here and now that next year will be the 10k. And I'm STOKED.

Giants will release Pat Burrell... unless they don't!

(Dang... I originally posted this on 8/2 and accidentally deleted it when I was editing another post... LAME! Sorry for the repost! Interesting to re-read the article, though, and realize how much the team has suffered from injuries in even these last four weeks. It hurts!)

The first time I saw Pat Burrell was back when he played for the Phillies and I was behind home plate in my boss' seats at Nats Park. "WHO is THAT" was all I could get out through my jaw hanging open and immediately used my "phone a friend" lifeline to Clint (who is the only person I knew would have the answer since he grew up in Philly). Fast forward three years and imagine my delight at finding out Pat the Bat had traded in his Philly red for Giants orange. Now rewind to last weekend when, amidst all the trade deadline rumors, I was unceremoniously informed that Burrell had been let go and once again used my lifeline to Clint (who I knew solely would understand how my attachment had come to be and how it couldn't possibly be over for me and Pat). 

Well, as it turns out, Burrell hasn't been officially let go. The rumors were bad, preemptive reporting. The blog post below from McCovey Chronicles gives the best analysis I can find on the issue but the reality is (and it pains me to say)... I think we may have indeed seen the last of Pat the Bat taking the field in San Francisco. 

Giants will release Pat Burrell unless they don't

By Grant Brisbee

www.mccoveychronicles.com

Last night, there was a good, old-fashioned freakout. It's been too long. The story was that the Giants were planning to release Pat Burrell and demote Brandon Belt to make room for Carlos Beltran on the 40-man and 25-man rosters, respectively.

Belt is never going to play, so that wasn't the reason for the freakout. It's awful that he isn't going to get that chance, but he was never going to get at-bats. Let him get at-bats so he's ready for 2013, because if he can't play over an Aubrey Huff with a sub-.300 on-base percentage, he's never playing over Aubrey Huff. He probably will be the hitter sent down today.

So why the freakout over Burrell? He's a popular guy, sure, and I'm sure he's the biological father of some of the readers here, even if they don't really know that yet. But he's just a fifth outfielder -- a low-average, master of the three true outcomes. What he did last year will never be forgotten, but I'm okay with him on the bench. Break out the wOBA charts if you must, but he's an atrocious defender, enough to break a tie between him and Ross, Torres, or Schierholtz.

Here's my best explanation, then, for the freakout:

This site, myself included, is filled with people who probably take the Giants a little too seriously.

Haha, just kidding. That can't be it. Here's the real explanation:

Over the next two seasons, the Giants will pay Aaron Rowand and Pat Burrell combined $25 million. If they release Rowand, they pay $25 million dollars. If they release Burrell, they pay $25 million dollars. This is what a sunk cost is. The Giants know this. Dave Roberts got paid millions of dollars to announce post-game shows for the Red Sox in 2008.

The question, then, is who would help the Giants more as a fifth outfielder? The money's gone. Poof. It ain't coming back. By allocating more of the money to one of the two players, you don't get a better player. So look at both players and how they fit on the current roster. The Giants have:

Cody Ross*
Andres Torres*
Carlos Beltran*
Nate Schierholtz

The ones with asterisks are the ones who can play center. Well, that's not quite true. Nate Schierholtz can play center too, the Giants have just never tried him there. Ross and Torres are center fielders. Beltran isn't any more, but he could cover in a pinch. So for the Giants' fifth outfielder, what's more important?

1. A player whose value is entirely dependent on playing center field
2. A player whose value is entirely dependent on hitting home runs and taking the occasional walk

It's not a trick question. They're making a combined $25 million no matter who you release. They both have their very specific uses. But which skill set do the Giants need?

Burrell, no question, is a better fit. Rowand is done as a hitter -- almost nothing stabilizes quicker than strikeouts and walks, and over his past 633 plate appearances, he's struck out 136 times and walked 26 times, hitting .233 with 13 home runs. He can't hit. You can believe in his last 10 at-bats. I'll believe in his last 600.

But if the Giants get rid of Burrell, we're going to see a whole lot of Rowand late-inning pinch-hitting roles. He'd be the guy, the bat off the bench. Venters, Kimbrel, Madson, Bell, Adams ... Rowand. Whiteside bloops a single against Huston Street, and ... Rowand. He'd be the outfielder equivalent of carrying three catchers.

It wouldn't be a crippling move to keep Rowand over Burrell, and it wouldn't undo the improvements of the Beltran trade. It's just disappointing because the Giants wouldn't stay as good as they could have today, never mind the sentimental attachment to one of the reasons the Giants even made the playoffs in 2010.

Strip away the emotion and the subjectivity, and it's still pretty clear that Burrell makes for a better 25th man on the Giants than Rowand. I'm not saying Rowand needs to go (just hinting!) but if it's a choice between Burrell and Rowand, I don't see how that's a choice at all.

Nursing Firsts

 So far this summer, I have felt the nursey-posts have almost written themselves. I have not had to look very hard for inspiration or relevant anecdotes. But I've hit a little writers block these last two weeks and I think I'm finally ready to publicly admit why. That is... that I really f***ed up for the first time with a real live patient.

I'm a little (a lot) reluctant with the details but suffice it to say it was a perfect storm of my novice judgment, the nurse I was assigned to being wrapped up in a different patient's emergency (seriously a crisis... we figured out he was having multiple brain hemorrhages), and feeling so so bad that such a nice man was stuck with me and my unpracticed technique. So, I screwed up... did some due diligence with RN-informing and charting... texted my go-to friend and also a heart-group-nursing-student buddy for immediate intercessory prayer (CRB and Dailey - you did good... thank you)... and went home utterly dejected and terrified. I crawled under my covers with a glass of wine and cinnamon puffins and spent the whole night indiscriminately tossing them into my mouth and praying for God to cover my ASS until I could get to the hospital the next morning and ensure everything was fine. And it was to be fine, so... God? Thanks for covering my ass.

And also another shout out to God for redeeming my mistake SO much that I ended up doing my very first SQ injections on this same patient (yes... he still let me touch him the next day!). Injections... oye! Such a rite of passage. I actually also didn't do the best job on the heparin SQ either but... what can you do? I'm learning and sometimes (most times?) with nursing, you have to learn the hard way.

I feel like I want to say more about this patient because I will remember him for a long, long, long time to come. He was Spanish speaking and NOT ALTERED MENTAL STATUS (!!!) - such a treat to have patients who aren't AMS once in awhile (right Alyssa and Camie!?). He had a bunch of things going on with his health, but they all boiled down to diabetes-related amputation of his toe not being enough to fight the gangrene and he was facing a decision to amputate below the knee. His son never left his side and served as his dad's interpreter to the point where the son went through a medical interpretation program to better assist in his dad's care. They just... ugh... are wonderful people who wanted me to learn, appreciated my effort to speak Spanish and laugh at all my gringaness, and reinforced the valuable lesson to ALWAYS listen to your patients and include them in their care process. It was a life-giving student nurse opportunity - one that RNs can't always enjoy because of the constraints of having four patients who need intense individualized care. (For any curious readers, the patient declined the amputation and went home with heavy antibiotics and great hope they would work miracles. Barring a medical miracle or a mind change, it is likely he will decline very rapidly over the next few months and ultimately die from the gangrene and other co-morbidities). 

So maybe this is a post about nursing firsts. Over the last two weeks, I gave my first meds (literally about 50 tabs to a non-complaint AMS patient who I ultimately won over by the end of the day - WIN!), gave my first IM and SQ injections, did my first central line dressing change, gave like 20 meds through a G-tube, really felt like I took care of a patient semi-independently with nursing process and goals for the day, had a patient die before 9am, had a patient who asked me to call him "Romeo", and as mentioned.. really screwed up for the first time.

The Faith Rx

Last week I was sitting at one of the cows (name for the random computers that seem to always end up in a different corner of the hallway day to day) fiddling around on the charting system called UCare when I heard the patient in the adjacent room just straight up crying her eyes out. I leaned back in my chair enough to peak in and see her laying in fetal position, shaking from tears and pain. Her nurse was on top of giving her pain meds according to orders, but they weren't reaching her abdomen with enough strength to combat yet another ERCP for chronic pancreatitis.

Twenty-four hours later, she was still in the middle of a major pain crisis when I was assigned to helping with her care. One of my favorite roles of a nurse is a patient advocate, but as a student nurse I don't have the ability much less the experience to know when recovery is running its normal course versus when a doctor needs to step the care up a notch. The RN I was with felt it was the latter, and went to work trying to get the dosage right for the patient to achieve SOME degree of comfort.

Somewhere amidst this back and forth of pain management, the patient's description of the pain turned into the implications it has had on her life. Her husband always worked so hard, she said, and these were supposed to be happy retirement years... to travel and enjoy this life he made for them. Her garden would be ruined by the summer heat by the time she got home. Simple things, perhaps, in comparison to her anguish from praying over... and over... and over for God to take her pain away. God isn't listening, she said. She's all prayed out. God isn't listening. She's angry and she can't pray anymore.

I think one of the unteachable nursing "things" is what kind of Rx to give a patient who has lost their faith. Because we all bring OURSELVES into this profession, right? We all bring our experiences, our beliefs, our... US. So, never being the laying-hands-missionary-type myself, I was quiet. Something about every response I could think of was so wildly inadequate. I mean, what? God's going to heal you completely and you'll be in Bali in no time! No. God's given you this burden because He knew you could handle it! Double no.

Funny how God DOES give us grace for the moment though. The only honest thing I could think of to tell her was that when we feel we don't have another word in us for God, God puts people in place to speak a word for us.

The chaplain was in the room within about 5 minutes of contacting him (they're amazing at UC - I hope they're amazing at all the sites and not just at the fancy hospitals) and I can't begin to describe the peace the emanated from her spirit after the visit. Her pain was still acute - and would be, I heard, for days after - but I looked through her charts this week and saw that she had daily visits from the chaplain from that point on that were described as meaningful and comforting.

And to me, the faith Rx is leagues more meaningful and comforting than any physicians orders or nursing intervention I am training to handle.