The Rash of Death

I flew back to the East Coast ( landing at BWI- Baltimore, my favorite cheapie airport) last weekend for a wedding in Northern Virginia, and got to visit some old friends/clients/"family" (kith), and do some shoots. It was a great weekend, very busy, but I had so much fun. It was definitely one of those weekends where I felt so incredibly grateful for the blessings my job as a photographer has had on my life. The opportunity to travel (even when my free time is so limited), and meet new people and see new things is amazing. As I dial back a little bit on the business as I continue to grow in my new field, I have been more able to recognize how precious this time is in my life. I am so grateful that I have been given this positive perspective, finally!

I am very excited to tell you all about DC and the friends I saw, but first, we need to get down to business. I have contracted the RASH OF DEATH.

What, pray tell is that?

I have no idea.

I spent Saturday an Sunday crawling around in the woods with different clients are various locations so it basically could be anything. When I got on the plane on Monday, I felt a little itchy, but nothing too bad- barely noticeable. Thought I had a mosquito bite.

Next morning at work, my leg looks like this:

Hmm... that's funny. Definetly a couple of scratches, but quite a few welts for it to be mosquito bites.


I slapped it with some creams and powders, and then my leg looked like this:

It was getting pretty itchy at this point, and as you can see, had spread/shown a reaction on the right leg now too.

Then it started looking pretty scabby. Hmmm.

Ideas about chiggers, poison ivy, and a variety of other ailments started being thrown around at this point. Meanwhile, I am treating with hydrocortisone, gold bond powder, Advil, Benadryl. Sort of a lot of drugs, right out of the gate.

Then we get to Thursday, when I already had an appointment with my PCP to go over my random body ache and general health.

It was here I was starting to panic a little. Two doctors and a nurse all discussed my legs and decided on chiggers or fleas, with the majority opinion swaying towards chiggers. They gave me a prescription for 60mg of prednisone and sent me on my way.

But the itch didn't stop there. It started waking me up in the night. I'd frantically begun texting my friends that I couldn't handle how itchy it was. I am not being melodramatic here. IT ITCHES SO FRAEKING BAD. It quickly escalated to unbearable and I started loading up on numbing spray and blister band aids in addition to what I already had been taking. Pain relieving cream is your friend here! Even so, that was still not enough. Getting out of a hot bath one night I scrubbed all my skin off until it bled. (It felt amazing). Then I got a washcloth to "dry" it, and of course, used that as a scratching tool too and scrubbed all of the pretty scabs my body had made.

Out of desperation, I decided to shellac my legs with clear nail polish, as many friends told me was the easiest solution and Dr. Google said was a very bad idea.

I appeared to have angered it.

This is pretty accurate as to what it looked like for most of Sunday and Monday.

Sunday night I couldn't fall asleep until after 5am, and then only slept an hour. What a miserable experience that was! I cried, argued with myself, texted people and generally speaking, got very whiney.

My friend finally got me to call the doctor again on Monday afternoon and they got me an urgent appointment with my PCP in 25 minutes. I was soaked in sweat when I got there after rushing in the car and then across campus and was totally disgusting looking. They kept asking if I had a fever, but no, I was just being gross and wearing dirty clothes in humid weather.

When we took off the bandaids on my toes, we got a lovely surprise!

Hello, infection!

(My nail polish is missing because I SCRATCHED IT OFF).

This time I got the benefit of FOUR MORE DOCTORS and ANOTHER nurse weighing in on my leg drama. They all poked prodded, examined me and asked a million questions. Everything from scabies to allergies was thrown around before they finally agreed on a diagnosis of poison ivy, and an allergic reaction to go with it.

The loudest doctor said the directional lines around my ankles looked precisely like the grass/vines brushing up against my feet as I walked through ground bushes. My PCP was concerned it was really mite tracking, not scratches (aka scabies).  It took them about 20 minutes to come to a consensus on the poison ivy, and then they went all out with treatment.

Extend the 60 mg/day prednisone, topical prescription strength anti itch gel, an oral antibiotic FOUR TIMES A DAY, a sleeping pill/anti-histamine to get me to sleep, gelly burn pads around the biggest points of infection, and a couple other things I have now forgotten.

I walked out of the office like this:

They bandaged both of my ankles like I had tried to slit my wrists. It was pretty attractive, I must say.

I managed to sleep last night with the help of the sedative, but I am still itchy. Less desperately so though, so that must be recognized as an improvement!

I still am not sure what this is. People who have had poison ivy say my initial rash didn't look like it. I have no idea. I just hope this works. We are on day 11 of this hell.  Anybody got an opinion?

Junction City Scandinavian Festival 5k Race Report (#10/14)

Race #10 of our 14 in 2014 Race Series. Time: 39:18

 

Race number 10! We got here so fast! My friend Sarah and I made a goal earlier this year to run 14 races in 2014! It's been really fun, and we've traveled all over the state of Oregon running! We've each done a couple on our own, and the rest together.

 

I want to write more about this later, but I want to at least touch on this so everything is chronological. My best friend Kristin's dad was diagnosed with cancer about 6 weeks ago and was sadly told it has progressed too far before they caught it. It was his second battle with cancer, and he went downhill very rapidly. The night before the race I talked with some of Kristin's family, and Kristin and they didn't think he'd made it through the night. Sarah and I ended up staying up until 1am the night before the race working on some things for the family. I left her house after that, slept until 4am when my phone beeped with a text message that Jerry had passed away. I'll go into more detail on Jerry's story in another post. Honestly it's too overwhelming to write about yet.

 

I got up about an hour and a half later and picked up Sarah at 6:50am to drive to Junction City. We got lost on the way there, but we made it by 7:30am, got free street parking (yay!) and got our race packets. No swag this time, but I decided when I got up that morning that I wanted to "Jog for Jerry." I made a silly little sign, and asked Sarah if she thought it was dumb, but she didn't, so we pinned it on my back. 

 

 

Because I know someone is sure to ask, NO that is not my bra hanging out in the back. That is the design of the back of my support tank, which is two-tone. I usually wear a shirt over my tank, but the last couple of races I've gotten a little chaffing from running in the heat in my shirts, or my shirt has ridden up and obscured my bib. The tank is really, really supportive, and almost compression style, which I really love. It's really difficult for me to find tops that fit that I can comfortable work out in. This tank was from Old Navy, but unfortunately, they don't make it anymore. I plan to wear it until it shreds.

 

The race started at 8:15am sharp and we were ready to go! I ran my fastest mile (by ONE second) the first mile, and jogged the first almost 5 minutes solid. I have finally established a fairly predictable pattern the last few races. I typically run the first .5 mile, which takes me about 5 minutes. Then I start intervaling. Because of this, my first mile is always my fastest. If I start slow, it doesn't seem to change how long I run (yet), so I'm going to stick with this method as long as it works! Mile two is my slowest mile, and then once I hit mile 3, I speed up again, usually sprinting into the finish.

 

This course was really great. It had some mild elevation changes, which gave it variety, nothing remotely challenging, but just enough to encourage you to run the downs, and the "hills" mild enough to trick you into thinking you could run the whole thing. I don't know that I am walking less on these races, but I am running faster. Whatever works I guess!

 

 

I was pretty deep in my thoughts during the race- so much so, I never saw Sarah pass me on the out and back even though she tried to get my attention. For a few minutes I almost thought she had dropped out or something because I never saw her. It's more likely though she passed me when I was thinking about Jerry, and trying not to cry. (I was only moderately successful at that challenge.)

 

Because I had finally met my 5k goal (a sub-40), I wasn't too stressed about over reaching for any improvements on this one. I wasn't worried about PR'ing. I understood my running routine and just kind of generally hoped to stay under 45 minutes because that's been pretty consistent for me these days.

 

My last race at the Eugene Marathon 5k in July was a 39:53, but today I whupped that and got a 39:18! Amazing! Thank you for running with me Jerry- I felt you with me the whole way!

After the race, I was pleased to see the water and snack stations were easy to find and very accessible right at the end of the chute. (Unlike the Eugene Marathon.) I was less pleased to see after I stopped my Garmin that it had only register 3.08 miles instead of 3.11. I almost wanted to scream. I would have restarted the watch and finished the last .03/.02 but I didn't recognize the deficient until the moment the screen was clearing as I saved the data. D'oh.

We walked back to the car, hung out a bit, freshened up, and then walked around the fair!

We scoped everything out first, but then I headed straight to the Swedish pancake booth to get some pancakes and lingonberry jam! It was great!

Close up. I grew up on these. My mom's side is 100% Swedish, and we often had Swedish pancakes for Christmas breakfast. If you haven't had them before, they are like a very thin crepe.

Sarah opted to have something called a Aebleskiver, which is a Danish donut hole type thing that you dunk in jam. it was very good too! Here are the ladies making it. It was very fun to watch!

After that we checked out all the booths, walked around, took our picture in front of the giant Dala Horse, and finally settled on lunch. We both got Swedish meatballs with white gravy, which was amazing. I also got criss cut (waffle) sweet potato fries with a lingonberry ketchup. All was excellent!

All in all, it was a pretty great day! I'm so grateful that I have been able to make a friend who has similar interests as me, likes to spend time together and do fun things that are good for our bodies- like eating treats!

Eugene Marathon 5k Race Report (#9 of 14)

Race #9 of our 14 in 2014 Race Series. Time: 39:55

The morning of the race, we met at Grocery Outlet and then drove over to campus together in my car since I have a parking permit. We stopped at Dutch Brothers so Sarah could get coffee, and awesomely enough, finally spotted the elusive Jurassic Park jeep we had heard was around town! My friend Chloe spotted it first in a random driveway and took pics with it in the middle of the night. Being a huge JP fan I desperately wanted to find it, so I was thrilled find out our Dutch Brothers barista owned it! I asked if we could take pictures, and he was so excited someone had asked rather than just climb all over his car (what the?) that he said sure!

That was way fun!


This race was both awful and wonderful. I FINALLY met my PR goal of going sub-40. Seven months of working on it, and I finally did it! I think it really helped that the course had some good easy downhills, that it was a "home" town race, and that I have been doing the Couch to 5k a little again. (Only up through week 2 though, because you have to pay for it after that point!)

My biggest complaint about this race is that it was over 85 degrees at 8am, and there was NO WATER on the course. I was SO thirsty, and felt SO awful, and kept looking for water and there was none. I could not believe that an event as huge as the Eugene Marathon wouldn't have water on the course. There honestly, in my memory, was not a single other race we did this year that didn't have a water station of some kind.

I was feeling pretty horrific by the end of the race, getting dizzy, couldn't speak- I had not hydrated beforehand as I should have, and the lack of water totally through me off. I also had had a pretty salty breakfast which did not help matters. (AND a whole Salted Caramel Gu too)

I was ready to bite someone's head off by the end of the race but I just wanted water.

So You can imagine my raging anger when I sprinted into the finish (running an 8:31 minute mile the last .11) on the famous Hayward Field track at University of Oregon, only to find, AGAIN, no water at the finish. I started randomly babbling to people- "Water?! WATER?!" But they either could not understand me, or ignored me. (I know I looked awful.) We had to walk a good additional .2 standing in lines like cattle to get our swag bags- again, NO WATER. I was starting to cry at this point. Another .1 and we're in the finisher's corral. WHERE"S THE WATER?!

The super dumb runner's corral.


When Sarah found me, I was so pissed off and so sick I was shaking and basically staggering. We finally found the water and I literally had to lay down because I felt so awful. I was super proud of my time, but so angry something as basic as a water station had been over looked. Just because a race course is short does not mean water should be overlooked- particularly in July when it was 85 degrees! I got so sick, so fast, and not everyone on that course was fit- I'm certainly not and there were plenty more like me, or struggling more! Frankly, I think the lack of water was dangerous and reckless.

Oh, and the water they had? Tasted strongly of plastic. The pancakes we were supposed to get afterwards had also apparently been made with the same contaminated-tasting water because the flavor of plastic was STRONG in the pancakes. We threw them away after two bites.

Loud complaining aside, I finally met my goal! This was so exciting. And I am so proud, even if the race itself sucked.


After the race, I ran home, and cleaned like crazy because my friend Nicole and her family were coming to town from Utah for family pictures! So exciting!
 

Bend, Oregon Spark Your Heart 5k Race Report (#8 of 14)

Race #8 of our 14 in 2014 Race Series. Time: 44:23

Sarah and I decided to do this race the NIGHT BEFORE, at like, 11pm. I had wanted to do a 4th of July race, and spontaneously decided on this one the night before, texted Sarah, and we again, got up at like 4am and drove the 2 hours to Bend. Sarah had just gotten back from camping out there, so it was nice to have an "insider!"

We registered that morning, and it was good. I also wore one of my new race shirts that I had had custom made on etsy. Super fun!

I felt like I started out strong for the first half mile or so. I think this was the first race where I ran the first five minutes pretty straight, no stopping. However, I started feeling crappy again in mile two and couldn't get going again.

I also had this weird interaction with this weirdo couple who, when I got close to them to pass, suddenly split, with the wife running on the right of the trail, and the husband on the left. As you know, you always pass on the left. (Walkers left, runners right. Just like on the highway). I had just been calling out "Passing on the left!" When the guy darted to the left. I didn't understand what was happening- Did they want me to run inbetween them? And WHY? It felt awkward. So I just said, "I don't understand what's happening!" And then guy started running ont he grass! WHY? If you are running as a pair, one person could fall behind the other into single file so the passing person can get by. But that's only if the trail is narrow and this was basically a sidewalk. If they had just hugged the right for a second we could have avoided all that confusion. It was super annoying.

Crossing the finish in front of the annoying people. Yes, I ruined it for them. However, they kept trying to talk to me and joke and split the path the rest of the race so I just stopped caring.


The trail was pretty but I didn't feel great and this wasn't a PR for me. My cuboid bone was bothering me a bit, and I just felt tired. It happens! Trail was pretty though, and full of variety- sidewalk, wood bridges, roads, dirt trail by the river! I'd like to go back to Bend again.

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After the race we went for a drive, screwed around in a meadow doing dance moves, and spent a good 20 minutes searching for Sarah's car keys, which we lost during the dancing in the field shenanigans.

We also had Hawaiian for lunch for the first time, which was very good! I don't really see the different between Hawaiian and a lot of Asian food- it just seemed like it had pineapple added. (I'm assuming it was wildly inauthentic, but it was good.)

Internship!

I've started two internships in relation to school in the last couple of months. In May I, along with a half dozen other students from my cohort,  went through training to volunteer at the local Small Claims court. We did 6 hours of training specific to Small Claims (in addition to our year of education and 40 hour certificate required by the State) and then went through a series of observations, and are now co-mediating cases with other professional mediators. Small Claims is precisely what I went through during my own court hearing after my relationship with Matt, and I am so proud of myself for being able to walk into a court room every Monday and not be gripped with fear. Our courtrooms don't have baliffs, which helps, and it's very informal, which also helps. Most of the cases coming in are debt collection, or landlord-tenant disputes, but the cases we end up with are primarily personal disputes. Not quite as extreme as what happened with Matt, but in essence, two people in some kind of professional or personal relationship who got into a dispute about something. For example, an argument over a car you sold your friend on a payment plan or something. Or a couple who split up and couldn't decide who gets what furniture from their apartment. Those kinds of things. (Mediation is confidential so I can't actually talk about any real cases, but these examples would be similar.)

That's my first internship. I'm about a month and a half into it. I like it!

This is me going in to court a couple weeks ago. I swear, the expression on my face ONLY expresses my hate for my hair that morning. LOL

Next, my real internship, which I am getting credit for. (AKA paying $5,000+ in tuition for because it's required for my degree.) I'm working for an adoption agency which specializes in adoptions for older children coming out of foster care. They want me to create an adoption mediation program for their company to help the kids transition better. Adoption mediation typically means negotiating open adoption agreements between birth families and adoptive families. For example, agreeing to exchange letters and pictures once a month, or a birth day visit once a year. Things like that. It's a TON of research because they want me to do everything from research the current laws to working out the mechanics of the process to investigating other programs that are out there. Oh and fund it. It's kind of a lot. I almost played with the idea of switching my thesis/terminal project to this topic, but I don't know if I could handle it. I'm only 20 hours in to this thing and I'm already like, "Whoa." It's a lot!

Here's me at my internship! All of the volunteers work together in a room with a bunch of computers. It's a little warm in there so I am unfortunately having coffee substance abuse problems. It's a struggle!

Me at my new desk! First time working in an office in EIGHT YEARS! 

You're also welcome to check out my internship blog. It's not super exciting, but it like, exists, so feel free:  http://adoptionmediation.blogspot.com/

Lebanon Strawberry Festival Run Race Report (#7 of 14)

Race #7 of our 14 in 2014 Race Series. Time: 41:07

 

The Strawberry Festival probably could have been pretty interesting if either of us had been locals, but we both felt kind of "other'ed" in town, and didn't really feel a part of anything. We saw part of the parade, but we missed the giant strawberry shortcake that was supposed to feed 10,000 people. We just never saw anything. No booths, or anything. We had trouble finding the start too.

 It was another early race, a good hour away. It was a long, straight out and back course. I got a RAGING belly ache in mile 2 and thought I was going to literally have an accident. (aka, poop my pants). I felt awful, and wanted to quit a lot. I made it though. The weather had just started to turn warm and I think this is one of the last races I wore in capris/pants before I switched to an old pair of bike shorts I had found that work much better for me.

The one exciting thing we DID do was go to Dutch Brothers afterwards. I had never been and Sarah swore there was a Frappuccino like item that only had 65 calories. It was tasty! (Sugar Free non fat double torture!)