A Mighty Mo Update

It seems this blog has become a book recounting the life of my son. As it is as much a part of the fabric of my life and my own, it must be included. Plus, hundreds of people have become invested in my son over the last eight years and this is sometimes important stuff. 

Next week Wednesday, Mo goes in for a procedure. The procedure is actually multiple invasives that will allow his doctors to look at his system from his teeth to his rectum. Nothing will be left unobserved. This kind of has to be done from both sides. By my reckoning this will be around the seventh time he has been put under. 

The work will not be done there. While he is under the doctors will put a transmitter in his esophagus which will measure acid levels from his stomach, which they believe are contributing to the spasms, nausea, vomiting and ulcers.  For 48 hours it will transmit readings every 5 minutes to a receiver he will wear on his waist. 

To prepare for these procedures he had to go off of all his meds on Thursday. On Friday, the next day, Mistress received a call from the school nurse, Mo was rolling around on the bed in pain. He said it felt like a shark was eating his stomach. We decided to give him one of his emergency med's kept at the school and it worked. These med's were for last resorts and yet he has had one each Friday for the last few weeks. While I personally do not believe in coincidence, no one believes he is using his condition as an excuse.

Already expecting that being off his med's would be a hardship on all of us, we have prepared for issues that will certainly arise. Luckily, Monday is a school vacation day and both of us will be home to help after he is home from the hospital. 

I will try to put in a blog post that is me centered between now and then.

A (re)telling of a Mo tale

The summer of 2010 was time of great emotional stress for my family. I thought I had written about it but perhaps I needed some distance from living it to it becoming a historical narrative before I could process everything. There was a lot of ups and downs but one story has become Mighty Mo lore at our family table and worth a mention here.

I suppose there was some point in our lives where Mistress and I thought telling these stories were self-serving.  We long ago removed our ego or thought of personal praise or reward in telling these simply because what we witness as daily living is to others if not a childlike miracle than a deep well of empathy and emotional intelligence and understanding that is wholly disproportionate to a child who has lived less than eight years. My only term to describe it is a gravity that draws people to him in a way unlike any overt convention of charisma or charm.

As I said the early summer of 2010 was rough on the family. Mo was having some really horrible side effects from his advancing auto-immune disease. He has been on drugs since the day he was born and this current panel had started to become ineffective. For a few weeks we sat and discussed with doctors true quality of life issues and quantity of life. Discussing the removal of large portions of his liver and intestines and wearing a colostomy bag at 7 years old as the best case scenario and maybe not making it to 12 years old at all, it becomes overwhelming.

Luckily by mid summer we were able to try some experimental drugs for his age and cleanse out his system so that his liver no longer resembled that of a 40 year of alcoholics and his body could handle his daily meds once again. This meant a move to more powerful drugs for his daily requirements as well.

Now earlier in 2010, my grandfather (mom’s dad) moved in with my parents.  We had never really interacted but was a welcome addition to our dynamic. Mo would spend not hours, but significant time nevertheless, sitting with his great grandfather and talking about all sorts of topics that people separated by 80 years of life could.

In the middle of summer, he started to enter his final stages of life and my parents were forced to put him into assisted living. Over the two weeks he was there before passing he was more comfortable but sleeping more and interacting less with the world. My mom and Mistress would go there almost daily to sit and talk hoping that he would hear the words.  Mo did not ask, he demanded, insisted on going.

After on sitting he and Mistress were walking out of the room and Mo asks if there were people like great grandfather in the other rooms like other kids in the other rooms when he is at the hospital.  Mistress said yes. Mo asks if their mommy’s and daddy’s come to see these people like at the kids hospital.  Mistress had to explain that these people here are old and all their mommy’s and daddy’s died a long time ago.

Mo asks who then comes to see these people, if their mommy’s and daddy’s don’t and Mistress explains that if they are lucky a relative will come to see them like he does with his great grandpa. Mo looked up at his mom and says, “I think I am going to talk to some of them when I come back tomorrow since their family can’t.”

Sure enough, the next day after Mo had sat with his great grandfather, holding his hand, talking about Star Wars and interesting things to a soon to be first grader, he walked out of the room and into the room next door. He walked to the side of the bed of a man he did not know and was not awake. He reached out, held the persons hand and introduced himself.  He then sat and just spoke for several minutes about his day and hoped he was okay.  This repeated two more times.

None of them acknowledged Mo and he seemingly did not care. Hopefully, these people could hear at least something that was being said to bring them some comfort. Maybe thinking that a grandchild had finally come to see them.   

It took all of his mothers ability to not cry, several of the nurses on staff lost their resolve once they realized this little boy was walking from room to room of his own accord.  His great grandfather passed a few days later.  Whatever becomes of Mo, it will always be known he was boy of deep empathy.

A Mighty Mo Update

I have had this blog now for many years and not been shy describing the affects of the auto immune disease that Mighty Mo has dealt with since the day of his birth. Medically its a version of Colitis but with all cases he has unique affects to his body and medically he is one of the youngest cases doctors have ever seen so some of this is new territory for them to travel as some of the drugs he has been on have never been prescribed to someone so young. 

Since last summers "quality/quantity of life scare" Mo has been on some pretty strong drugs for his age. They had been working but the side affects are pretty strong. However, it now seems like a point of diminishing returns. The doctors are not sure if the body is having a problem with the drugs or if the disease is progressing or morphing.  Regardless, when his stress levels go up, from physical to emotional to personal perception of a situation, he gets really sick and it causes some violent and painful reactions to his body.   

Today, the third Friday in a row, he is having this issue. Unfortunately its the first Friday back to school break., so school called to seek advice. Mo, despite the vomiting, spasms, stabbing pain and whatnot, knows he is not contagious and wants to stay. He figures he is going to feeling bad, might as well stick around. He's a trooper. 

Kind of weird territory for Mistress and I. We are not used to his 'mature' input on what he wants to do. At 7 years old, we usually make the decisions for him in his best interest. Here today, he is deciding to stick it out when we would pull him out.  So he stays for now. 

Everyday he teaches more about dealing with adversity in a positive way than anyone on this planet. 

In the next few weeks he going to have a pretty extensive scope.  All the way from the top to bottom and bottom to top, from mouth to rectum to check the progress of the condition. There is no cure on management and hope it doesn't get any worse. They will also attach a transmitter inside him while he is under and with a receiver he will wear for 48 hours, every 5 minutes it will transmit data that can be used to further aid our information. 

This kid is a super trooper. 

Another road trip

I've been busier than I ever expected since I got the opportunity to take some time off starting in November. I figured I would be stress free and training hard. It really hasn't gone exactly as that but I am having a really fun time doing whatever it is I am doing. I don't miss the headaches of customer service and employee issues. I have misplaced my phone for a day or two at a time and I don't realize it. I took off my watch and forgot to put it on for a week. I think the best part has been the enjoyment of spending all of Mighty Mo's school vacation with him. 

There was the ten day family road trip to Disneyland, Fishermans Wharf, Alcatraz and Sacramento for a massive 60+ family dinner (with many relatives missing).  I schedule some days to-do lists based on what movie matinée I want to see. I have done day hikes in the middle of the week, stayed up all night playing video games because I can. It has been at or near freezing here at night so I run when I want after it warms up. Crack a beer at 11am because its 5 o'clock somewhere and theres a Family Guy marathon on tv. Today is, I think, Wednesday and I spent the afternoon at IKEA with my wife helping her buy a tea cup display cabinet. Who knew they had those! 

Tomorrow I leave for a road trip with my dad. I wish it was to some exotic destination for fishing but instead its back to Sacramento to watch my brother receive a  very prestigious award only given to Infantrymen. For you military readers out there, it's not one of the usual Army infantry medals, it's a Something of St. Something and it comes with a wide ass ribbon and garish medal you wear award your neck. I shouldn't be so flippant, its a important award and I am proud of him. 

We are going to waylay at my Godfathers for a day to hang out and eat sushi, then all drive up to the function. Then pick up one of our fishing/hiking buddies and drive to my Godfathers cabin in the Sierra's for a few days to again hang out, watch the BCS bowl game Monday night and I can do some snow training. The cabin is over 7,000 feet and was told today that there is 15' of untouched snow on the ground and about 5' in areas that people try to clear like around houses and driveways. Should be fun.  

I suppose we could be worried about being snowed in, but they are all retired and I guess for right now, I am too. Its not like any of us have to be anywhere next week. Though Mo is having a pretty serious procedure scheduled for sometime within the next two weeks. I shouldn't miss that. More on that situation in my next post in a few days. 

Till then, I really do hope that everyone had a great holiday season and a happy New Year. It's not enough to exist. You got to live. 

Up Tempo

Man, two weeks since my last post goes fast. I cannot believe how fast time is moving in the last month. Unbelievable. Living a life I never expected right now and will end far to soon. So I rejoice in the moment.

My master plan of training with more frequency was immediately derailed by two days of stomach flu and two more days of recovery. That really, really sucked. However in the last week I have put  together eight  good workouts. I am finally in the last few days starting to have two-a-days and here is what I have found. 

I am good for one solid, hard workout per day or two easy to moderate training sessions per day. When I do any training over 90 minutes at one time I am done for the day. Sometimes I am in that bonkie, sort of not there realm for the rest of the day or my legs simply have not recovered. When I do two easy to moderate workouts separated by several hours I can typical recover just fine. So in the interest of burning calories am logging longer distances to build base, I am going for two workouts a day when I can. 

As with most people, regardless of training, I am partaking in the 'sweet' benefits of the holiday season and kicking myself for it each time I get on the scale. I have drawn my line in the sand and reversing that trend today. I am not going to deny myself the enjoyment of celebratory drinks and foods while with my friends but I certainly will when I am by myself. It is not what I do the three hours I am at a party, its what I do the other 21 hours that defines my strategy for fitness. And every 24 hour period after that till the next time. 

Gotta be safe, be strong, be consistent and be vigilant. But have fun while doing, otherwise why do it. Right?

Taking the (COLD) plunge

The more I read about it, the more I am convinced that I hamper my day to day recovery from endurance pursuits because of my love for my hot tub. I will easily spend 20-40 minutes every couple days soaking in a 104* hot tub, sweat pouring off my face, a good book or magazine article helping me unwind from the day. 

An unfortunate consequence of my current quest for quicker recovery is leading me to sacrifice my beloved hot tub by cutting my immersion by 50-75% a week. In fact I am going to go in the exact opposite direction and begin taking cold showers and using my pool as a cold plunge especially as a post workout recovery. 

You see it is not so much that the additional heat  from my soaks is harming my recovery as it is the lack of ice baths, cold plunges and the like that actually have verifiable restorative property's post activity. Rather than put myself in a position to have the hot tub suck more vital metabolic energy from me when I need it most, in recovery, and potentially increasing muscle fiber tear down I will be instead constricting blood flow, halting tissue breakdown and decreasing swelling. If this cyrotherapy does as it should, it would halt muscle fiber breakdown which lessens my naturally occurring Rhabdo and therefore help my blood recover and clear itself faster through my kidneys.

Not looking forward to adding cold showers to my routine. Not sure I can do it daily. I do believe that after all home based training I can cold plunge in my pool. I know this is not going to be easy. In fact for all my nuances for gear and my Shiny Things, I expect the next few months to be a very Spartan, hardcore living style.

Testing the battery

After two and half years of recovery, I realize that while I am miraculously still alive, I have limitations that I must abide by in order to maintain a balance of health and endurance. I purposely chose those words as my polar opposites as it is quite clear the more I increase my endurance workload the more stress I place on my body, specifically those formally failed internal organs. The best analogy I can provide today to describe my life is that I can still reach levels beyond mere exercise yet it takes significantly longer for my body to recover and part of that is my kidneys clearing out the Rhabdo blood. A very novice way of stating a complicated process. 

There are benefits and consequences to everything but I have decided, and have the luxury right now, of taking a significant amount of time from work. I have cleared my schedule for the next two months at least and plan to invest that time in my relationship with my family and my relationship with my body. Physically and mentally. 

My plan, despite all applicable Murphy Laws to the contrary, is to start ramping up my running, cycling and strength workouts using accelerated periodization to maintain a level of continual growth in speed and distance without pushing into exhaustion and over training. This is over course very touchy ground for me as I tend to train harder, not smarter. 

I already accept that what used to be an eight to twelve hour recovery from a moderate to intense training session is now twenty-four to thirty-six hours.  Meaning that any training in recovery has had to be active rest at most. To change this process will apply stress to me physically which I must monitor in order for me to build into two or three a day sessions once more. 

My hypothesis is that by steady, consistent, focused application of physical stress (aka being in The Zone), along with proper physical, mental and emotional recovery with little distraction, I can make significant recovery gains. I can retrain my body to recovery closer to my pre-injury form. I wish it was the same as throwing out the bad batteries and inserting new ones and if anyone can figure that out, you'll be a gozillioniare, but alas our human bodies run on rechargables and mine have just been drained to zero too many times and are slow to recharge. 

Swimming will take a part in this plan as recovery option only, for now. I don't have a pool and I can swim in the lake but it will be a mighty chilly option. Plus I will need a partner with lake swims which may not be all that inviting an offer. I am honest enough to appreciate Master's swim programs but I have no illusions of ever getting out of the slow lane and holding those people up with me there.

The next couple months will be interesting to say the least. My sole focus is family and fitness. Lets see what happens. A little work to stay sharp.

It's not enough to exist. I am going to live.