Tuesday, May 19, 2009

At Last

Kiwi finally has a diagnosis. The results from her endoscopy came back from the lab, and it turns out that she does indeed have IBD. There's good news and still some lingering questions that come with her diagnosis. Evidently the labs revealed that she has MILD irritable bowel disease. That's good as far as treatment goes, but the specialist said that a mild case may not explain everything that Kiwi has been experiencing. That's a little frustrating, but at least we can start treating something. Kiwi will be on prednisone for the next month or so, and supposedly we should see some pretty immediate results from that. According to the vet, once we get the inflammation down, Kiwi should be able to resume a pretty normal life, which includes running.

Speaking of running, I've been doing a little of that. It's amazing how much weight has been lifted off my shoulders with Kiwi's improvement. Last week was my biggest of the year. Friday and Saturday combined for my biggest back-to-back ever. On Friday morning, Adam Lint and I headed out to North Bend for a double ascent of Mt. Si (my first of the season). Both times up were under 50 minutes and felt great. On our way back from Si, Adam and I flagged the five mile course for Saturday's Cougar Mountain race. Then on Saturday I took part in the Watershed Preserve 12 Hour. 12 hours of running a 5.3 mile loop was not my idea of fun, but I felt like it would be a great opportunity to figure out my nutrition plan for Western and get some solid time on my feet. I actually only ended up running 10:37. In that time, I ran 69.88 miles. With 80 minutes or so left to run, I could have pushed well into the mid 70's, but I didn't want to put myself into too great a deficit. I feel great about having run 90 or so miles in two days. My week ended up at 127 miles. I know that's become quite pedestrian these days, but for me that's a HUGE week. With about 4 weeks of hard training left, I'm feeling really good about my current fitness.

And the last little bit of good news comes from the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. His debut is June 1st, and his first musical guest will be none other than my favorite band PEARL JAM. They will evidenty be playing new songs from their forthcoming album. That rocks!

6 comments:

Kevin Gosselin said...

hey Brian, that's pretty good news! as a Dad of two dog-children I know the worries, stress and affects their little lives can have on ours. Any diagnosis is better than the unknown especially one that's treatable and allows her to start offering her dad some training companionship, no? Glad to hear the training is going well and with Kiwi in better shape I'm sure it'll allow you to peak at just the right time.
oh, and PJ new release with Conan premier, does it get any better?

Alison Hanks said...

does pj have a new release? man, i'm out of the loop here in the wild west. i'm glad kiwi's on the mend, and rock out on your big week!

Andy said...

Brian,
I am sorry to hear about your Dog. My labrador is going through some medical problems and I can understand how you feel. By the way, you sold me the first pair of Scott's Cascadia when I came up to
have a consult run with Him. I live in Phoenix and have talked with you a few times before I went running with Scott. I will be going to Western States and volunteering. I am very excited about this. Anyway, my teaching year went very well and now I have the wonderfull Summer break that most Teachers experience. My running is doing very well. I'll
be rooting for You and Scott at Western. Wow you have some serious competition.

Sincerely,
Andy from Phoenix, AZ.

Andrea said...

C'mon Alison, get with the program. Just 'cuz your living on the east side doesn't mean you can slack off on Pearl Jam. Ya, they have a new album due out in the fall. How's everything going?

Thanks everyone for the support and encouragement of Kiwi.

Brian Morrison said...

That's pretty funny. I didn't realize that Andrea had been signed in. That's a pretty funny visual thinking of Andrea calling Alison out on not keeping up with PJ.

Alison Hanks said...

Oh god, that's funny. I really thought Andrea was on my case there. Ok, gotta get back in the PJ swing of things.