Today was unusual for a Saturday (not that I really know what a usual Saturday would be...)
I went to *work* this morning. I met up with my supervisor to observe her complete a swallow eval of a patient whose diet she was planning to change to NPO. This poor man took pudding in his mouth and tried tried tried to swallow, but it just wouldn't happen. The structures were all moving, but in a very uncoordinated manner. Then he started vocalizing (mostly jargon) and you could just hear the pudding coating his vocal folds and falling down into his trachea, oh it was awful. Gurgly does not even begin to describe the sound of his voice and breaths. My supervisor did an amazing job of counseling the daughter about the situation. They decided together than NPO was not the best choice and they settled on hospice. It was absolutely heartbreaking, but I'm so glad I had the opportunity to see it.
After that, I cleaned the house a bit (for some reason that always helps me focus on school work) and then I started on my take home cranio-facial final exam. It's essentially an 8 page paper. It's not terribly difficult, just incredibly time consuming. I worked on that for five hours and my brain started to rebel, so I quit. Only two more questions to finish tomorrow...
After shutting down the document, I bundled up in winter running gear, wrapped a headlamp around my waist, stuck the hat lamp on my hat, and headed out for a 34 degree run. IN THE SNOW!!!! It was sooooo pretty and peaceful, just seeing the snow fall through the brightness of my headlamp and in any lampost and car headlights. I had seen a house on my run Thursday that I wanted to go see, but it was a quarter mile down a road I don't normally take...so I worked it into my route tonight. Talk about tacky lights! For those of you not familiar with Richmond, every year, the city supports a tacky light tour. Houses all over the city go NUTS with Christmas decorations and people get groups together or take buses/limos, drive around, and look at all the lights. I personally think the driving part of it is incredibly obnoxious. There's always traffic near the houses, it involves way too much thinking as far as where to go first, next, last, blah blah. Anyways...on my run tonight I saw this home and another home that I think should be considered a tacky light house, but I couldn't find it on the website.
That kind of stuff has to be one of my favorite things about running. I experience stuff that I never would if I weren't a runner. I feel pretty confident that I enjoyed the mini-snowfall tonight more than most people in the area. I also enjoy the thought that people driving by think I'm an absolute loon for being out in that weather. If you aren't a runner, that might seem weird, but I know several runners who love being considered a nutter for running in the extremes.
Speaking of runners...I'm watching the ACC Championship game and they did a little preview for tomorrow's NFL pre-show. They will be "celebrating" the cold tub! Ice baths aren't just for runners, I guess!
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