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Monthly Summary – October 2015

Another month gone by where I really intended to post a little more (more than none, I know…), but the days just got away from me. A big reason for that is all the time I spent here:

That’s the Lineac C treatment room at UCLA’s radiation oncology department. Twenty-two times during October (and five times in September, and one more time to come in November) I got on that table, was lined up with various lasers from around the room and stayed still while the machine rotated around me and radiated the tiny bits of my tumor that my surgeon wasn’t able to remove in July. Once I’m all situated and the machine is turned on, each treatment usually lasted about 5 minutes: first, one or two minutes to take images, then the machine rotates in an arc around my stomach and makes six stops; at each stop, the radiation gets turned on for about 20 seconds.

Besides the fact that Monday is my last treatment, the good news about the radiation is that – for me – the hassle and stress and time commitment of going to UCLA every day was the worst “side effect”. It wasn’t until about 18 treatments in that I started to feel any physical side effects and even though I’ve had pretty constant nausea since then, it’s generally been mild and hasn’t had much of an effect on my work, sleep, eating, social life or exercise. I’ve also noticed that I’m a little more tired that normal (another common side effect) and getting up early in the morning has been especially challenging. But every day, when I’m sitting in the waiting area waiting for my treatment, I look around and I am almost always the healthiest patient in the room. When I think about the suffering that some of those people are going through, it helps me put things into perspective and stop any little bit of whining that I might consider.

The entire staff at the radiation oncology department, the doctors, nurses and radiation techs are awesome. They are friendly and helpful and compassionate and really make every effort to create a nice environment. Right from the start, the techs knew my name and asked about my day. I got to know them a little bit and might even miss our daily quick conversations. I hope it never comes up for any of you, but if God forbid you need radiation treatment and UCLA is convenient for you, I can’t recommend this facility more highly.

OK, on to the usual stuff…

Coaching Team NutriBullet is still going well. I’m really enjoying our weekend practices. The team seems to be jelling pretty well, hopefully at least somewhat because of our awesome group of coaches (Steve, me, Nicole, Jimmy, Kelley and Craig).

I was pretty consistent about both running and swimming in October, but didn’t do much intensity or really “fun” runs. Between the time suck of going to UCLA and the nausea, other than our Saturday team practices, most of my running was either around West Hollywood or the UCLA loop in Westwood (before or after getting zapped). Hopefully, once radiation ends, I’ll get back to the trails a bit during the week.

Here are my goals and evaluation for October. As before, the red is my evaluation of how I feel I did this month. I think this month shows generally good effort given everything else that’s been going on…

1. Eat better. So-so. I ate better, I think, but my diet mostly consists of a lot of snacking and then dinner. That’s fine in theory, but I need to work back into a rhythm. I said that last month also, so… maybe November?   
2. Focus on getting better sleep. I think I slept better in October than September, so that’s something.  
3. Continue swimming, yoga and strength training on a regular basis. I swam a bit, but it was my lowest mileage swim month this year (except July and August which weren’t full months). Again, I’ll blame the radiation. I have worked my back up to regularly swimming at least 2,500-3,000 meters per session, but I’m only swimming 3-4 times per week, instead of the 5-6 times, which I was doing during my high volume months this spring. Part of the issue was finding a pool convenient to UCLA, but towards the end of the month, I “discovered” the Westwood city pool on Sepulveda. It’s got great hours, costs $3.50 per swim, is totally underused (i.e. not crowded) and is 25 meters, all of which are really nice. It’s indoor, which seems lame in LA (I have been very spoiled by only swimming outdoors). The locker room is just as grungy as the Culver and West Hollywood pools, so I’m used to that and really don’t need anything more or nicer. I’m at almost 400,000 meters on the year. At one point, I was hoping to get to 500,000 by December 31, but that’s pretty much impossible at this point. “Pretty much”… we’ll see. I only did my strength workout a few times, which is probably why my low back has been bothering me a bit recently. And no yoga. 
4. Run easy. Maybe hit the trails for some easy training. I ran about 3 times a week this month. Averaging around 15-18 miles per week. I’d like to add in a run or two and hit 28-30 miles per week. The only trail I ran was up in Sonoma when were there for a wedding. But as I mentioned above, now that radiation is just about done, hopefully I’ll get back to the Tuesday and/or Thursday runs in the Santa Monicas that I really miss. Coaching Team NutriBullet is still a lot of fun. The team is energetic and excited and going out to coach every Saturday helps keep me accountable too. 
5. Be positive.  Keeping that smile on my face even when I don’t want to! 
6. Read at least one book, hopefully two. This month I finished Armada, by Ernest Cline. It was predictable and sorta fun, but not nearly as good as his classic, Ready Player One. It was full of references to 80’s music, movies, television and videogames and if you’re really into that stuff, I’m sure finding those things added to the enjoyment of the book. For me, I missed most of the hidden ones I’m sure and even the ones I did catch weren’t that exciting. I read Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood by Michael Lewis. This book was a great gift (thanks, Pete!) and a lot of fun. It’s a quick, easy read and targeted directly at new dads or dads-to-be (like me!). I’ve read a lot of Lewis’ other books and like his writing style. The final book I read in October was Room, by Emma Donoghue. I heard great things about the movie and when Elizabeth told me we had the book on our shelves, I decided to read the book before seeing the movie. It’s about a young woman and her five year old son, Jack, who are being held captive by some dude in a single room shed in his backyard. She was kidnapped by him seven years earlier and her son has never been outside. Their only natural light is a small skylight and the guy brings them groceries and supplies every so often, mostly when he comes to rape the woman. The book is told from Jack’s perspective and his voice really makes the story. It’s way f-ed up. Obviously. It’s hard to say that you “like” a book like this, but it’s well written and made me pretty emotional at times. Connect with me on Goodreads!

Team NutriBullet has our first race next Sunday, the Calabassas Classic 5k. I’m excited for all the team members to get out there and race. Many of the runners have never done a running race of any distance before. I can’t remember the last time that I did a 5k and at one point a while ago I had hoped to be in some kind of racing shape and would actually try to run this 5k fast. But the one thing my radiation treatments really have affected is any intensity, so my speed training has been lackluster (to say the least) and at this point I’ll have to see what I feel like when I wake up next Sunday morning. Hopefully, I’ll be better prepared for the team 10k in December.

Here’s October by the numbers:

Swim: 36,110 meters
Cycling (outdoors): 0 miles
Run: 80.1 miles
Total Run Elevation Gain: 4,433 feet
Strength Training/Yoga: 5 sessions
Approximate monthly total training time: 31.5 hours
Weight: 158