Doggy-style

This past week has been tough. I got surgery on Tuesday of last week (Oct. 17), which took a lot out of me. I was pretty doped up for a couple days after the surgery on oxycodeine (percocet), which really sucked, I didn't like the stuff at all. I felt absolutely worthless when I was on it and couldn't accomplish anything when there a lot to be accomplished. The next day after surgery, my girlfriend and I decided to drive out to Nebraska to see a Shiba Inu dog breeder. This is a breed that we've been talking about getting for a while now, and we finally found a good breeder that wasn't too far away. So, we ended up getting a 3 month old puppy, who we named Mika (The New Moon in Japanese).

I'm really happy with the decision to get a dog, she's awesome, and probably the cutest puppy I've ever seen. Other than that, all I've been doing is cramming for the O-chem exam that I took last night, memorizing mechanisms, for about a week straight. I didn't get out much this week... kind of a bummer. It's been snowing a lot for this time of the year though, so me and my honey were able to get out for a little xc skiing in North Boulder Park last weekend, even though I was only 4 days post-op and still in a sling. Ali and I gearing up for some Nor-dorkin'!

Tonight, I think I'll reemerse myself into the social network and attend the annual post-collegiate nats party. Unfortunatly, this year I don't have a national title to celebrate, but it'd probably still be a good idea to keep the champagne away from me, or run if you see any in my hands. Oh yeah, it's also the first night of Halloween partying, so I'll be rocking a costume!

Happy Halloween!

Under the Knife

All the fun I was having ended abruptly on the 10:10 ned ride I spoke about in my last blog entry.

I was ripping down the "Elk Poop" trail when I hit a loose rock that caused my 2-year old blown out noodley SID to go out of control, catapulting me towrds the ground, landing directly on the back of my bad shoulder (one that I've had surgery on once before). It completey dislocated and was out for about five minutes before I was able to put it back in by laying on my back and pushing it with my other arm. It's been about a week and a half since it happend and it's still really sore, stiff and unstable. In a few days, however, It's going to be in a sling and completely immobile. I'm getting surgery on Tuesday. I've been through this once before so I know how the entire reocvery/rehab process goes. It shouldn't be too bad, and I don't think it'll hurt my fitness too much. The benefits of having a solid shoulder are going to heavily outwiegh the disadvantages of missing a week or two of aerobic activity and living with a weak shoulder. I think I should be able to be on the trainer in a week though, which will mainly be used for maintianing some sanity. Since my accident, I've been riding the road bike a ton, and riding pretty hard... I might even go so far as to say that I've been training. the reason for this is that I know I'm going to lose some fitness after the surgery, so I'm trying to increase my fitness a little bit, or at least enter surgery at a high level of fitness to minimize my losses due to detraining.

Since the crash, The Cat and I have been playing and eating grass together. YUM!

Meow

Alright, enough about that, I've also been super busy in school lately. O-chem is getting harder all the time. I'm already volunteering about 4 hours a week at the PT clinic on campus, but I'm going to start voluteering at one or two other places around town to pick up some more hours. I'm also still without a team for next year. I haven't really been pursuing this too much lately, mainly becasue I've been strapped with school, but I'm going to put a bigger effort into that soon. I do have one potential team to ride for that I've been talking too, and I'm really hoping that one will work out, I'm crossing my fingers. My girlfriend, Alex, has been waiting for the last two months for her MCAT scores, and they're suposed to be available today... so I've also got my fingers crossed for her.