Bad Run

Well, they cannot all be good. The weather has warmed up a little in New England so I went for a 10-mile road run on Sunday. It was the first time in nearly a month that I was able to do a workout outdoors so I hit the road enthusiastically; perhaps too enthusiastically. By the time I reached the four-mile mark I began to fall behind pace and start to have some minor cramps, foot sores and chafing. I figured that it was not too bad and I continued on to mile five on the out-and-back route.

This proved to be a big mistake. At the five-mile turn-around I was in considerable pain, but I still had 5 miles to get back home. The last three miles were a gruesome run/walk journey home. Once home, my body wanted to collapse from exhaustion, but the various pains were too considerable to allow any comfort or rest.

I made it thru Sunday well (with the help of wild-card weekend) and decided to take Monday off from physical punishment. I did a five-mile run today to get back into my training, however, and felt much better. I was able to stay ahead of pace for the entire run which was on a much more hilly route!

Sunday was mentally tough to get thru. I began to wonder about my ability to run a half-marathon in 3 weeks. As with most adverse events in life, once I got thru the valley I was able to pick back up and continue with my training for the Miami Half-Marathon at the end of the month.

David Garrard an Inspiration

Nearly every sports page in the United States is talking about the heroics of Jacksonville Jaguars’ QB David Garrard (even in Pittsburg) yesterday. This is mostly because he had a game clinching 32-yard rush, setting up a field goal, and advancing the Jaguars in the NFL playoffs. His performance last night and all season makes him an inspiration to many. However, I doubt many of the reports talk much about why he is a true inspiration to the IBD community.

Garrard has Crohn’s disease that has presented challenges in his life that we in the IBD community are familiar with facing. He has had a resection surgery in the past, but, unlike UC, Crohn’s cannot be ‘cured’ by surgery. It is obvious from his handling of the stressful game day situations that this man is completely in control of his mind and body and in control of IBD. Of the remaining QBs in the NFL playoffs he is ranked second only to Tom Brady! (That’s right, higher than Farve and both Mannings) Garrard is an inspiration to me and has me rooting for the Jaguars!

UC inspiration

Do you know of an inspiring UC patient? If you have UC, has somebody helped in your struggle to confront the daily challenges of UC? A family member, friend or health care provider, for instance?

If so, please check out www.ucsuccess.org and enter in the essay contest. I think this is a great avenue for UC patients (and those around them) to learn from each other. You could win a free trip to Washington, D.C. for the annual IBD Day on the Hill! All stories can help to inspire each other and a submission is good for a free 1-year CCFA membership.

Please check out www.ucsuccess.org.

Great Start to 2008

We (Noi, Jaixai and myself) kicked off the new year with a day trip to Boston. Jaixai has really missed going to the park in the past few months, so we surprised her and went to the Boston Children’s Museum (essentially a 3-floor park)! It was a treat for Noi and I as well; we went to two of our favorite restaurants (Emperor’s Garden and Flameporeria).

Hope 2008 had a good start for you!

New Year Resolution

Amidst the parties, countdowns, and fireworks the tradition of making a resolution on New Years Eve is usually the main topic of discussion on this day. Whether 2007 was a good or bad year for you, like most people, you probably wish for 2008 to be a better year. I love the concept of the resolution because it positions the individual to take charge of a particular improvement to make 2008 a great year. This is so much better than a wish where the result is left to fate.

When making a resolution think what it would take to make it a great year, then choose the milestones to achieve that goal. Finally, resolve what daily change can be made to reach your milestones and goal to have a great year!

Now I just have to do the same for myself ;-)

Happy New Year!!!

Miami Half-Marathon a Month Away

Four weeks from now I will be well into the Miami Half-Marathon. I have been able to keep up with my training despite the cold New England weather. I hope to still make my goal of running 1:34 or faster. The Team Challenge team has done a great job with fundraising. I am on the ‘virtual’ team since I am the only participant in New England and the virtual team is close to raising $200k for IBD research!

Family Rib Night

Last week we started a new family tradition: an annual family rib night! This was an idea I had many years ago, but never followed thru with it until this year.

The idea is to order white t-shirts that say Family Rib Night, the year and location (and of course a cute logo). Next, we all wear the shirts out to a rib house and get a big ol’ plate of sloppy BBQ ribs and dig in. There is only one rule: no napkins or wet wipes! That is why the white t-shirts were bought. Each year we can travel to a new location and enjoy the ribs!

The inaugural event took place at Wes’ Rib House in Providence, RI and, as you can see from the picture, Noi and Jaixai took to the idea very well!

We hope to grow the attendance in future years and try the many great places to eat one of our favorite foods.

Happy Holidays!!!

Got Guts? Armband

In a recent conversation with another IBD patient the CCFA Got Guts? armband came up. I had been talking to this individual for nearly a half-hour about a topic related to my UC before she mentioned that she also had UC. The very next question was, “Do you wear a CCFA Got Guts? armband?” I responded enthusiastically, “Everyday.”

I love the idea of the armband! It not only reminds me that I should be comfortable about my disease, but also spreads awareness of IBD. Wearing an armband of any color other than yellow (LiveStrong) frequently draws people to ask what is that band for? I am happy to talk about my UC and discuss the many people afflicted by IBD. I view this as a mechanism for the IBD community to gain acceptance and comfort in today’s society.

I hope everybody afflicted with IBD sports their armband and strengthens the IBD community.

No Apology Needed

A few days ago Jaixai, my 2 year-old daughter, said something that made me conscientious of what I say around her. Two year-olds are good at forcing self-reflection, as they will repeat nearly everything you say, even if you only say it once. In this particular case it made me reflect on how I view the impact my UC has on my family.

The statement Jaixai made: “Daddy, I have to go use the potty. I’m sorry.”

Like any recently toilet-trained child a trip to the washroom is always announced. However, I found it odd that she apologized. I first wondered if I had seemed inconvenienced when she went in the past. After some thought I realized that it was probably because I apologize myself anytime I have to use the washroom out in public (usually the reason for apology is because she has to join me). She was simply repeating what she had heard me often say.

In the past, when I was experiencing flares, I felt that I was inconveniencing my family due to frequent washroom visits (in some cases I was inconvenient - although my family has always been supportive). This is when the habit of apologizing for washroom visits developed and, regardless of frequency, the habit stuck.

Now that I am in control of my UC, it is not necessary for me to apologize any more than it is for Jaixai to apologize. I will now be more aware of my use of apologies; after all, I am human and must occasionally use the washroom.

My Challenge

As I begin my training program for CCFA’s Team Challenge I needed to set my personal goal. This is necessary so that I know what pace I should be doing my training runs at and it helps to motivate my training.

My goal: to complete the Miami Half-Marathon in 1 hour and 34 minutes.

This is a high goal on many levels. To start with it is my PR (personal record, the fastest I have done this distance). The race is only 6 weeks from now, so trying to obtain a PR with such short training time will be a challenge. However, simply achieving a PR is not the reason I chose this goal.

I last ran this time in 2002. A time when I was is great physical condition as a carryover from my NCAA track career and long before I ever had any UC symptoms. To accomplish my goal would be to prove that I am in the same physical condition now as I was in before experiencing any UC symptoms.

This goal will motivate me in the next 6 weeks of training and push me towards positive results in Miami.

Team Challenge Training Begins

I have recently decided to participate in the CCFA Team Challenge and run at the Miami Marathon in January. This is another great CCFA initiative and more information can be found at www.ccteamchallenge.org. This is a great way to raise money, awareness and community for IBD.

Since this is only a little more than a month away I decided to hit the road and start my training yesterday with an 8-mile tempo run. My body is in a lot of pain today, but it felt great to get back on the roads. It has been more than a month since I have done a hard workout due to busy work and travel schedules.

For the Miami race I am a member of the 'virtual team' as there are not enough members in the NE area. Any other Team Challenge members out there? I would like to discuss training with UC with anybody.

Great contest for those affected by UC!!!

The CCFA has launched a new essay contest sponsored by P&G Pharmaceuticals to honor those affected by UC (patients, family/friends and healthcare providers). I encourage all of this blogs readers to submit an essay! Here is the press release:

CELEBRATING UC SUCCESS ESSAY CONTEST SEEKS INSPIRATIONAL STORIES OF PEOPLE LIVING WITH ULCERATIVE COLITIS (UC)
Nationwide program honors, educates and inspires those affected by ulcerative colitis


New York, NY - December 6, 2007 – For the more than half a million Americans living with ulcerative colitis – a painful and unpredictable disease of the digestive tract – and the families, friends and health care providers who support them, leading a normal everyday life can be a challenge. To recognize their achievements, the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America, in partnership with Procter & Gamble (P&G) Pharmaceuticals, have launched Celebrating UC Success, a program that seeks to honor, educate and inspire those affected by ulcerative colitis through the motivational words of those who are successfully living with the disease. To encourage the sharing of stories, the program includes a contest which is open to all touched by ulcerative colitis, including patients, family, friends and health care providers.

“Ulcerative colitis can be a very challenging and at times embarrassing condition, and we hope that through the sharing of success stories, patients, their families and health care providers can learn from and inspire each other,” says Kimberly Frederick, Vice President of Patient & Professional Services, Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America. “The Foundation is pleased to partner with P&G Pharmaceuticals to launch Celebrating UC Success and recognize those who have inspirational stories to help others meet the challenges of their disease. We really want people to know they are not alone in dealing with this condition.”




Strength in sharing
Many patients, especially at initial diagnosis, find it difficult to talk about the disease with family, friends and coworkers. But some people living with ulcerative colitis say that being open about the condition is an important first step in taking control.

“When I was first diagnosed, I was shocked. Here I was, a grad student, a new dad, an active athlete – and I didn’t know if ulcerative colitis would take all of that away from me,” says Josh Reineke, a UC patient who is also a nationally competitive triathlete. “A friend of mine confided in me that he too had the condition, and my world just opened up. I saw fewer limits and more possibilities. Through the support of my family, sticking to a healthy diet and taking my medications as prescribed by my physician, I am living my life beyond my UC.”

Today, Josh works with gastroenterology research leader, P&G, to help educate the ulcerative colitis community about the condition and how he manages his disease to reduce its impact on his quality of life.

“We believe ulcerative colitis success stories can help inspire patients to work with their health care provider to gain better control of their disease,” says Dan Hecht, General Manager - NA Pharmaceuticals of P&G. “It is important that we empower UC patients to achieve their personal goals – whether it be to make it through the day at work or participate in a triathlon. We’re thrilled to be helping bring this program to fruition.”

About the Contest
Entrants can submit essays of 200 words or less for one of three categories: UC Patients, Supportive Family Members/Friends and Health care Providers. Grand Prize winners will receive a trip for two to the Foundation’s National Advocacy Conference “IBD Day on the Hill,” to be held in May 2008 in Washington, D.C. Finalists from the Celebrating UC Success program will be recognized during a reception as individuals who have taken significant steps to manage their disease and who are inspiring to others. Every applicant will be recognized for their entry in the Celebrating UC Success contest and will receive a complimentary one-year membership to the Foundation.

Information about the Celebrating UC Success program and entry forms for the essay contest are available at physicians’ offices and www.ucsuccess.org.

Been a long time

The past few months have been both very exciting and very busy. I have finished my triathlon season, travelled with my family to Taiwan, participated in two CCFA Guts and Glory walks (NE and Westchester chapters), and have been traveling a ton for work and faculty interviews (I have already been given a few offers!). I even went to Austria for a week to learn new surgical techniques.

It has been very important for me to stay in control of my UC during these critical moments in my life/career. Often the circumstances were less than ideal, poor eating schedules, little sleep, high stress, little time for daily breaks, no restrooms in close proximity. However I have been fortunate to progress through this period without any disruption from my UC. Usually there are a number of things that I do to ensure that I stay flare free, but many of these were impossible given the setting. However, I was able to stay flare free by doing two critical things regardless of circumstances: take my medicine as prescribed and stay away from foods that I knew from experience to avoid.

I will begin to be more active on this site again to share some of these experiences and current thoughts.

Normal?

A question that I have asked myself ever since I was diagnosed with UC and began treatment is, what is normal? Or how should I feel? I did not begin to experience symptoms of UC until I was 24 years of age. Having gone so many years symptom free (~85% of my life thus far) it may seem strange that I cannot even remember what a normal bowel movement is. This is worth thinking about since determination of how well a treatment is working often uses normalcy as its standard (i.e. Are your bowel movements normal?).

After going through many months of false diagnosis followed by an extreme severity of the symptoms (often visits to the emergency room), I cannot remember what is normal. Naturally, I asked a friend of mine with Crohn’s if he knows what exactly normal is like. It is even harder for him to imagine since he has experienced symptoms his entire life. When talking to my doctor I never use normalcy as the standard, but rather discuss what is better/worse since last treatment changes and what is tolerable and intolerable.

I often discuss in this blog that I have been flare free for many months. I think of a flare as when I am experiencing intense, debilitating pain accompanied with bleeding and so frequent trips to the restroom I cannot easily do normal life activities like eat a meal, sleep, etc. Saying that I am not experiencing this does not mean that I do not have any symptoms. I still have the occasional abdominal pains and take frequent trips to the rest room when I first wake in the morning.

Normal bowel movements? I guess I have them part of the time, but I do not know if I have just grown accustomed to the less extreme symptoms or if it truly is normal. Regardless, I do know what it means to live a normal life and my treatment has achieved this.

National Tour

The trip out to the USA Triathlon National Championship was quite an experience (a stressful one). Due to bad weather all along the east coast my original flight was cancelled. This resulted in my journey to Oregon taking 2 ½ days as I went to a total of 6 airports. I did finally arrive in Oregon the day before the race, but my luggage did not arrive until late that afternoon. This did not give me much time to assemble my bike, check-in to the race, check-in my bike and view the race course. Not to mention that I needed to eat regular meals so that I could have good nutrition going into the race. Thankfully I did not have any problems with my UC. That would have made for a much worse experience given that I spent 2 nights in airports without any luggage.

On the bright side, my trip to the National Championship included a national tour. In the course of a few days I flew over the New York skyline and saw the Statue of Liberty, flew over Washing DC and the many national monuments, flew over the Great Salt Lake and salt flats, and saw the sunset in the rocky mountains. The trip was capped off with a good view of firework shows in New England. It actually, despite the circumstances, was a great national tour.

Return to Cincinatti (kind of)

Following the disappointing performance at the Triathlon National Championship I requested an earlier flight so that I could just get back home. This change in flight plans made for a connection in Cincinnatti, Ohio. This made for a great trip home not only because I got home a day early, but also because it created a great reflection, discussed below, that recovered my ego after the bad race day.

As I flew into the Cincinnatti airport I started to think about the last time that I flew into that airport. It was back in January and I was going to Cincinatti to meet the Asacol team for the first time (Proctor and Gamble is headquartered in Cincinnatti). Most of the flight I was thinking over the race with disappointment, but as I flew into Cincinatti I began to think about how I felt on that last trip into the city. I was full of nervous energy and excitement. I could not believe the opportunity that Asacol was giving me in sponsoring my racing season and starting programs utilizing my story. The excitement of that time quickly returned to me and my outlook on the season changed. I realized that there was no use in sulking over the race. I have been given a great opportunity and I am going to continue enjoying it.

USAT National Championship

There was one race this season that I was particularly looking forward to and gearing my training towards: the USA Triathlon National Championship in Portland, Oregon. The race took place on June 30th. I had hoped of placing in the top twenty of my age group and qualifying for the Triathlon World Championship in Hamburg, Germany. Unfortunately the race did not go as well as planned and I finished second to last in a time of 2:39:33. This time was 31 minutes slower than my goal and 9 minutes slower than my first Olympic distance triathlon in 2005!

I was a little slower on the swim than I wanted, but still had a reasonable time to meet my goal. The bike went pretty well, but on the run I fell apart. It was all that I could do just to finish the race. This was particularly frustrating since my run background usually means that I make up a lot of time on the run, not fade to a slow trot. There may have been a number of factors that influenced this poor performance (such as a tough schedule in the travel days leading to the race), but I do not think it is an excuse. I was not mentally prepared for the challenging race course.

Regardless of my performance, I enjoyed the experience. It was an amazingly beautiful and well laid out race course. Not making my season goal is truly frustrating (particularly since it was missed by a huge margin), but I only look forward to the next three races of the season. They cannot all go well. I am just happy that this sour taste will not be the end of this year’s season.

Asacol Success Stories

The newly designed Asacol website (www.asacol.com) has a few UC patient success stories that are very encouraging to read. Recently, they have posted a story about me [link] and the “Going the Distance with UC” program [link] that we have partnered to form. Check it out and make sure to read Larry’s and Angela’s stories a well. It is great to read about how others have overcome the challenges of UC. I am sure everybody with UC can relate to at least one of these stories.

Humility and Adversity

Having UC and being a triathlete I have learned many lessons in humility and dealing with adverse situations. Here is one area that those two roles come hand-in-hand. I am not sure if the triathlon training and racing has helped me deal with humility and adversity that comes with UC or if it is the other way around. My UC symptoms started around the same time I started my triathlon training (I believe this is just coincidental). Regardless, each situation is helped by each other.

Triathletes, by the nature of the sport, face much humility. A friend once told me that a triathlon is the best place to look for a girlfriend: you know what you are getting. After all, everyone is practically naked. Additionally, everybody’s nervous ticks are on display. Anybody with UC knows, and fears, humility. From my experience with humility I know that humiliating events are temporary and are often forgotten. Besides, nearly everybody has faced humility at one point in their life; especially if you are a parent!

The condition of UC is, in its own right, an adverse situation. It can be very mentally debilitating if you do not learn to deal with the adversity. There are many ways that people can and have overcome the adversity of UC (see some examples at www.ccfa.org and www.asacol.com). A positive outlook is needed to be able to move on. Triathletes face multiple types of adversity (on a lesser scale) at every race and most training days. Changes in weather conditions, water conditions, a flat tire, an injury or cramp. If a single event swings your mood to a negative side you will be pulling yourself out of the race. However, for both UC and triathlon, caution needs to be taken to not cross the line of over-pushing.