Lessons learned...

Hello!  Well, this week I have been taking it easy on my ankle, I ran 3 miles on Monday on the treadmill, Tuesday was the ladder drill down in the dungeon with my boot camp friends, and Thursday was HIIT's, 12 x 30sec sprints.  I am feeling good, my ankle is a little sore, but I have been icing it along and it is actually starting to feel better. Whew!  Tomorrow will be 17 miles!!! Whoa!!!

Well, at boot camp on Tuesday, Jim Patch, the leader and also a personal trainer at the YMCA, told us why it is okay and good for your heart, to stop and walk every now and then when you are running.  He compared the heart to a bicep muscle.  In order to work out the bicep muscle, you need to overload it by lifting weights and doing repetitions.  Well, since the heart rate slows a lot faster than blood flow, when you are running, and then slow to a walk, you are overloading your heart.  This in turn makes your heart stronger.  I really enjoyed this lesson, I have heard from many people that a "real" runner does not stop to walk, well, I consider myself a "real" runner, and I stop and walk sometimes, and now I know that it is actually beneficial to my heart to do so!  Thanks Jim!

On another note, I had a different type of lesson this week.  I had a moment that made me realize why I am doing all of this fundraising.  In my room at work I have a large tri-fold poster hanging with information about Of One Heart and cleft lip and palate.  I also have a few before and after pictures of children with cleft lips and palates, about half of them are my own pictures.  Well, this week while I was taking xrays on a patient, he was looking at the pictures and made this comment.  "Those kids look freaky, they are freaking me out!"  This comment stung pretty bad, it is always hard to hear that a picture of you as a baby is "freaky".  I told him they are actually pictures of me as a baby and explained to him what a cleft lip and palate is and how it is fixed.  He continued to ask a lot of questions and it became clear to me that he did not know anything about this type of birth defect.  After educating him a little, he was clearly embarrassed by his earlier comment, and he ended up taking one of my fliers about the organization.

This situation made me realize that I am doing this not only to help the children who need it, but to educate others on these birth defects and to make them realize it can happen to anybody!  These children need our monetary help so they can look "normal" and not have to worry about people calling them "freaks".  Even though I was hurt by those words, I am happy that happened, it made me want to help even more:)

But, to make this patient look better, he is a very nice guy!  He made a pretty funny joke at the end of the appointment.  He said I was his favorite "hook-master" (I am a dental hygienist), but he said he was about to say that I was his favorite hooker, but he caught himself before saying that!  LOL

Well, we are doing good with the fundraising, we have raised another $250!!!  I will add that to the total, which will make it over $1000!!!  Yay!!  Don't forget, there is a Euchre Tournament next Saturday, March 12, at 12:30pm....let me know if you want tickets!  Thanks for reading!