Tag: jobs

Happy July!

On By LeraIn Life, runningLeave a comment

The last nearly two months have been crazy! I just finished a week where I was traveling to other offices. It wasn’t bad, but I think I’ll like some offices better than others. Some days I feel like I’m doing well, and other days I feel like I make one mistake after another. Despite how challenging it can be at times, I really am enjoying this new adventure.

Next, running! I’ve been running every single Saturday morning in the woods. It’s so freeing that I don’t know how I was doing it on the road before. It used to be that it was too painful for all of my injuries, but it hasn’t been bad lately. My knee is still bothering me, especially the tendon below my kneecap, but it’s not bad enough that I can’t run. I’ve only been going once or twice a week, but I’m hoping I can eventually get that to three times. I would like to do a Halloween race again this year. It was a ton of fun last time getting dressed up and going out to enjoy the morning.

I ended up replacing my FitBit charge 3 with a Garmin Forerunner 55. My FitBit wasn’t tracking accurately and was giving me some crazy paces. I wish I could believe that I was really running 9 minute miles, but I know that’s way too fast. If I can keep it at 14 minutes a mile, I’m doing well, so it was obviously off by quite a bit. It wasn’t as inaccurate on the roads, but still enough that I decided to upgrade. The Garmin has GPS built in, so it will be a lot more accurate than the FitBit, which had to connect to the GPS on my phone. It also means that on rainy days, I won’t even need to worry about protecting my phone; I can just leave it at home now and still track my runs.

Really not much else has been going on. I’ve just been getting used to working a normal office hours type job and enjoying having my nights and weekends free to do whatever I want. It’s a nice new level of freedom I never knew existed before!

April News!

On By LeraIn Life, runningLeave a comment

This post is going to start with some good news! I found a new job that I will be starting in the coming weeks! I’m so excited to make the transition to something new after nearly 8 years doing the same thing. I’m tired of management, I’m tired of the irregular hours, I’m tired of working nearly every weekend and holiday, as well as nights. I’m tired of people yelling at me for things beyond my control every day. It’s just time to move on and see what the next adventure is.

I’ll now be coordinating care for patients in a cardiology office, which sounds simple to say it that way, but hearing the way it was described at my interview makes it seem somewhat overwhelming. However, I’m up for the task of learning how to be great at this new path. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting that office to call me. I had put my application in two and a half weeks before they called to schedule my interview, so I pretty much assumed I wasn’t going to hear anything. I was happily surprised when they called me and asked if I was free the next day. I was really nervous, because I don’t do well at interviews. I never feel like I answer any questions very clearly, but this one went okay. Not excellent, but not badly. We got to talking and they offered me the job before I even left. They said if I was willing to work hard and learn the ropes, they would put the time in to training me. I had interviewed off and on for similar positions for the past year with other offices and hadn’t had any luck, so I’m truly blessed to have found this.

That’s the biggest thing that’s been going on this month. I did finally do my first run in two months this past Friday, and it went relatively well. I think I would have been better off running on the road, but a trail run just sounded so nice. The uneven ground has often been a problem for me, though. It got my ankle a little sore, which I think affected my knee some. I didn’t have too much pain, though, just mild. However, later on at work, I noticed when I was squatting that my kneecap felt like it was sliding more than it had been the last month. I’m continuing to strengthen my muscles, as that is my biggest limiting factor in things getting better. I just can’t seem to get my hips/glutes to engage with my physical therapy exercises, and at least two thirds of the things I do there are designed to target those areas. I asked my PT if he had any other tips to try, and he told me that “as crazy as it sounds, focus your brain power on just the muscles you are trying to get to move and it can make a difference.” I see where he’s coming from; being mindful of really noticing how your body is moving during an exercise should be helpful. I see my sports medicine doctor in a couple of days for a follow-up, but I don’t think he’s going to have anything to say other than just keep working on strength. The pain isn’t much of a problem except when I put too much weight through my right leg, and that’s something that would tend to improve with strength. I’ll still ask him if he has any thoughts on getting my muscles to work better, so we’ll see.

That’s all for today. I do want to give an update on my progress with Noom, but I haven’t been doing well at following the program the last two weeks. Once this last week of work is done and I get a good routine going having the same shift Monday through Friday, it will go better. It’s hard to plan when you never know what you’re doing until one or two days before the new week begins. I think once I get back on track, I’ll have more to say about it. I still have a loss of ten pounds, so I’m happy I didn’t gain anything the last two weeks.

So, until next time, take care!

February Failure?

On By LeraIn Life, runningLeave a comment

Well, it’s February and I feel like I already lost out on one of my goals for the year. I had planned to run a race every month this year, and today was supposed to be our local hot cocoa run. I had signed up over a month ago and fully planned on going, but two days ago I decided that I would switch it to the virtual option. I’m still trying to let my knee heal and I thought it would be better for me if I didn’t have the added pressure of trying to run more than my body told me I should just because of the environment. It’s been discouraging to go to the races and know I just can’t run all of it. I end up feeling great when I finish, but a mile into the race when I start walking, it feels crushing.

Virtual racing is just not the same, but it was nice for the fact that there is no pressure, I can decide when and where I go, and I brought my dog along with me. We just got another round of snow and ice the day before yesterday, so the park I went to looked like a winter wonderland. My dog was so excited to be out on a walk (not something we do daily in the winter) that he pulled me the entire time, so he really got my pace up there.

In other news, I’m almost done with this round of physical therapy for my runner’s knee, and I have a follow-up appointment with the sports medicine doctor in a week and a half. I’ve been working really hard at strengthening my whole right leg, which is very weak compared to my left. I’ve made some noticeable gains in strength, but it still feels like I have a long way to go. I still can’t do a single leg squat on it without something feeling like it’s slipping out of place and collapsing on me. Putting any kind of load through my bent knee without support from the other leg is a failure still. I don’t know what to expect at this doctor’s appointment. I don’t know if I’m ready to be done with PT, but I also know that I can’t keep going there forever. The problem is, that some of the most beneficial things I do there use equipment I just don’t have access to without it. I’ll have to ask about how to transition to a home program this coming week if my PT and my doctor decide it isn’t worthwhile to continue.

I had my yearly check-in with my regular doctor this week. Thankfully, other than just needing to lose some weight, there’s no major issues. All my bloodwork is normal. My blood pressure has been high in the office the last few times, so my doctor asked me to monitor it at home for a few weeks and send him the results. So far, I’ve only had one high reading and the rest have been normal, so hopefully it’s just an anxiety thing. I never feel like I’m nervous in a medical setting, but maybe my body says otherwise. I really value the time my doctor takes to talk to me about everything without lecturing me. I feel like I can have an open and honest conversation and not like I have to hide anything. We talked about trying a program like Noom or Wondr to help me change some behaviors, and I think I’m going to try one of them.

Lastly, I’ve been feeling a lot of stress lately from work. For a month now, everything I do seems to garner criticism. I don’t even want to get out of bed most days because I know I’ll be facing more of the same. I pretty much know I can’t keep dealing with it, but it’s not like I can do anything about it other than trying to stand up for myself while I try to find something else. I’ve been going to church regularly since August, and it’s really helped me practice patience. I know that it likely isn’t about me as the root cause, because I haven’t done anything different than how I used to, so I try to keep things professional and not say some of the things I really want to say. For now, I just focus on prayer and trying to endure whatever I need to endure, because I know it won’t last forever.

I’ll give you guys another update in a few weeks after I know where I stand with my running and injury rehab. Thanks for taking the time to read this 🙂

PT, a 5K, and Life

On By LeraIn Life, runningLeave a comment

It’s hard to believe the year is almost over already! In the month since I’ve updated you guys, I’ve finished physical therapy for the time being, unless my doctor decides I need to do some more. I don’t go back for my follow-up until January 5th, so for the next couple weeks, I will be working on my stretches and strengthening at home and seeing how it goes. If things get worse before my appointment, my PT said I could call and we could figure out what needs to be done. I’m not 100% convinced that I will be okay on my own yet because it’s hard to measure that when I haven’t been doing my usual running and biking. I’m still having some trouble with my knee. It had started to feel better, and then I had a work week that destroyed all of my progress and set me back. I still can’t function well at work unless I’m maxed out on ibuprofen. A physical job and an injury do not go well together. That’s why I have such slow healing times whenever I get injured.

Despite all that, I did do another 5K that was holiday themed two weeks ago. I was already signed up, so my PT knew I was going to try it anyway. I had originally planned to try running half of it, since my doctor told me I could run one to one and a half miles twice a week, but I didn’t even make it much more than a half mile. I felt so much like I failed when I had to walk almost that whole distance. Obviously I was being too hard on myself in that moment, but it was hard to not think that way. There’s nothing wrong with walking if you need to. I shouldn’t have beaten myself up about it while dealing with a known injury and not having been able to train properly. What helped pull me out of that thinking during the race was a group of 4 little kids just past the two mile mark standing in their yard and throwing leaves like confetti at all of us and cheering for us. They didn’t care how anyone was doing. They cheered for everyone going by them anyway.

After that race, I took two weeks off. My PT said I could ease back in to running by starting with a half mile run. That’s less than my doctor had said, but I. Think it’s for the best to take it slower after that abysmal performance I had at that race. When my PT asked me when my next race was, I told him New Year’s Eve at midnight. I don’t think he was expecting that because he just started laughing and called me “one of those crazy runners”. I told him I would be sure to take it easy and just run as much as my body felt comfortable with. I think I’ll be walking a little in the beginning to get my body warmed up some and then try to run about a mile and a half. I’m hoping in two weeks I can be close-ish to that. I did 10 minutes today, which was 0.2 miles more than the half mile I was supposed to do, but I was feeling okay and thought it would be good for me mentally to at least be able to do 10 minutes. It felt so hard after not being able to train much. It’s been at least a month since I ran over 30 minutes. Every other run has been 20 or less, and getting back to it after no running for weeks at a time was a challenge. I was very slow, but in a way that’s good because it will ease my knee back in, hopefully.

I probably won’t update this again until January after my next 5K and my appointment since life is pretty boring otherwise. I do have a week off starting December 21st, so I just have two more work days to make it through and then I can let my body and mind rest a little. It’s been so stressful the last couple of weeks. I’ve been stuck staying late every week on my morning days, which would be fine if it was once in a while, but not 3 weeks straight. And then yesterday, someone I work with massively took their anger out on me for a situation I couldn’t control and I had a breakdown. I was shaking and trying not cry while I was still at work, which was unsuccessful. At the point where it started, I only had one more hour to go, so I was able to hold most of it back until I got home. One day I just won’t go back. I can’t take many more days like that. I try not to take it personally, but I got yelled at and accused of “trying to get out of work” because a company we contract with had a weird situation occur and couldn’t deliver our product that day. It was out of their hands, and it was out of mine. There wasn’t anything either of us could have done about it. All we can do is wait for an alternate delivery date. To be yelled at about it was unfair.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great rest of the year, and a great start to 2022!

First Day Back at Work

On By LeraIn SurgeryLeave a comment

I sit in the office with my head down, trying desperately to keep the tears forming in my eyes from spilling out. My foot is throbbing and I’m only about halfway through a short shift. The next three hours seem daunting, a long, dark expanse that has no end.

Photo by Juan Pablo Arenas on Pexels.com

So went my first day back at work yesterday. I knew it was going to be difficult, but it was at least three times more challenging than I thought. I have a job where I’m on my feet all day. If I’m lucky, I can squeeze in a break to eat something at some point during my shift, but it’s not a guarantee that I get break time, which is a serious downside to being in management. The whole work day was a disaster from the moment I walked through the door. None of my applications worked properly, and I couldn’t even use my employee number to clock in. As annoying as those issues were, they were the least of my problems, and I didn’t even work a full shift.

Time: 3:55 p.m.; Pain Level: 0

I finally got the time clock to accept my punch and I was ready to start my day. I was a little apprehensive, but ready to see how things would go.

Time: 4:43 p.m.; Pain Level: 2

I was feeling a little pain at this point, but I was able to ignore it if I didn’t think about it.

Time: 5:36 p.m.; Pain Level: 6

I tried in vain to sit down and prop my foot up for a few minutes. The minute I hit the chair, I got paged. There was no more ignoring the pain. I was limping by this point in the evening.

Time: 7:30 p.m.; Pain Level: 8

I was hungry so I heated up my dinner. I was able to sit for about 15 minutes without being interrupted, which was a welcome break. Severely limping and moving very slowly. At this point, it was more like dragging my leg behind me than limping.

Time: 9:10 p.m.; Pain Level: 8

I couldn’t focus on working any more. Each step was more excruciating than the last. It wasn’t busy, so I took advantage and sat down for another 15 minutes with my head down, desperately trying not to cry from the pain.

Time: 10:29 p.m.; Pain Level: still 8

I was never more grateful to be able to punch out early and get home. I needed a painkiller for the first time since my surgery day. I was so glad I still had a full bottle on the counter at home.

Today I’ve been icing off and on all day, trying to keep some of the pain and swelling down. I was in more pain last night than I was before surgery. If it’s that severe again tomorrow, I’m going to have to call my surgeon’s office and ask their advice. I’m not about to ruin this repair, but I need the cash flow again. It’s not even just my foot that hurts. Most of my lower body is sore from walking with a limp all night, especially my left hip. I know I did a terrible job at work last night, but I’m hoping for some understanding from my boss for the next few weeks. I work hard and I always try my best, and I hope that counts for something, even if I can’t do 100% right now. I’m trying to overcome the extreme frustration I feel at this point because I know it’s only temporary. I’ve been leaning heavily on God lately, and He’ll see me through this.