I made a quick video for all you people in Portland that think you've been having blizzards. I'm not sure if the sound will work, but if it doesn't I didn't say anything interesting anyway. All the snow that you see fell in an 8 hour period the day before.
In other news, I go home tomorrow! Yay! I just hope the weather allows it...
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Exhaustion and headaches
I've found a couple of different types of exhaustion in the past few weeks. There was the pre-Thanksgiving exhaustion that involved a complete lack of motivation to do anything at all. This included schoolwork, clinicals, exercise, cleaning, laundry, shopping, interacting with people, or any other activity that didn't involve eating or my computer. Thankfully I'm done with that now.
Then there was the post-Thanksgiving exhaustion, which involved a flight being canceled and getting almost no sleep while trying to figure out how to travel from Toronto to Rochester in the shortest period of time. Thankfully that is now over with as well.
Today I got another kind of exhaustion. This kind comes from having an 8 hour clinical day in which only 30 minutes is spent off of my feet (that was lunch) and then choosing to spend an hour in the gym. Granted an hour is not a long time, but my workouts are fairly streamlined by now and I can do a good job of beating my legs into a pulp in an hour. 25 minutes of hard intervals on an elliptical, followed by leg presses, dead lifts, squats, and extensions. Add in warm up and stretching time, and that takes an hour. I walked home with a shuffling gait that you usually see on Parkinson's patients. But when I got home, I wasn't sleepy, just exhausted. So I showered, ate, and sat around for a while avoiding homework. Which is not all that different than my usual evenings, but I did it with much less energy.
At some point this evening my headache started. I've been getting more of these headaches in the past few months than ever before. If I don't get rid of them quickly they turn into migraines, which is a very bad thing. Being the clever nursing student that I am, I tried to find a pattern to the headaches. Lo and behold, I did. They always happened after I work out. Not after every workout, but every headache that feels like this comes after a workout. So, still being a clever nursing student, I turn to Google. Google (and the Mayo Clinic) informs me that exercise-induced headaches are very common among people that are prone to migraines. I honestly can't believe that this never occurred to me before. Exercise dilates blood vessels, migraines are caused by excess blood vessel dilation in the brain... duh. So, I know now to expect a headache after a hard workout, and that I can even prevent a headache by taking an NSAID pre- or immediately post-workout. Unfortunately, NSAIDs slow muscle healing and recovery... hmmm... Luckily, Google and the Mayo Clinic also informed me that the headaches should go away, or at least lessen, if exercise is done regularly. Yet another incentive for me to get myself to the gym.
In unrelated news, my clinical instructor adores me. This is very good because I will be using her for recommendation letters in the near future. At one point today, after telling me how awesome I am at this nursing thing, she asked me what I used to do. I told her that I did bench research in a neuromuscular development lab. She took a moment to absorb this, with an incredulous look on her face, and said, "I am so glad that you're not doing that any more." I agree with her completely.
Then there was the post-Thanksgiving exhaustion, which involved a flight being canceled and getting almost no sleep while trying to figure out how to travel from Toronto to Rochester in the shortest period of time. Thankfully that is now over with as well.
Today I got another kind of exhaustion. This kind comes from having an 8 hour clinical day in which only 30 minutes is spent off of my feet (that was lunch) and then choosing to spend an hour in the gym. Granted an hour is not a long time, but my workouts are fairly streamlined by now and I can do a good job of beating my legs into a pulp in an hour. 25 minutes of hard intervals on an elliptical, followed by leg presses, dead lifts, squats, and extensions. Add in warm up and stretching time, and that takes an hour. I walked home with a shuffling gait that you usually see on Parkinson's patients. But when I got home, I wasn't sleepy, just exhausted. So I showered, ate, and sat around for a while avoiding homework. Which is not all that different than my usual evenings, but I did it with much less energy.
At some point this evening my headache started. I've been getting more of these headaches in the past few months than ever before. If I don't get rid of them quickly they turn into migraines, which is a very bad thing. Being the clever nursing student that I am, I tried to find a pattern to the headaches. Lo and behold, I did. They always happened after I work out. Not after every workout, but every headache that feels like this comes after a workout. So, still being a clever nursing student, I turn to Google. Google (and the Mayo Clinic) informs me that exercise-induced headaches are very common among people that are prone to migraines. I honestly can't believe that this never occurred to me before. Exercise dilates blood vessels, migraines are caused by excess blood vessel dilation in the brain... duh. So, I know now to expect a headache after a hard workout, and that I can even prevent a headache by taking an NSAID pre- or immediately post-workout. Unfortunately, NSAIDs slow muscle healing and recovery... hmmm... Luckily, Google and the Mayo Clinic also informed me that the headaches should go away, or at least lessen, if exercise is done regularly. Yet another incentive for me to get myself to the gym.
In unrelated news, my clinical instructor adores me. This is very good because I will be using her for recommendation letters in the near future. At one point today, after telling me how awesome I am at this nursing thing, she asked me what I used to do. I told her that I did bench research in a neuromuscular development lab. She took a moment to absorb this, with an incredulous look on her face, and said, "I am so glad that you're not doing that any more." I agree with her completely.
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