Volunteers of America

I've been volunteering with NRCS for a little more than a year now. It's been basically awesome. I've been getting tons of experience, they've been getting free help, I've been getting free training. I want to work for them. What I'm doing in New Orleans will help prepare me for that as I continue volunteering (more on NOLA soon, promise). This past week was National Volunteer Week, and I received sweet letters and cards and swag and gifts from some of the offices I've been spending time with. They also had me write an article to appear on the state's volunteer info site, and eventually also on the national volunteer showcase. They edited me down, but here's what I had to say (no matter how many times I rewrote it, I never felt like my enthusiasm was properly conveyed. Please, ask me about how much I love NRCS sometime)--

I joined the Earth Team about a year ago to gain more experience in conservation fieldwork while looking for full-time work after grad school. With a background in Geography, I only knew that I wanted to help the environment for a living, but wasn’t really sure how to do that. I was immediately met with a lot of great ideas and opportunities. What started as helping one office with occasional conservation planning and clerical work became an awesome adventure in over 200 hours of greatly varied fieldwork through four different offices (so far!). It’s been really exciting to see so many different places and practices.

I started in New Jersey’s Freehold Service Center. I went with the staff for many conservation planning meetings, helping with surveys, mapping and GIS, and spot checks. I occasionally visited the Columbus Service Center to gain experience with engineering surveys. New Jersey has so much diversity in such a small area, so I was already exposed to a wide variety of projects focused on drainage, irrigation, cover crops, wetlands rehabilitation and wildlife habitats. It’s been very interesting to see the different environments and how conservation practices are adjusted to accommodate them.

In the fall, I was working in northern New Jersey a few days a week, so I decided to call the Hackettstown Service Center to continue my volunteering. I was taking a soil science course at the time, so I got involved with soil investigations all over northern New Jersey, including rural and urban environments. This has really helped me create a broader foundation (literally!) for understanding conservation issues. I’ve been able to help with soil evaluations as well as some outreach, helping lead a fieldtrip for college students and proctor the upcoming Envirothon.

After exploring conservation all over New Jersey, I found myself in Arizona for a few months, so what did I do? Found my nearest NRCS office! Through the Kingman Field Office, I was able to see a completely different side of conservation in the desert of northwestern Arizona. It was certainly eye-opening to see how farming, ranching and conservation take place in such an arid environment, especially compared to the practices I’ve become familiar with in New Jersey. I assisted with Natural Resource Inventory and learned about the desert’s biodiversity. I also helped with surveying on reservation land to prevent erosion of the dry, sandy ground under the rare but heavy rainfall. I mostly assisted with rangeland management projects, spot checking invasive species control and fencing projects.

Since I’ve been back in New Jersey, I’ve been back to helping with more familiar work in soil investigations and conservation planning, as well as some office work. The field is definitely more exciting for me, but I don’t mind assisting with filing and mailings—it’s good to know the background work involved in conservation, and I’m also happy to help out the agency that has given me the opportunity to see so many different ways that conservation is being done. I’m moving to New Orleans in the fall to work for a year, and I’m definitely looking forward to getting in touch with NRCS in Southern Louisiana!

Virginia aside from Muddy Buddy

• Mary Washington Geography. Oh, how I love Mary Washington Geography. I sat down with a few professors during the day to talk about all sorts of nerdy and happy things. I like that they still like me even though I never took GIS and haven't found full time work with my degree yet. YET. I just adore this group of professors.
• lunch time with Laura. I love that Laura goes to Mary Washington. Not only is it an excuse to continue showing up around campus, but it's been a great opportunity to get to know her better and visit with her. It's also a good opportunity to be confused about how much has changed in the short five years since I graduated. 
• Catching up with Courtney. Courtney and I had two classes together freshman year and then no others. We would see each other occasionally but kind of drifted apart into our separate endeavors. Still, she's one of those wonderfully interesting people to talk with, and on a whim I asked if she'd be around. She was! And we got to catch up for the first time since probably 2007. She is a gem.
• Hyperion. Yes.
• Campos family. This was basically my college family. Brian and LeeAnn would allow me to run away about once a semester to sleep in a real bed and eat real food and play with their real, sweet, wonderful kids. I love that the Muddy Buddy has enabled me to make it that far south at least once a year. We enjoyed some movie time together, and I enjoyed a phenomenal night's sleep in their amazing guest bed. We did some yardwork after the race and went to a Flying Squirrels double header. It was such a great weekend (you know, in addition to the accomplishment and excitement that was Muddy Buddy).
• Most epic traffic jam of all time. On Sunday, I was planning to go to church and having lunch in Fredericksburg with Jeremy and Adrienne, but I-95 had other plans. I sat still for an hour, and then crept three miles over the next hour. At first I was really annoyed, but then I was worried-- what kind of gory scene would I be driving up to in a few miles? Well, I got there, and saw various front end loaders and workers cleaning up butternut squash, as far as the eye could see. ha ha ha
• Jeremy and Adrienne. We went to Sammy T's. My life is so happy.
• Arlo and Arlington. I was planning to meet some college friends in D.C. for dinner, but they got a late start coming back from a weekend in NJ of all places, so I hung out in Arlington until I heard from them. Arlo and his parents and I took a walk through Arlington Cemetery and then played in the tulips by the Netherlands Carillon. Dinner at Lost Dog Cafe (yesssss). 
• D.C. I defend the Metro almost as fervently as I defend New Jersey, but that got me nowhere this time. Literally no where. Track maintenance kicked me off three trains, on top of already having to transfer twice to get to Emily's station. It took forever on top of them being later than I'd anticipated. We were all tired, but it was SO SO good to see Boo and Emily.
• Good morning, Arlington. I ended up sleeping over at Arlo's house, in front of one of my favorite windows in the world, their big window overlooking the Marine Corps Memorial with D.C. behind it. Waking up to the sunrise over D.C. was stunning, and Arlo and I got to play a little more before he went to a playgroup and I drove back to NJ. It was all very happy.

Virginia is always a whirlwind for me, but always a very good whirlwind.

How to run with RSD/CRPS

As you probably know by now, I have RSD in my right leg. At least, that's what it was called when I was diagnosed in 2000. Now it's CRPS or RSDS. (Read more here or here, or if you're into the scary stuff, do a Google image search. My mom actually blocked internet searches on the subject when I was first diagnosed because there is some scary stuff out there. My leg looks relatively normal most of the time, thankfully.)

And as you probably also know by now, I run the Muddy Buddy every spring in Richmond (see here and here-- this was actually my fifth one though!).

This year was more nerve-wracking (so punny) than past years because 1. I'm now a year and a half out from my last treatment, as I've been without health insurance that long, so I went into the race in poor condition, and 2. I watched a girl break her ankle on one of the obstacles first thing in the morning and had to think/worry about that all day, until I actually finished the race in one piece.

So, I was entirely too focused on the dull but ongoing pain that I usually ignore. My toes felt like they were in a vice. My heel felt like it was so cold, it was burning. My ankle felt like it was on fire. My calf felt like it had several knives lodged in it, and my shin felt like it was going to explode. My knee felt all kinds of loosey goosey.

My left hip ached because I've been walking and running funny for weeks, compensating for this nonsense.

My quad felt like you would expect a thigh to feel after getting on a bike and riding quickly up and down hills after not riding a bike since the last Muddy Buddy, but at least my quads were in this together.

This is a real, physical disorder. It's not psychological, but stress definitely makes it worse. And man, I was stressed. I was pretty sure I was going to die and/or break my leg on that obstacle at the end. I fell on it last year and bruised my forearms. The thing about why I keep exercising, why I keep doing anything, is because I can't let my leg win. It's just a stupid drama queen. My pain doctor gave me the go ahead years ago to stay active and push myself. The pain isn't really causing any damage (unless I'm actually causing damage, which sounds stupid but you know what I mean), so as long as I can tolerate it, which I mostly can, I can keep going. So: Muddy Buddy 2013.

Aside from the panic brought on by watching that ankle snap so early in the day, it was a great day and I had a blast. We finished the course in a little over an hour, and I don't even care if you aren't impressed, because I FINISHED THE COURSE, and that is all I care about. (1'11" is a lot less impressive when you realize that half of it was on bike, but I deserve some credit back for all of the freaking obstacles along the way, and the creek crossing, and the mud pit at the end.)

One of the best/more embarrassing moments of the race: at mile 1, I came upon a woman having an asthma attack. A friend was with her, and she had her inhaler, and they insisted she was ok, so I gave her my water and continued on. She passed me at mile 3. (I later passed them both again, and when I was limping along at mile 5, they passed me and offered help, but I encouraged them to go finish strong because there wasn't anything to help.) I was actually really glad to see her at mile 3, and know she recovered and eventually finished. It's a very positive, fun race. We want to see everyone finish ok.

And finish ok we did. We had about five minutes before running the Mini Muddy Buddy with my buddy's kids, so mud pit round 2. The mud pit is the whole point for me though, so that was pretty awesome.

Anyway, how do you do a Muddy Buddy, or running at all, with RSD in your leg?

SLOWLY.

But the point is, you do it. I also have these other helpful tips:

1. Skip one of your main triggers, the weather, by spending winter in a desert. Specifically, the Mojave Desert, not Antarctica. This was a huge luxury for me this year. I realize this is not especially practical, but the basic idea here is, find superficial solutions. Which leads me to number 2:

2. Maintain a good relationship with someone who is always warm and doesn't mind you sticking your cold foot on them every chance you get. Thanks, Mike.

3. Make sure you like your doctor and your treatment. One of my favorite professors once accidentally turned her lecture into an important life lesson about not just settling for any old doctor or treatment plan, but seeking out something you are comfortable with. I have been under the care of the same pain doctor for all 12.5 years of this diagnosis, and my visits with him are extremely efficient and effective. We came up with a long-term plan before my insurance ran out, and he was very supportive of me starting that regimen on my terms this month (and at a very steep discount, no less!).

4. Low impact exercise. This year, this meant not really training at all? I hiked and walked a lot. Surely that counts.

5. Maintain a race partner who is not competitive. Brian Campos, you are the best. He doesn't ever seem to care about our time, as long as we finish. We always do. His encouragement after the fourth obstacle, when I was really starting to fret about breaking my ankle at the final obstacle, and his promise to make sure I made it over the wall before he attempted it, basically carried me through the last legs of the race. This tip is also related to number 6--

6. Less stress. This is the one I've been struggling with lately. There was the stress of getting myself all sorts of lost in being unemployed, and then there was the stress of realizing the nerve problems were creeping up on me despite my best efforts, and then there has been the resurgence of many of my high school concerns. While this is not a psychological disorder, as I mentioned, I have big fears of people assuming/treating me like I'm crazy, because some days I limp, and some days I don't. My pain doctor focused on this one when I saw him a few weeks ago. I just need to let it go. I'm great at handling my own worries about it, I'm not so great at handling the worrying about other people's worries about it. Don't worry, I'm fine. And don't assume I'm crazy or faking it. The only faking I'm doing, is fake it till I make it. If I ignore it, it's not as bad.

7. Get health insurance. Check! Coming soon to a Colleen near you! (And I will seriously write more about this soon!)

8. Honesty. This should probably actually be item 6b. Honestly: this thing is getting to me. I'm struggling with it. At this point, it's persistent. I have returned to my old friend Tramadol in lieu of a nerve block until I have health insurance again (and I returned after the race instead of before, because I wasn't ready to deal with the side effects-laden transition into a regular dosage, and I also don't know how this works for me if I have a beer, and I wanted to enjoy the beer garden at the end of the Muddy Buddy, sorry not sorry, Devil's Backbone and being coherent afterwards turned out to be totally worth it).




Moral of the story is: life goes on, as well it should.
tl;dr-- RSD is stupid but I win anyway.