The summer came and went this year in a flash. Daniel James is growing like a weed; its amazing to look through pictures to see the incredible changes. As he gets older, DJ is getting happier and more fun.
Max and Daniel James napping on the couch. 5/26/2007
Mom up for a visit on 5/27/2007.
This summer, my seemingly annual health issue was my back. The saga started in mid May, when I drove to Wenatchee for The Hot Apple Turnover frisbee tournament. When I got out of the car, I felt significant pain in my lower back. I've had back pain off and on for a number of years, so I was not too concerned about it, but it was sharper than normal and bothered me the whole weekend. After a few days the pain "dulled" a bit, but it spread down my right leg. The leg pain was particularly bad when I was in bed, and I would frequently need to walk around in the middle of the night for relief.
Over the weekend of June 9, I attended John Riley's sculling camp. Unfortunately Trevor was out of town and couldn't make it, but he let me use his boat so I didn't have to deal with transporting mine to Seattle. The weekend was lots of fun as expected, but my leg pain was particularly bad in the boat when my legs were fully extended. (Max! I said sit at the release!). The next weekend I celebrated my first father's day!
On June 22, Zoey got sick and scared the heck out of Joann and me, although its probably more accurate to say that I completely freaked out. Zoey had been throwing up her meals for a couple of days in a row, so we brought her into the vet to see what was up. Some numbers on her blood test were completely off the charts which indicated that something bad was going on with her liver. There were a number of scary possible causes of her symptoms, and of course we feared the worst. She stayed with the vet for a few days to get tests done and to keep her hydrated. After a couple days she was fine, and the best guess as to what happened is that she ate something poisonous, although Joann and I could not figure out how that could have happened. After a couple weeks of follow-up blood tests that showed good recovery, I managed to calm back down to normal.
Zoey back to normal, at the Marymoor dog park. 9/7/2007.
I continued to play a lot of frisbee throughout the summer, both with Vince and pickup at work. My back and leg pain felt best when I was warmed up and exercising, but it also felt the worst the next morning after I had been exercising. At work I have an adjustable-height desk, and I spent a lot of time at work standing up. On the weekend of July 8 I played with team Vince at Potlatch, which was a really great time as normal.
The Vincesurrection : Fomenting Civil Unrest Since 1995. At Potlatch. 7/8/2007
About a week after Potlatch, my right foot went completely numb and I started to lose strength in my calf. I headed to the doctor and as expected an MRI showed that I had a pretty bad herniated disc. I went to see a surgeon the next week to discuss my options. The risk of not doing surgery is that the strength loss can become permanent, and so I decided not to wait for my own body to take care of the problem and scheduled the procedure for August.
Mom holding Daniel James. 7/25/2007
At the end of July, my group (Live Labs) at work moved to downtown Bellevue. The office space is awesome, with incredible views of Lake Washington and Seattle. The main drawback is that I have a lot of meetings on main campus, which is about a 20 minute drive each direction.
On August 2, Joann, DJ and I drove to Sunriver in Oregon to spend a week with Dad, Alison, Linda, and Roger's family. We all had a great time together. Joann and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary during the trip, and we got to go out together due to the abundant child care available. My back and leg were giving me fits, and I didn't feel up to running with Roger.
The "Chickering Men" shot in Sunriver. 8/4/2007
Roger, Kyle, and Linda in Sunriver. 8/5/2007
On August 9 I had the back surgery. There was some immediate relief in the numbness, and after about two weeks my symptoms started to go away. By mid September I was back to playing frisbee again, and by the end of the month I was "cured".
Max and Daniel James goofing off. 8/21/2007
