Rudy's unfortunate adventure.

If you don't own a dog, you probably won't understand. But, Rudy is our kid. Ben and I do not have nor are we planning on having kids. Rudy came into our life just over a year and a half ago and stole our heart. Every time he looks at you, all you can see in his eyes is absolute and unconditional love. His life revolves completely around us, waiting for us to come home, the pure joy and excitement that you're greeted with every time you come home (although sometimes overwhelming), and his walks/runs. He is my training partner on my long runs, my faithful companion on the cold winter mornings, laying faithfully beside me while I bike for hours on the trainer or study all day.

Although he is 55 pounds, he loves nothing better than to curl up on your lap and be carried on your hip. He is a trooper, and has fit right in with our family. He loves camping because we sleep on the floor with him, he's kept up on our 35 kilometer backpack trips and our 4 hour runs like a champ, and he turns 2 years old on Sunday.

Although he seems to take after me. The last year has not been without his share of bad luck. Back in April he was impaled at the dog park. He tends to jump/bounce through the bushes, and he jumped right on to a inch wide tree trunk which had been cut/broken. The stick went right into his belly, and he let out a loud yelp. Off to the vet het went, surgery, stitches, drainage tube later, turns out the stick went about 6 inches into him, luckily missing any major arteries and organs. The day after his surgery we stepped out for a bit and came home to Rudy with his cone off and his stitches removed. Off to the emergency vet at 11 pm in Downtown Calgary. They removed the broken piece of drainage tube that remained inside him, stitched him up and home we went. Luckily, he healed perfectly after that.

With a sigh of relief, hoping that would be all, a real nightmare began. About a month ago, for no reason whatsoever I decided to take Rudy with me to drop my nephew off. When we got home, I was a little stressed thinking about everything I was planning on doing that afternoon, and Ben was out helping my mom move. Rudy jumped out of the car, and with my hands full I hip bumped the car door closed only to her the most awful scream/whine sound come out of Rudy. I threw the stuff down, clawed at the door to open it, which had of course locked behind me. Frantically searching for my keys, Rudy decided to take matter into his own hands paws and pulled his tail out of the door, and then ran into the house bleeding profusely. It was only the very tip, maybe inch or so that was bleeding, but he was shaking. I went to try and stop the bleeding when I noticed a little piece of bone sticking out the end. So I wrapped it in paper towel so he wouldn't bleed all over the car, and got him back to the emergency vet since it was Sunday. They did surgery to remove the damaged piece of his tail, and he came home all drugged up. By Wednesday we had run out of pail killers and we came home to a very sore puppy, back to the emergency vet we went to get painkillers as our vet wouldn't see us so last minute before they closed. The following week, the day before he was supposed to get his stitches out, he once again decided to take matters into his own hands paws and ripped the stitches out him self. Thanks Rudy. The end of the bone popped out of the skin, as the vet hadn't left enough soft tissue between the end of tail and the incision, and it was infected despite the antibiotics, back to the emergency vet he went. They did another surgery, removing about 4-5 inches of his tail, they kept him over night and Ben got to go pick him up at 4 in the morning.

However, our dog is Houdini, and managed to remove his cone nearly every day while we were at work and get at his tail. Finally last Tuesday, my lovely sister went to check on him and he had gotten at his tail again, but it wasn't looking so good by this point, so she took him to the vet. The vet recommended that he get his tail docked since it had been a month up to this point, then they forwarded us a quote for $1600.00, over what the other 2 surgeries were combined. Now we knew that our vet was very expensive and we had been meaning to find a new vet but we just hadn't gotten around to it. Well that was the last straw, and we found the Cochrane Animal Clinic, who have been absolutely fantastic and were nearly half the price. They did the procedure on Thursday, but then on Monday I picked him up from the Springbank day care who had been keeping an eye on him while we were at work, and I knew something wasn't right. He didn't want to move much, and appeared to be in tremendous pain. I phoned to see if they had given him his pain medicine and they had. So I went up to change his bandage, and as soon as I saw his tail I knew it was bad. The very end had turned black, the rest was quite red and bleeding, and he nearly puked he was in so much pain. He wouldn't walk, and was shaking. I phoned the vet, and despite them closing in 20 minutes they brought him right in. As soon as the vet saw the wound, my heart sank. He now has a very serious, and aggresive infection, he had a very high fever and the end of his tail has turned necrotic. They gave him an injection of pain meds and antibiotic, sent us home with double his pain meds, and additional antibiotics with instructions to get his fever down, and the swelling out of the tail. So here we are, Ben and I are alternating days off as Rudy is too sick to be left alone or go to daycare. He has a schedule of drugs to take, his temperature has to be checked religiously, and we have to run his tail under ice cold water every hourish. He'll have a spurt of energy, followed by hours of not wanting to move. All we can do right now is keep him comfortable and wait. Luckily we had some vacation days left over from last week so we're using them up to be with him.

What we learned from all of this:

1) Shop around for vets. Seriously that may sound bad, and trust me the first vet certainly tried to give me a guilt trip about going elsewhere and the care he'd receive. But we have found the most amazing vet, and will probably never return to his old one.

2) Tail docking, while it's pretty controversial, I think there is merit. In fact while I was emphasizing how bad I felt as this all started with me not paying attention the vet talked about how many dogs this happens too.. maybe not to this extent, but how many get their tails caught in doors, and tail injuries are THE WORST!

3) It's hard to take time off of work for your dog, but sometimes it is necessary.

4) Post surgery, or if your dog needs monitoring see if you can find a day care that can make special arrangements to keep him quite and keep an eye on him. We used a kennel/daycare combined facility that worked well.

5) It's ok to ask for help. My mom took Rudy to the appointment to get his tail docked, and my sister would periodically check on him. It's ok to not be able to do it all.

So I'll leave you with Rudy, where he was happy on our 3 day backpacking trip, and a prayer for him.

Heavenly Father,
You created all things for your glory
And made us stewards of this creature.
Please restore Rudy
to health and strength (as he want's to get back to our adventures asap!)
Blessed are you, Lord God,
And holy is your name for ever and ever.
Amen.

Oh Jasper, you fool us every time....

I'm not sure what it is with Jasper, whether the locals like to mess with visitors or they just simply do not know the hikes, or Jasper is in some weird time warp. But it seems both times we've visited things have gone sideways. The last time we were in Jasper was 6 years ago, we were first dating and headed up for the September long weekend. We stopped in at a local cafe for breakfast one of the morning and asked the Barista of a good hike. She recommended Pyramid mountain, saying it was only a 2-4 hour hike. So we picked up some water and food and headed on our way. Now, keep in mind we are pretty fast hikers, this hike took us over 6 hours to do! And we even passed a guy riding up on a bike!

Well 6 years later we finally returned, and it tricked us again. This trip will be remembered as the time we accidentally ran 32 kms. Our weekend didn't start out as planned as our lovely Dog managed to choke his way out of his cone.. again.. and decided to rip the stitches out of his tail for the 3rd time. So we were off to the vet.. again.. Luckily this trip didn't entail (no pun intended) another surgery, they bandaged him up and set up an appointment for the next morning to make sure the wound was closing, otherwise they would have to make a clean cut and put in some more stitches. Frustrated, we postponed our trip by a day, and I spent the evening holding my beautiful week old niece at my mother's new house.

Saturday morning we packed up the car, took Rudy to the vet, and luckily he didn't need any stitches, phew! so we hit the road. Since we were a day late, and we didn't have any reservations we were just hoping to get a spot. The first 4 campsites were full, and one was hard side trailer only, so we kept driving until we hit Pocahontas right by Miette Hotsprings, about 50 kms east of Jasper. It's a first come first serve campsite, and even though it said that it was full we thought we'd take a drive through and we managed to snag a spot! WOO HOO! We went for a little walk to stretch our legs, cooked some pizza on our grill, had a few drinks and sat by the fire.

On Sunday morning we headed back in to Jasper. The plan was to do the Saturday night Lake loop which is labeled everywhere as a 24 km loop with 700 feet of elevation. We thought it would be the perfect trail run. So we set out, I remembered reading that the loop was called the Saturday night lake loop/20 mile loop. So when we found the trail head for the 20 mile loop we set out, Ben mentioned that he thought it was weird that the trail was called 20 mile loop and yet it would only be 24 kms, and I responded with "well, the internet said...." and since the internet is never ever wrong we ignored that early warning sign and continued on. It was a beautiful morning, and we passed a few beautiful lakes. We figured the run would take around 2 1/5 hours. So when we hit 2 hours and it felt like we were in the middle of the forest we realized something wasn't right. But at that point we had no choice, we were committed, our options were to keep going and hope the car would be just around the corner, or turn back and know that we had another 2 hours to go. So we kept going. Alas 3 hours and 52 minutes we were running down some switch backs and the car came into view. Phew! We're not sure if missed something and were supposed to turn somewhere, or if the map just totally lied to us. But it definitely was not 24 kilometers, rather 32 kilometers with quite a bit of climbing. I know that when we stopped at a sports store in town to figure out where this trail head was the lady working there pointed us in the clockwise direction, which according to online is the WRONG WAY, so maybe if we had gone the proper way we would have seen where we should have turned. Oh well, we got through it, we were together and it was a beautiful and challenging run.

Needless to say all 3 of us were very tired, thirsy, and hungry. Luckily all of our food was in the car so we had a feast, drank a gallon of water, picked up some beer and headed back to the campsite. We hung out for a bit before putting Rudy in the tent for a much needed nap and heading up to the Miette Hotsprings. These are probably our favorite hotsprings. It's far enough outside of Jasper that alot of people don't bother to go, or don't know that it's there. They have cold tubs and hot tubs. So we alternated between the 2, and it felt like bliss on our sore legs. After the hot springs we showered and headed in to town for some Sushi! It tasted amazing! We didn't get back to the campsite until after 9, and we were both exhausted so we just headed to bed.

Monday was very uneventful, we just packed up the tent, stopped at a cafe in Jasper for probably the most delicious breakfast wrap I've ever had (cafe mondo) and headed home. It was a fantastic weekend.

Northover Ridge... Third Time's a Charm

This past weekend we took my Brother and his Girlfriend on our favorite backpacking trip. The weekend can be summed up with Spectacular Views, Great Company, and Perseverance.

We set out for the first 10 kms to Three Isle Lake on Friday after work. We got to the trail head at the interlinks parking lot on Upper Kananaskis Lakes at 6 pm, got our packs on our back and started out. We passed a couple of other hikers who were stopping at a closer camp. The first couple of hours are fairly uneventful, treking around upper kananskis lakes and through the forest. It was amazing to see the effects of the flood in this area. Places that had bridges were completely washed out, as was part of the trail. By 8:30 we approached the final kilometer which is basically straight up. It was starting to get dark, and windy so we knew we had to hurry up it as fast as we could. Part way up, it started to rain. Looking back down the valley where we came from you could see the rain pouring down. Getting a little nervous we pressed on, and luckily the rain stopped shortly after. We got to three isle lake just after 9, found some beautiful sites, set up camp, and proceeded to enjoy some wine by candlelight before heading to bed.

Saturday morning we were up around 8, and we headed down to the lake for coffee. By 9:30 we had packed up camp and set out on day 2, a 12 km hike up and down Northover Ridge. This is definitely a BIG day, but the views make the climbing so worth it:

We got to Aster Lake around 3pm. We found beautiful sites right on the river. We set up camp, and then proceeded to have a 2 hour nap. When we got up we had a delicious 3 course dinner of Freeze Dried Katmandu Curry, Freeze Dried Beef Stroganoff, and Freeze Dried Berry Cobbler for desert, and we washed it all down with a couple bottles of wine. We were back asleep by 9 pm.

Sunday morning we were up around 8 again. By this point we had woken up sore and tired, but we knew we had another 13 kilometers to get to the car. I think this is the hardest day of the hike. Although you are rewarded with some amazing views of waterfalls, and lakes, but you're fatigued and just want to get home. Unfortunately you still have another 4-5 hours to get to the car, with some fairly difficult terrain. We had some coffee and breakfast and packed up camp. We were hiking by 10am:

We were back at the car at 2:15. The last hour was very quiet as we were all very focused on getting back to the car. I must give a major shout out to my brother and his girlfriend as I don't think they knew quite what they were in for, but they made it! Although we're all tired and sore, it was an amazing time. This was the first time that I've done this trip without getting injured! Also, my knee seemed to feel ok. I had it taped up with KT tape, to keep my knee cap in place and give my patella tendon a break and it seemed to work like a charm!

Wild Rose Review

Ok, it has taken me along time to write this. At the time I didn't think I felt THAT much different by the end of the detox. A little less bloated, sure. However, I must admit the biggest changes have been permanent changes to our diet, and self awareness to our eating patterns. We now concentrate our diets on whole and unprocessed foods. I mean I think we ate healthy before the detox but we have made some permanent changes and I feel a lot better.

We no longer eat dairy, ever. Well, unless I really want some pizza, but then I pay the price. If I eat diary now, I get very sick. I've known forever that I have an intolerance to dairy, but this just illustrated how much it effects me. We used to snack on cheese, and have cream in our coffee. Which we have cut out. No wonder I used to feel bloated and sick all the time.

We have also reduced our sugar consumption. I now enjoy my coffee with just some almond milk, or black. I'm not sure if I have an allergy to sugar, or if it is just how everyone feels after eating suger, but I now find if I have some sugar I crave more and more of it, my eczema gets worse and I end up with a stomach ache, and sometimes a head ache. However, sometimes those fuzzy peaches are calling my name... and then when I inevitably feel sick I know it was all my fault.

We've significantly reduced the amount of wheat that we eat. As an athlete you always hear "eat your carbs." So we would eat bread, pasta, and crackers like nobody's business. This habit is gone. We don't even purchase wheat products at the grocery store any more. Granted when we're camping we'll eat a hot dog in a bun, and sometimes we'll have a hamburger in a thin bun, but other than that we stick to rice, quinoa, and sweet potatoes. We sometimes eat regular potatoes too, but I find those make me sick as well.

Lunches have changed. Gone are granola bars and sandwiches. They've been replaced with natural peanut butter on rice cakes, fruit, veggies and salad.

Snacks of cheese and crackers, have been replaced with kale chips, nuts, and popcorn.

Dinner of spaghetti has been replaced with lean meats, grilled veggies, and rice/sweet potato, which is especially easy int he summer months with our BBQ, we'll see if that changes in the winter.

We've basically removed all processed food from our diet, and it feels so good!

Thank you wild rose!

Now to get my knee back in order so that I can start training again!

Life Lately.

Nothing the past week has been particularly blog worthy, no grand adventures for the champs. In fact, we haven't had the best of luck lately.

I am currently taking a unwanted hiatus from running and biking. Which I am really struggling with. Since we got back from Ironman I have been dealing with some pretty major knee pain which can be characterized as Runners Knee or Jumpers Knee. Basically it's knee pain right under neath the knee cap where you patella tendon connects, and it is the most annoying and sometimes extremely painful thing. I get pain when I walk up the stairs, down the stairs, running, biking, and when I sit with it bent for too long (like when I commute to work). I was told I could continue to run on is so long as I was running pain free, the problem is I would be running pain free but then it would be excruciatingly sore the next day. So, I've decided to take at least 2 weeks off, if not longer. I am very disheartened as I got back from Ironman with grand plans, I was planning on working on my running and racing a half marathon in the fall, trying to get it down to 1 hour 50 minutes, all with the goal progressing instead of starting over again for Ironman training next year. But, as per usual, an injury has me sidelined. To add to the issue, my beloved chiropractor, who kept me pain free through the last year, has retired. Unfortunately her replacement has not seemed to help. So I am off to meet a new chiropractor on Monday, who is apparently a runner and biker her self and has helped my coworker. Hopefully she can help me out so I can get back to training, because ask anyone if I don't exercise.. LOOK OUT!


Then there was the accident with poor Rudy. Last weekend, while running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I was getting out of the car with Rudy and I slammed the car door on his tail. I have never heard a dog scream before until then, poor guy. He didn't wait for me to reopen the door, rather, he yanked his tail out. It was bleeding profusely and he ran inside and laid on the carpet shaking. Home along, feeling terrible, I was trying to stop the bleeding when I noticed there was some white stuff sticking out. I phoned the vet not realizing that dogs had bones in their tail, but turns out they do, and the white stuff was his bone was sticking out! I basically went hysterical. I loaded him into the car and headed off to the 24 hour Vet downtown Calgary (seriously wishing we had bought that pet insurance). The poor guy had to get just over an inch or his tail amputated. They took him in, did the surgery while I waited down town, 5 hours later we were back home with a very sore and drugged puppy. He's doing alright, but you can tell his tail is bothersome. If he wags it I think it starts hurting because he tries to bite off the bandage, and he is super cuddly.

So what have I been up to since I haven't been training, studying, or do any crazy adventures? Well, I've been catching up on some reading. I just finished the third game of thrones and now I'm half way through Roots. Also, I am catching up on some TV shows via Netflix. I've been loving Orange is the New Black, and Homeland. We took my nephew for a sleepover last weekend too, so my brother could spend some time with his spouse before baby #2 comes. We went to see the new disney Planes movie in 3D which was fun. Ben has been helping my step dad every day this week with moving, while my mom has been out of town. This coming weekend is the first weekend in a long time we don't have any plans, mind you we didn't have any plans last weekend either until thursday and it turned into a whirlwind!

Goodsoil Vacation

Where were we this weekend? Goodsoil Saskatchewan! A place that we tend to migrate to every couple of years. It is on a beautiful lake, and this trip we were surrounded by lots of sunshine, laughs, and love. So many memories up there, and this trip was nothing other than wonderful. It was fun to think that I started to go when I was my nephews age and it was the one time a year that we really got to hang out with out extended family, aunts, uncles, even my great grandpa. Which I realized is exactly what it is like for my nephew now. His great grandparents were up there, it was so precious to see my grandpa right in the sand with my nephew loading up a dump truck with sand.

It's been a couple of years since I've been up there, infact last time I went without Ben since he had to work. I was in the middle of training for Ironman so I had to haul up all of my stuff. It was really nice to trek up there this year and not have to worry about squeezing training in, or feel guilty about missing a workout. Ben and I had the opportunity to totally relax. Absolutely nothing was on our mind. Ben bought a fishing rod before he left, and turns out he absolutely loved it, so he was out with my step dad nearly every day while I filled my days reading, napping, and visiting on the beach. It was a great time.

Now it's August, and I have no idea where the time has gone. We don't really have any major adventures for the rest of the summer. We have a backpacking trip planned with my brother and his girlfriend in a couple of weeks, and we're debating a couple of camping trips with some hikes thrown in there. Nothing too major though. I haven't been able to really run or bike lately as I have developed jumpers knee from overuse so I'm taking a time out and hoping that it heals up as I have big plans for next year! Come January after our trip to mexicp we start in fulls swing as I have the calgary marathon, an Ironman in the fall, and my CFA level 2 exam on my plate in 2014. So in the meantime I plan on relaxing!

Meandering Through the Forest

On the weekend Ben and I had the pleasure of going for a hike with my younger brother and his girlfriend. Although our plans got derailed as hwy 66 to moose mountain was still closed because of the floods, we went for a hike through west Bragg Creek, which turned into a 14 km meander through the forest, with our conversations carrying us along. Although there was no destination to our hike, no "OH WOW" moment like you get when you summit a mountain or hike to a waterfall, we still had a great time (and I can't wait for our 3 day backpacking trip next month together!!).

Anyways, the point of this post. The question was asked if things really change once you get married. Which is a very good question, because to be honest I didn't think things would change when Ben and I got married, I mean we had been living together for 4 and a half years before that, and yet our relationship did change. Subtle changes, nothing life shattering.. changes that you may not even notice until you take a moment to think about them, the kind change that makes you feel more secure and love your partner even more, because they have chosen you forever. They have promised to love you despite your faults through thick and thin, those vows are not to be taken lightly. Its kind of hard to explain, it's just like you feel more settled, you're no longer preoccupied with when, where, and how you'll get engaged, you don't have to plan the wedding, and you're no longer thinking about what would happen if you break up.. Youre relationship becomes a constant. Which is also why you have to make a little bit of an effort to have dates and celebrate the little things once you're married. It is way too easy to get into a routine and let life pass you by.

I have found that one of the biggest differences is in arguments. There is an understanding that we're both in this for the long haul so we better figure this sh*t out so that we don't continue to have the same argument tomorrow, next week, or next year. Arguments turn into opportunities to learn and try to understand where the other person is coming from, and to work on compromise.

There you have it. I'm sure for people that haven't lived together before getting married there would be major differences, but if you already live together I would say it does change a little bit, but definitely for the better.

Also, just to keep you all in suspense... I found out on Tuesday that I PASSED MY CFA LEVEL 1! WOO HOO!