"BEHIND." "BEHIND."

I had to get up an hour early this morning to make sure I could walk the dogs, eat, and get cleaned up for my 8:25 appointment with the general orthopedic guy, the one who would surely tell me exactly what to do about my stupid bum leg.

Standing at the kitchen counter at 6:10 drinking and wolfing down a snack almost made me feel like I was going out for a run. (Sob.)

At the last second, I decided to grab my new Garmin and try it out on the dog walk. I managed to attach the new, smaller wristband yesterday, charge it up, and enter the kazillion little pieces of data it wants from new users (gender, weight, height, age, training level, blah blah blah), and I even went outside and watched it pick up satellites fairly readily. The only part of it that's still incomplete is the heart rate monitor. The chest strap that comes with it is a little too long for tiny little me. I had to order a special smaller strap that hasn't come yet.

I got the dogs outside, waited for it to pick up some satellites (not long, maybe a minute or so), and off we went!

"BEHIND," the display immediately said. "BEHIND." How rude! Cheeky, even!

Oh, right. The watch has a feature called "Virtual Partner." If you're the hypercompetitive sort, you can give this virtual partner a pace, and then the screen shows two little stick figures running. One is you, and one is the virtual partner whose butt you must kick. The display shows the two of you and notes who's ahead. Since I set the Virtual Partner for a slow running pace and I was walking dogs, of course I was going to be "BEHIND."

I quickly ditched that screen in favor of one that shows your time, your mileage, and your pace over the current mile. Apparently I walk an 18-19 minute mile with the dogs--when they're moving, that is.

The watch also has a feature called "Auto Pause." If you activate it, the watch will stop counting time whenever you stop moving or whenever your pace drops below a certain level. I had set mine to "Pause when stopped." Walking dogs means you are constantly stopping so that one or the other of them can sniff something, pee on something, sniff something very intently before peeing on it, OR pee on something before giving it a good sniff. You get the idea. It seems like I could never walk more than 15 seconds without one or both of them deciding they just had to sniff that tree or look up at the phone lines for squirrels. And without fail, the watch would give a cheery little "DEE-dee" and show "Timer paused." Once we started again, it often took 5 steps or so before it would sing out "DO-dee" and show "Timer resumed." We repeated this sequence ad nauseam for close to an hour:

• Walk a little.
  
• Dogs stop to sniff and/or pee and/or stare balefully at squirrels.
  
• "DEE-dee!"
  
• Start walking again.
  
• Wait for it...wait for it..."DO-dee!"
• Dogs find something else to sniff. Cycle repeats.
  

I was about ready to smash the watch with a sledgehammer after the umpteenth chirp. But it survived the walk and showed we'd walked 2.8 miles in about 50 minutes.

Now...the orthopedist. I won't name names to protect the moronic, but this guy was a waste of the planet's oxygen. Totally unhelpful, totally uninterested in expressing any kind of medical opinion, and the opposite of a fount of information. My socks have stronger opinions than this guy did. For example:

Me: "So, what would you recommend as far as resuming normal activity?"
Him: "Well, you want to slowly build things up and just do whatever doesn't bother you too much."
Me: "I have a Pilates class Wednesday nights. Would it be a bad idea for me to go to that tomorrow?"
Him: "Well, you can go and just do whatever's comfortable for you..."

Seriously. I could have gotten better advice from a Magic 8-Ball.

But one good thing came out of my encounter with the Medical Bowl of Oatmeal: a PT referral. I think a physical therapist is going to be able to help me figure out how to strengthen my adductors and hip flexors so this does NOT happen to me again. That's what I really want to take away from this rotten experience. I called a PT one of my Team in Training buddies recommended and their office was great. Really well organized, friendly, and they gave me an appointment with the guy I wanted for tomorrow morning. It doesn't get much better than that!

I also promised you a report on my mom's PET scan. Well, the good news is that the cancer is metabolically less active, which means it is getting weaker. But it is not gone. We can't throw confetti and yell "REMISSION!!" quite yet. The bad news is that chemo is on hold again while the doctors try and fix the persistent window-rattling cough my mom has been suffering with for several weeks now. They're not really sure what's causing it. Shocking, I know! Maybe I should send them a Magic 8-Ball of their own...