Becoming a Marksman (or Markswoman)

So according to the spell check on blogger, Markswoman is not a valid word.  Way2b sexist, blogger.  Why must Markswoman be broken into two words, Marks Woman, while Marksman is perfectly valid.  I want equality.  I want some SunChips® too.  Chocolate Milk on the side.  Or better yet, Goat's Milk. 

 

Marksmanship, if I remember correctly, was an upgrade in Warcraft 2 that increased your archers' damage significantly.  It also happens to have something to do with how well you can shoot a target by firing a projectile.  Archery is fancy, but I ain't no Katniss.  So instead, last Saturday, I shot a rifle.  There's a group of reeel fancy shooters called Appleseed that host an event every year that teaches lessons on using a rifle and simultaneously commemorates the people and events of the Revolutionary War.  I went with Merilee, her sister, and her brother-in-law.  It was totes cray cray fo sheezy.

Most of the instruction and practice was on the prone position, but we also practiced seated and standing positions.  The latter two were less accurate positions for hitting our targets, which were 25 yards away.  I didn't know that there was so much to shooting a gun.  I had done the Riflemanshipbadge course at scout camp, so I had shot a .22.  Other than that, my experience with guns was restricted to what I had observed in Bourne, Bond, and Bauer productions.  Gotta love the JBs.

What's impressed me the most about riflemen is how hard it actually is to be as accurate as they are.  You don't really get the sense of difficulty when you watch stuff on TV.  One thing we focused on was "finding your NPOA."  NPOA stands for Natural Point Of Aim.  Besides the obvious difficulty of focusing your eyes on the target, which looks tiny from even only 25 yards away, and your iron sights, there's also all the shaky bisniss that your body does.  If you find your NPOA, you're in a position that's so comfortable and relaxed that you could theoretically fall asleep.  This position uses the tension of the sling and other things to let you keep your position without using muscle, which muscle use would lead to shaking.  Then you have your breath that can alter your shot.  As Don said, snipers even have to shoot between heartbeats.

After going through a clip practicing a certain technique, we went up to our targets and could see immediately how we did.  It was interesting to see how much of a difference these supposedly "little" things made on our shots.  It reminds me of a seminary lesson I once had.  Two students held ends of a string on opposite ends of our classroom.  One student remained stationary while the other had to move depending on how much the string was going to be rotated (measured with a protractor).  It was impressive to see, as I did at the shooting range, how changes, even if they seem small from where we are, can have a big impact on the end result.  A breath or muscle contraction can cause you to miss your target, and varying off course by even so little as 1 degree can drastically change your destination.

And so it is with life.  A lot of times, I feel like it's so easy to get off track.  All I have to do is barely twitch and I'm already on a set course for a place that I don't want to be.  I'm getting better at doing the little things, so hopefully that means I'm on target.  Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, and there are few that find it.

Sicker than Your Mom

I'm sick: sick of getting sick.  Saturday I came down with the same thing that I've gotten twice already since the beginning of the year.  ...and now I sound like my mom.  I love you mom.  Anyways, if you get the reoccurring Charles Virus, here are the symptoms, ordered from most uncomfortable to most bearable:

#1 - Aching Bones
-It's mainly the back, neck, and the back of the skull that hurt, but it can travel down to the lower body as well.

#2 - Headache and Lightheadedness
-This is mainly related to the aching at the back of the skull and neck, but the rest of your head can hurt too and you get sort of dizzy.

#3 - Drowsiness
-Get some sleep or you might will turn into a zombie.  Once you get enough sleep, you are fine.

#4 - Fake Fever
-You will feel warm like you're radiating heat.  You will sweat (especially if cuddling closely with someone), but you will not have a temperature and might not even feel warm to the touch.

#5 - Dehydration
-It doesn't matter how much water you drink.  For some reason you are always thirsty, and your pee is dark like apple juice.  Yum.

#6 - Stomach
-The first time I felt nauseated, and I didn't eat anything for like 3 days.  Then, my stomach had this weird feeling like there was a lump at the base of the esophagus that I only felt while breathing or eating.  The second and this last time, I didn't feel nauseated, but still felt this weird lump.

The best remedy I've found: Go search in Mary's medicine cabinet and commandeer the acetaminophen, take two, and wait 30 minutes.  Sleep if you feel tired.  The aching bones subside (and as a consequence your head feels a lot better too).  You are left feeling slightly warm but you feel loads greater than before.  Things are looking up.  Just keep drinking water and you'll be fine.

In other news, I find both squirrels and deer to be acceptable game.

My Deer/Squirrel Haiku:

Deer graze squirrels climb
God's garden hosts all beauty
Pearls before swine

There are some things that make you feel worse than being sick.  Like when people think little of what should be respected and valued.  This video makes me feel better.

Blogger Mondays, Ice Cream Sundaes, and Hey Dude - Back Off the Lay's®

So it's Monday once again.  In Japan they use Yen.  Bears often congregate in a den, but I don't know when.  If you do, tell me then.  After that, I'll know who's my real friend.  I know a girl at school named Jen.  I have an Aunt who had a hen.  If someone needed to borrow money, and he was my friend, to him I would gladly lend.  Don't forget, when exchanging texts, to press send.

I saw this posted yesterday.  I thought it was the best thing ever.

I apologize for the rhyming.  Anyways, as I was saying about Monday... 

My first few blogs always came out on Saturdays.  Now, they usually don't make it out until Monday.  Weekends are just packed.  Between Church, work, homework, and activities and other stuff I get to occupy my weekends with, I don't really have time, energy, or motivation to write stuff.  Writing all this inspiration isn't easy, you know?

So Friday and Saturday I attended a conference in San Jose.  It was the Phi Theta Kappa International Conference.  Talk about a waste of time, money, and energy used for the exorbitant amount of clapping you have to do packed into a convention center filled with crazy people.  Seriously though, everyone was like on crack.

I was able to catch some of a much better conference, however, when I returned Saturday afternoon.  I went to the Priesthood Session Saturday evening, then watched both Sunday Sessions.  I took some notes, mostly at the Priesthood Session though.  I had a 7 year old on my lap in the morning on Sunday and in the afternoon I think I was just too tired to write much.  Conference is tiring, as my less active math teacher told me at the conference in San Jose.  I can't wait to get the Ensign with the talks.  I'm so much more a visual person.  Inspirational quotes I hear over the broadcast are great, but they only stick for about 4 seconds and sometimes I can't even get it down on paper before it's gone.  Why is my memory so bad sometimes?

Exhaling: Me and My Little Friend, CF

Until recently, I didn't know what cuticles were.  The word sounds an awful lot like cubicle.  Are they cute cubicles?  It turns out that they're not cute cubicles.  I can always blame my parents for any lack of common knowledge I seem to posses.  Why Mom and Dad?  Why did you not teach me to push back my cuticles?

So today I thought it would be appropriate to talk about CF, since I just had my last clinic visit on Thursday.  Mostly I just have family reading this blog, but some others reading this may not know that I have cystic fibrosis.  I was diagnosed last year.  If you don't know what CF is, don't google it.  Instead, visit cff.org.  I would post the link to my CysticLife profile, but I don't think you can view it unless you're part of the website community.

So every three months I go to the CF center that Kaiser has in Oakland.  They have clinics where they check up on all the CF patients they have.  Most people my age were diagnosed as small children.  Nowadays there is infant screening for it.  I wasn't diagnosed until about May or June of last year.  Having such a late diagnosis is really great because a late diagnosis is indicative of a healthy life.  Some older men don't know that they have CF until they're trying to have kids.  The only reason I found out that I had CF was because I went in for a carrier screen after I found out that I had four possible CF mutations floating around in my family.

So Thursday was like my 4th or so visit to the clinic.  Each visit is either good or bad.  My first was awesome.  I went in and had really great numbers for my PFT (Pulmonary Function Test).  I didn't really know what to expect going in, but it was more like a little chat with the doctor rather than some intense discussion of treatment options.  I mean, apart from the genetics report and my sweat chloride test, I was perfectly healthy and there wasn't anything really to treat.  I walked out of my first clinic feeling like I didn't even have CF.

Last Thanksgiving I ran a 5k as part of Outrun CF

Since then, things have been up and down.  It's a complicated relationship.  If my CF doctor is slow to react to something like a weird test result or a weird symptom, part of me feels like I need to be heard and I need to be taken care of properly.  Another part of me is relieved when that happens.  I mean, if they don't think something is a big deal, then I shouldn't worry about it either, right?  Now I feel like I'm always trying to balance how I feel about my condition.  On one side, I'm a mostly healthy young adult.  I don't have to take half the medications that most CF patients do, I don't have a vest, and my PFT scores are great.  On the other side, I have CF, I feel different than other people, my disease is progressive, I might not be able to have children without doing something crazy like in vitro fertilization, CFTR related diabetes is possible, I'm always coughing and clearing my throat after coming back from a run, I'm 22 and may have osteoporosis.  Blah Blah Blah, it goes on.  It doesn't bite at me everyday like it used to, but many times it's a deliberate choice to be calm about it.  Other times I just feel like I need to stop pitying myself, suck it up, and move on.

My visit on Thursday was not one of the good visits.  It started out well.  I was worried about my PFT score going in because I haven't had time to run since mid January with how busy the semester has been.  When the computer said that I was 7% up from my last test, which was great because my numbers had been steadily declining since my first PFT in June, my worry was alleviated.  My victory was short lived, however, when my doctor came in and told me that the machine was likely wrong.  It makes sense.  Could I really believe that not running, which was my form of "respiratory therapy," would be helping me? 

During the visit, they were talking to me more about future treatments, about medications that I would eventually take and how they would get me a vest once I got better insurance.  The dietitian, who I met for the first time, wanted me to test my blood sugar two hours after every big meal and a few times after waking up to see if my abnormally high 2 hour glucose test they did months ago could be verified or if it was a lab error.  She said that, because I was pancreatic sufficient, high blood sugar would be from insulin resistance (type 2 diabetes, not CFTR related).  I have a family history of diabetes, and although I'm not overweight, it could happen.  I really don't want to end up diabetic like my dad.  Every time I stick myself I remember how my dad always used to do it.  It's a reminder of how fragile health can be and of how he died.

After the visit I wasn't done.  I met with another nurse who was helping out with some research that Kaiser is doing.  They basically just wanted some of my blood for research and as part of a project that the CDC is doing to make sure that CF centers' infant screenings are working accurately.  I was picked because I have at least one mutation that's relatively rare (lucky me?).  As with all research, there was a lot of paperwork I had to do, consents and all of that.  I'm sure 10% of it was necessary.  Why wouldn't someone participate?  I felt that it was the least that I could do.  The medical professionals and those at the CDC are the ones who are doing all the work.  If I can sacrifice 5 minutes of my time to help other CF centers diagnose and treat others, I'd definitely do it.  Plus, some of my cells are being immortalized, which sounds pretty awesome.

After that, I still wasn't done.  I had another appointment to look into my fertility.  I knew that more than 95% of men with CF were infertile.  That's not to be confused with sterile.  With cystic fibrosis,  the vas deferens is either not correctly developed or is absent.  This means that it's still possible to have children, but it would involve going to a fertility clinic of some sort to do in vitro fertilization.  The idea of having to do that didn't bother me much.  Yeah, it's not as easy as the traditional way, but one positive is that children are a lot easier to plan.  No "accidents," and yes I can call them that because I was one, or so my mom says.

Well it turns out that there's nothing wrong with my vas deferens.  In fact, I don't appear to have any vas deferens at all.  I'm so glad that this information about my man parts is on the Internet.  Anyways, though I knew the odds going in, I'm still surprised at how much the confirmation affected me.  I know that I can still have kids, and they will be mine, perhaps with my eyes, face, hairy chest, or other physical features (not just my mutations).  Still, the news really hit me.  I think I didn't realize before how much I want to be a father.

Thursday was just a reminder how much CF sucks.  I feel horrible when I complain about it because there's so many that have it worse than me, but I hate it.  I don't want to have to take medications or enzymes.  I don't want to have to use a vest or do weird treatments.  I don't want to have to take my inhaler before going out for a run.  I don't want diabetes.  I don't want to have to prick myself everyday and inject myself with insulin as if I was a lab in chemistry.  I don't want to have to take my wife to a fertility clinic before we can start a family.  I don't want any of it.  I still try to see the positive, and remember that God didn't promise anyone an easy life.  I did learn a lot last year after going through the diagnosis.  I guess I just have more to learn from it.

For now, all I can do is exhale.  Knowing that Heavenly Father loves me, knows me, and is guiding me helps.  Prayer is great.  Having the love and support of awesome friends, great family, and the best girlfriend make me happy and tip the balance; the good in my life far outweighs the bad.