Well, I had already paid for an annual membership at 24hr fitness prior to heading down to Texas to visit my favorite sister and her kids. So, game on sis. I had actually discussed some of my baseline measurements with my Mom on the plane. I should just say observations I s’pose. If my Mom reads this, she’ll be happy to know I made it the length of the pool under water. However, I found that the reason for this was that I tried it prior to working out. I can’t do it once my heart rate is elevated. I can cover 25 yds doing the breast stroke in 28 seconds and 50 yds in 64 seconds.
I’ll check my weight on my Wii within the next few days.

I also wanted to put some history down so when I express my consternation with Sara’s comments, it’s clear why. I was in a motorcycle accident in September of 1998 in which I broke my left radius and on its way out of my body it took my ulna with it. I had multiple rib fractures on my left side and broke the metacarpal on my right thumb. So, I’m intimately familiar with osteoclasts and osteoblasts (the little cells in animals that break down bone and build it back up). From the time I could use my right hand after the accident until late 2003 I worked in the biomedical field doing research in both organ transplantation and immunology. I took premed courses prior to my accident that included physics, chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, etc. I believe 6 hrs of biochemistry….this includes lots of different little pathways and ‘stuff’ that occur in the human body. I love my sister and in many ways she is markedly more intelligent than me, but I find it absolutely remarkable that she felt the need to explain to me that our bodies ‘continuously change out their cells and stuff.’ She did however go on to make my point for me which is that without stem cell research, lung tissue once damaged, stays damaged. It’s only going to be when we learn how to turn on and off different bits of machinery in lung cells that we will figure out how to cure instead of treat something that has been incurable since lungs first appeared in animals millions of years ago. This is why I conclude that Dubya has turned back the clock in medicine and probably contributed indirectly to the deaths of many people that suffer from horrible diseases.