I hit the pool this past week, and I have not lost much of my water skills since my old days of being a pool rat and lifeguard.  I was able to swim 20 laps (up and back) in 22 minutes 16 seconds (I believe it was a little over a half mile).  I was able to do the crawl stroke the entire time, and did not have to pull out old faithful, my favorite stroke which is side stroke.  I also watched the Crossfit Games on TV this past week, and started following them on twitter.  I am trying to organize my workouts into more high intensity workouts.  I watched a video on Kipping pull ups.  I have always seemed to struggle with pull ups.  No matter how much I focus on them and try to increase the number of reps, I always seem to stay at the same level.  However, after watching the video on Kipping pull ups, it looked easy.  Not the case!  I was not able to do a single one where my chin rose above the bar.  However, this was a day after shoveling 11 inches of snow, so I am writing it off to a sore back and tired muscles.  I also added jumping rope to most workouts to get a little extra cardio.  I was able to do 43 double unders in a row, which is a record for me.  I was so tired after that I almost threw up.

On another note, Jake has not had much luck after getting the baby in the King Cake when we celebrated this past Fat Tuesday.  His wish was that his platelets would stay high.  We have had a rough run since then.  One week ago today, he was in the hospital to get his medicine (Winrho).  It usually takes about 5 to7 days for it to take full effect and get his platelets back to normal.  It seemed to be working as he was not showing any more patichi.  However, on Wednesday night, I noticed some spots on his back, and on the day we were snowed in our house (Thursday) he got a slight nose bleed.  On Friday when we tested him, his platelets were back down to 2,000 (150,000 to 400,000 is average).  After talking with the doctors here in Hastings, and also the specialist in Omaha, we were able to figure out a plan of a high dose of steroids for 4 days.  So hopefully this brings his levels back up.