Five Weeks to GAR

The Great Aloha Run is 5 weeks away. And I have now missed 3 days of walking; I will try tomorrow. Tonight I decided to start icing my knees every night just as a precaution; I used to do that when I was training in Aikido 6 times a week.

I went to see Dr. Pham this morning. When I woke up at 6 to go walking my throat was more sore than it had been so I gargled with warm salt water. When I spit out the water there would be 1 or 2 small flecks of mucus that was lightly tinted with blood. I called the Kaiser After Hours Nurse line; she asked a bunch of questions then recommended that I get in to see Dr. Pham today. Dr. Pham took 2 throat swabs; she said it didn't tick all the boxes for Strep but she requested a rapid Strep test for it anyway. The results came back for the rapid Strep test this evening, it was negative. Now I am waiting for the regular throat culture to come back, which should be tomorrow; it will verify that the rapid test was correct. In the meanwhile, I will be staying away from Maunalani since Dr. Pham said the sore throats she has been seeing this year have been lasting longer than usual; that's why she & her nurse Leo were wearing masks when they worked with me and also made me wear a mask as I entered the facility.

As I was leaving Dr. Pham gave me a colon cancer screening packet; Kaiser has their low-risk members do a screening every year. If the Immunological Fecal Occult Blood Test (iFOBT) comes back positive for blood, then they do a colonoscopy to determine what's going on.


I did my eBird checklist quite a bit earlier today than I have been; I finished it before lunch. I saw 7 species again, like I have been; but about twice as many individuals than later in the day. While waiting for birds to show up I also saw a new butterfly that I haven't seen before. Usually I see Monarch or Tiger Swallowtail butterflies; today I saw a Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae). While I was trying to figure out what this butterfly was I discovered the Butterflies and Moths of North America website does not show either of those species are found in Hawaiʻi; I will have to get good photos and send those in as well as this one of the Gulf Fritillary.

Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) on gout stalk (Jatropha podagrica) flowers.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau to Glenn, Darrell, Sidnee, Bruce, Jon, Rachel, & Alberto!