finally the day had arrived, the big Run for the Roses that Ryder had been so looking forward too, and me too, of course. He was up at 5:45 and we were out the door just after 6 AM on a clear blue-- to the east Sunday morning. As we drove west on 290 we approached an ominous looking sky and soon found ourselves in a fog bank as we arrived in Roselle for the pre-race festivities. Marilee and her son Storm had already arrived and she had her minivan positioned for the Clydesdale weigh-in. We were greeted by Mark Mandel the race director who called to Ryder by his name. We were psyched! Ryder and Storm were going to hang while we did the weigh-in, and then the kids were going to be in the race provided child care while we ran the 5K. After our 5K came the big event of the day, the 0.6K kid's race, which Ryder has been training for. he had his running clothes on and was ready. Then, surprisingly, Ryder walked up to me sobbing, holding his hand to his head. He said he needed water, his ear hurt. I was rather involved in weighing-in Clydes, but managed to get him some water. This did not help. Soon he was very upset and had a very bad ear ache. Now I know many kids are prone to ear aches, and these can be quite debilitating, but Ryder has hardly ever suffered from these so I did not know what to do. Marilee was great. She wrapped him in a blanket and sat him in her car. I gave him an excedrine which he chewed up and swallowed, dispite how unpleasant it must have tasted. He was inconsible. Ryder is not someone to complain and he is not prone to tears, so seeing him thus distressed-- it was clear what we needed to do. I bid my commrades adieu and we hit the road. Ryder was so upset-- he said "and we were suppose to have a really fun day today...." Yes, indeed, I was very disappointed too. I would have weighed in as a Clydesdale C for the first time in years (>225) though this made the competition tougher for me-- none the less, I was looking forward to the race but more so to Ryder's race and the post-race festivities. Mark always puts on such an excellent event, one of the best races of the year, and so great for kids and families. but it was not meant to be. We were back home before 8, when the gun went off. A hot pack, his mother's loving attention, and some children's advil helped bring him comfort. I ended up taking a nap, then going to the CVS to buy him some more drugs. A call to the doctor, could be swimmer's ear, could be middle ear infection, hard to say. As the day progressed Ryder felt much better, sporting an ace bandage around his neck which seemed to help him feel better, and also garner more attention from our sympathetic neighbors. We were both really bummed out, but of course realize on the grand scheme of things, it was hardly even a blip. so it goes....
As I bent to the garden, finishing the planting, installing the fences around the beds, and pushing the hand mower I felt as though I was with my father. I had such a strong sense of Wayne being present, reliving times from my youth when my dad and I did stuff, or had our plans changed resulting in big disappointments. It was as though Wayne came to be with his son and his grandson he never got to meet. So the company was good while I pushed the hand mower around the yard. My neighbors give me grief "I know the price of gas is really steep, but not that high..." or "you little cutter" as each of them fires up their gas machines and mow their lawns in the time it takes me to do ones small section. Sure it takes me an hour to mow our lawn, but it is silent running, no fumes, and exercise! And my lawn has a very particular hand cut look to it as well. I have to use the trimmers and sweep the clippings off the sidewalk too-- how old timey!
And then the dog walk when I had a bit of an epiphany. Yes, of course, the point of these transgenic models we are building, or at least proposing to do so in the grant I am finishing, is not building the model, but studying the effect. Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX2) has been implicated as causative in male aging, so our Leydig cell specific Cre recombinase will enable us to breed with mice that carry floxed COX-2 or COX-2 over expressors, to either silence, or over express COX-2 in the testes. so the point is to determine the role of Cox in Leydig cell function and to get there the new models must be developed. it is not the journey but the end in this case, such is hypothesis driven science, not just description or discovery, but testing a hypothesis. In this case, over expression of COX-2 accelerates aging. Of course we won't know until we do the experiment, and we may find that these mice get testicular cancer instead.... now wouldn't that be a new journey to take off on.
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