Through the Eyes of a Red Head

Deviated Septum Surgery

2011-12-03T12:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went in to have my deviated septum fixed. It has been causing me issues my whole life. The most recent and most sever being nasty headaches that would knock me on my ass. I'm hoping that this surgery will in fact fix the headaches, otherwise I guess it will onto a different path for me. Regardless, here is the process so far.

December 02, 2011-
Check into the Ear Nose and Throat Center of Utah, fill out the usual paperwork and then wait. First I had my consultation with my surgeon Dr. Steve Miller (he was great and very reassuring). Then the consultation with my anesthesiologist, the most AMAZING anesthesiologist I've ever had - Dr. Preston Richards from Mountain West Anesthesia.

If anyone knows my medical history, they know that I am afraid of anesthesia because I have woken up during surgery. Also, I have horrible veins, so getting an IV started can also be a very damaging experience. When I had my feeding tube in when I was 17, it took 5 nurses and an anesthesiologist to get the IV started and I almost walked out.

Dr. Richards got me into the operating room, gave me some nitrous to relax me, then numbed my hand before inserting the IV. I didn't feel anything. It was an incredible act of kindness from him because he listened to me and took into consideration my past traumas. He also had great bedside manner and didn't talk down to me at all. I felt empathy and mutual respect. More than I can say for most doctors I have come in contact with.

Back to surgery. Once I went under they made two small incisions on the inside of either nostril. Corrected the septum which was almost closing off my right nasal passageway and cleaned up the turbinates. Then I was done. A few stitches and two splints later and I was waking up. The nurse held my hand as I started to wake up, which is also very comforting.

I got home after only being at the surgery center for 3.5 hours. I was groggy but felt ok. I started to swell slightly but nothing bad. The bleeding is the most annoying part. It's not at all like a nose bleed, more like a runny nose. The gauze wrap helps though. Had an appetite by about 6 pm and as long as I stuck to food that was soft and didn't require me to open my mouth wide I was fine. Finally fell asleep around 2 am with the help of a sleeping pill.

Day two- December 3rd, 2011

Today is harder than yesterday. I got about 3 hours of sleep last night, between being uncomfortable propped up at a 30 degree angle and the feeling of suffocating when my entire mouth would dry out from not being able to breath through my nose. The gauze wrap wasn't comfortable but wasn't bad either. The only problem was you could feel when the gauze would collect blood, so there was a constant feeling of wanting to wipe my nose.

Today the swelling is twice as bad and has spread from just my nose out to my entire face. I don't have bad bruising, just dark circles under my eyes. I look more like I had a really late night than surgery. I can't open my mouth very much so I'm still eating soft food and drinking through straws. Not that I mind, I think everything tastes better through a straw regardless.

The pain in my nose isn't terrible, feels more uncomfortable like when you have a cold and you've been wiping your nose until it dries out and cracks. I can't feel the splints inside my nose at all. The bleeding out of both sides has stopped, now there is a little drainage, but nothing I didn't expect. My main complaint is a migraine (feel like I got hit in the face with a brick or something) but again, nothing I didn't expect. Some pain pills every four or five hours keeps everything comfortable.

Will write more tomorrow and hopefully it will be nothing but continued good news. This is a lot better and easier than I thought it would be!

A New Superhero?!

2011-06-24T12:16:00.000-07:00

Today I found out some very interesting information...

Little did I, or the rest of the Thoughtlab team know that our boss Mike, was a superhero...

Intel Core Duo Processing and Your Memories

2011-06-21T14:40:00.000-07:00

{EAV_BLOG_VER:f142be2ad5b3dbb4}

While driving to work this morning, I listened to an interesting story about “The Bionic Brain”. First in a rat, now Intel is trying to have a brain implant on the consumer market by 2020.

What I’m talking about is a brain microchip- like the one in your phone or computer- that would help memory function.

This technology is crazy and it really makes me wonder about the consequences of what might happen when people start “upgrading” their brains in mass. Would it be illegal to be a professional athlete if you could better retain training regimens or strategy? What about how having more memory would affect getting a job or getting into college?

If this becomes a popular science and people start using it in their everyday life, doesn’t that make even more of a gap between those who already get ahead in life by being in a higher socio-economic class from those who are poor?

While the main focus of this science is to help aid in the recovery of traumatic brain injuries, and people suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s, it really makes me consider what comes next.

I know I could personally benefit from having a chip that pulls power away from my Limbic system so that I can be more in control over my emotional response to things. But how much control would you really have over something like this? And in recent years hasn’t the world seen an increase in technologies failures that result in bigger and more devastating disasters (think nuclear plants in Japan)?

What happens in your brain if this chip fails? Or what happens if it starts recording the “wrong memories”. We’ve all had those weird, frightening, strange dreams that leave us in a state of confusion and haze the next morning (also known as a dream hangover) that sometimes stay with us for hours. I sure as hell don’t want those memories being recorded by a chip and replayed by some random trigger that I come across as I go through day to day life. I’ll speak from personal experience for a minute, I’ve had close calls on the race track, and some have had horrifying accidents. It already takes even the best driver at least a lap or two to get back to where they were before the incident. Think of how hard it would be if your brain chip remembered it. I see many “pro driver” types running around asking to be saved by Jewish God and Oprah Winifred.

Oh and for all those professional criminals out there, wouldn’t it suck if the police could use a mini-sd cable, plug it into your ear and have all the dirty details about the “supposed” disappearance of a large sum of money from said bank.

Think about it…

A dream

2011-06-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

I have heard about this happening to other people as well, but when its a full moon, I start having very strange dreams. While mine are always vivid and clear, my "werewolf" dreams are just eerie.

Here's an example:

When her eyes opened she was looking down a street, Italy, she was sure, though nothing conventional told her she was right. Everything was a variation of gray, like twilight, some more blue, some more black, like looking out at the ocean after the sunsets and the color from the sky is gone. The street rolled downward, and each plateau in between was highlighted in a beautiful glow, light yellows like sun through clouds. At the bottom, the statue of David, surely larger than in reality, was dead center and easily seen although it must have been hundreds of yards away. She turned to look down the other streets around her. Some ended at small cafes, others at landmarks she was sure were real, but were of course only important in her imagination. She couldn’t fathom how she was here, but she was happy, the deep happy, the kind that fills every cell in your body. She could feel it in her arms and her toes, in her lips and her words were almost sing songy, she couldn’t express how much pleasure she was in to be in this place.

Things slowly started to change, her group of friends wanted to walk to the statue of David but she was lost. Not in a scary way, just that her surroundings had changed around her, and to get her bearings she spun in the square they were standing in. There was a strange character appearing, a clown, a mime, a skeleton. An interesting internal struggle between a quintessential European street performer and something haunting her conscious. He was tall and skinny; you could see the outline of bones in his fingers. She told her friends to leave. She wasn’t afraid, she was curious. She knew the character her mind had created to challenge her wasn’t malicious, but he was uncomfortable. She looked at him as he looked at her and she lay down on the cobble stone street. He came towards her, he had a cool presence, but she wasn’t bothered by it. She told him to take her, and she wasn’t sure in what sense she meant it. He picked her up in his long spindly arms and carried her up stairs inside a small house that had now made itself the setting in which she found herself. The man asked her where she wanted to go, far away was her reply, and as they approached a small low ceiling bedroom, in foggy colors and soft fabrics, the skeletal appearance he had started to fade and she knew without making any realizations that he was a character indeed and this wasn’t what he really was. She remembered them kissing, seeing his eyes clearly above her and this time they were bright. She couldn’t place the familiarity they had but in a sense they were comforting. However as in real life, comfort seemed to bore her and she grew tired of being in the bedroom and leapt out the window.

She wasn’t falling; she wasn’t flying, just floating with great speed. She didn’t really know where she was going but appeared back in the same square she was in originally but this time it was a library. She knew she was in a college, specifically one that studied the human body. She also knew she was far from home in a place similar to Europe, but of course this was somewhere in her mind and couldn’t be pointed to on a map. She walked through the rows of books in the open air library, reveling in the beauty of it all and telling herself if she was in a place like this, she would succeed. That was her excuse; a change of scenery would replace all the shortcomings she has. As she continued to walk through the students she knew she was out of place and sure her wide eyes and open mouth made her look like a naïve child wandering through F A O Schwartz for the first time. She came to a group of students she knew were her age, sitting on old stone benches shaped like an outdoor amphitheater at a much smaller scale. She heard their voices and recognized them as American like she was. She didn’t remember the conversation, for what was being said wasn’t important. But as she was talking once again the scenery changed. Now she was in the same place however the book shelves were replaced by what looked like museum exhibit tables covered in strange pieces of jewelry covered in diamonds and gems. She was back with her friends as they touched each piece of metal and rolled it through their fingers, pocketing pieces that were particularly exquisite to each individuals taste. She questioned herself taking these pieces, but there was no guilt, there was no moral compass telling her she was doing the wrong thing, so she continued. In the low light of dusk, but a dream dusk, the small diamonds in one of the bronze bracelets, shaped like a snake but fluid and long, gleamed.

There was a lapse of time, of course unaccounted for, that passed and she was now weary of the sense of fear. But in an annoyed way, not in a guttural way that made he want to act. She felt sharp pain in her hand and as bear, dog, animal was biting her hand. It seemed to be biting her in play, but there was the smallest inkling that he meant to harm her. She pulled her hand away noting to herself that for the pressure and damage the bite was surely causing, she was in little pain, more of a discomfort. She freed her hand and pulled it away, noticing she was missing two fingers. There were small drops of blood but nothing that frightened her. She remembered the pieces of metal and gems she had placed in her pockets and pulled them out. They seemed to distract the animal enough for her to walk away.

Pictures!

2010-04-28T08:43:00.001-07:00

I am adding a link that will let you see pictures from Waidhoven and Vienna!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=10966&id=100000626237511&l=712ec1510f

History

2010-04-23T03:40:00.001-07:00

Being in Vienna makes me feel almost insignificant. I think about all the old buildings and how much history they have, how they have survived over years and years, wars, plauges, etc... And I think of the people that spent their life creating these beautiful places. It is so romantic to me, spending ones life building something that could withstand the test of time.

Walking down the cobble stone streets I swear I can here the sound of a horse drawn carriage, or of people busy at work. It takes me one second with my eyes closed to transform modern time into what I think it would have been like.

Update in Photos!

2010-04-20T00:19:00.000-07:00

Valencia! Pictures of the beautiful museums.

The race track, car #2 is the one Richy drives. His friend was driving a brand new Porsche GT3 R, this was its first race and it won p. 1

The hills are alive with the sound of music!!

Freshman... again

2010-04-19T10:10:00.001-07:00

Being in Europe isn’t nearly as strange as I imagined it to be. I was expecting the awkward feeling of being an outsider. A small redheaded girl on the fringe of society. Wide eyed and overwhelmed. I was expecting they could read me like a book, as though I had “I don’t belong here” written across my forehead. My Spanish, German, Italian accent as fake as the stereotypical American girl. I once again felt like I was a freshman at the first day of high school.

At moments, yes, this was me. When I didn’t know how the faucet turned off in the bathroom, when I watched the race trying to figure out P1 after the pit stops while only hearing Spanish through the PA system. Especially when I sat in the back of the car listening to Richy and Thomas speak about God only knows in Austrian.

However, most of the time, I overcame the fear of being the “freshman”. I nodded my head at Tino, the older Italian guy who helps prepare food, when he spoke Italian to me faster than American’s speak English. And I used broken Spanish with a shy smile on my face when the people at the hotel asked what I needed help with. The best moments, my moments of solace came when I heard clearly through the sound of cars, or while on the “motorway” on the way to hotel, a classic American song. Who ever thought “Manic Monday” would be the best security blanket. While I am in the states I tend to question everything America stands for, but in Europe, all I can think is God bless America for being so damn influential.

Sara's Excellent Adventure

2010-04-12T23:09:00.000-07:00

I often awake thinking "I need something different". Its not often that I actually do something about it. But a month and a half ago, I did.

I booked a ticket to Europe, traveling by myself by the way, and set to the task of getting mentally prepared. I take after my dad in that sense. I need to have everything in order, and I double, triple check before I am substantially satisfied with my readiness. Some call it being "over prepared" or "OCD" about my travel plans, and I guess I don't disagree. After printing off 7 copies of my important documents, I fell on my bed laughing. 7 copies, really?

Either way, the day finally came for my excellent adventure, and, without butterflies or tears, I boarded the plane bound for Europe.

My first stop was Chicago, and luckily I had no down time before the next flight. Its the waiting that will kill you. Next was my flight to Dusseldorf, Germany aboard this huge Lufthansa Airbus 330 that looked as if it was straight off the set of some Hollywood movie. The 8 hour flight flew by (haha first pun of the journey) and so far everyone has thought I am European. It is very flattering, however scary. If they think I am German, then they speak to me in German... Yes I have been practicing, but so far no one has asked if this is my green bicycle, or where is the sink. Thanks Rosetta Stone...

As I write to you now, I am sitting in the Dusseldorf airport, anxiously awaiting Richard's flight to arrive, and then our flight to Spain. I am unnervingly calm, and either too tired to tell I'm tired, or surprisingly fresh and rested. I don't really feel as though I am in a different country, 8 hours time difference from my life. The only hint is the well dressed people and the fact that everything in written form is in German.

I don't know what to expect, which is amazing. Usually the unknown sends me into fits of panic attacks and upset stomachs, but not this time. Either I am taking too much of my medication or, I actually grew up. I don't know which is scarier!

Ponder that while I sign off to watch some comforting and familiar European humor in the form of Top Gear. And stay posted, there is surely much much more to come.

2009-12-30T18:52:00.000-08:00

I am incredibly sad to say my grandpa, William (Bill) Levitt, died last night of a heart attack. This was unexpected and we are all grieving for him. This is the link to his blog.

I love you grandpa!

2009-08-02T22:38:00.000-07:00

MPRA/NASCAR Camping World (August 1, 2009):

Ugh... Today was really unfortunate. After having to start from the back of the pack due to a missed qualifying session (sister's wedding) I passed at least four Mustangs and was on my way to catching Keeton when my power steering blew. Literally. My engine bay is covered in power steering fluid.

Why do I have power steering in a race car you ask... well... that's a good question, and now I am going to consult with my co-driver and weigh my options. Maybe an extra arm workout is better than the unreliability of anything "power" in a race car (expect "M Power" of course).

2009-08-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

Here is the press piece from KSL. It aired August 2nd on Sports Minute. Hope you enjoy!

Miller Motorsports Minute

August 2, 2009

Sara Levitt

Most young women have enough on their plate, with finishing up college, getting a job and making their way in the world as a newly-minted adult.

Sara Levitt, a vivacious 21-year-old who lives in Salt Lake City, has other things to worry about.

For the past six years, she’s been racing sports cars, working towards her goal of becoming a professional racing driver. However, last December she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, a development that cast a cloud over everything else.

Two surgeries and a lot of worry later, she currently has a clean bill of health, but the experience has changed her outlook significantly. She’s back on track chasing her dream of becoming a professional racer, but now she does so with the additional purpose of raising awareness of and support for the National Cervical Cancer Coalition.

Sara’s cancer diagnosis also brought her relationship with her father into sharper focus. Unlike most racing families, where the father brings the children into the sport, the Levitts have done it the other way around. Sara introduced her father, Toby, to racing, and now they share their BMW and a lot of quality time at the racetrack.

Sara currently works in racing, handling marketing and logistics for a local race team, Competition Associates, and hope to make her professional debut next year in the Grand-Am KONI Challenge Series, with the help of her sponsors CA Sports and Albion Financial.

You can see Sara continue to chase her dream -- and support her cause -- next weekend at Miller Motorsports Park, as she races in the Utah Region of the Sports Car Club of America’s “Great Salt Race,” and throughout the season in the Miller Park Racing Association. Also on the schedule next weekend is Round 6 of the Utah Karting Championship. Tickets are only $6 for adults, and kids 12 and under get in free.

For more information: www.MillerMotorsportsPark.com.

Race Day (pictures to come later)

2009-06-22T16:12:00.000-07:00

Sitting in the trailer listening to the bits and pieces of the awards ceremony drift over the loud speakers, it really hit me that the weekend was over. While it was exhausting and at times frustrating, it was always fun. The company, the food, the track, even the disappointments, is all part of racing which means that mishaps and hardships included, its one of the things I love most in the world.

Unfortunately we weren't able to finish the race. With only ten laps remaining, a call came over the radios that made all of our hearts sink. "Guys, I'm coming in. We don't have brakes. The car isn't drive able." We had lost the driver's front caliper, our race was over. Since other cars had ended their races before we did, we finished 26th, dropping only two spots from our qualifying position, even with mechanical problems.

Byron and Lara drove their hearts out and all things considered with the car, were incredible. The amount of mental and physical focus that goes into endurance racing is something many people don't comprehend. Our drivers need to drive flawlessly for over an hour. By the time you get our of the car, you're both physically and mentally exhausted. When you factor in the heat, the traffic, the pressure and the stress, its a victory alone that they kept lap times consistent and made minimal errors. I'm so proud of both of them, for all of us, for being here and doing it, finishing position aside.

All in all I think the weekend was a great success. We learned a lot about the cars and team dynamics that provided vital information for the future. You have to start somewhere, and its never going to be perfect. Learning from our mistakes will only make us better. And while I can only speak for myself, it was an amazing time and I learned a lot about myself.

Most importantly, I need to thank Doug, John, John and Fred from Penske for helping us with our pit stop. We couldn't have even started the race without you. You brought a great confidence to the team, especially by letting us sit in the "condo" to watch timing and scoring. And for letting me pretend to be Roger Penske for two hours. Congratulations on your fourth place finish. I also want to thank Nancy at Somewhere in Time for graciously opening her beautiful home to us and making amazing breakfasts very early every morning and to Jeff Smallwood at Grand-Am for being so helpful and supportive. He made me feel so welcome and included. It was so nice to see a friendly, smiling face every time I was at the Grand-Am trailer. Wes Duenkel was also a great help today taking pictures for us (Wes took the pictures I will be posting later). He was also staying at the same bed and breakfast. It was great getting to talk to you and look at your amazing pictures. They are very different than most motorsports pictures, and the artistic element in them is incredible.

And thank you, for reading and following us this weekend. I'll leave you with Keith's words of wisdom from the weekend - "Why not?"

-Sara

2009-06-20T20:23:00.000-07:00

Qualifying and should have been our race day.

Another early morning, another day of rain. Lara drove awesome in the rain, very smooth and very fast. It dried up for qualifying which turned out to be like a race. Lara said people were passing and driving like it was race day. Unfortunately that meant it was tough to get a good, clean qualifying lap. We ended up 24^th, but I’m sure we’ll do well tomorrow.

After our sessions, we practiced our pit stops. At first, Lara and Byron were practicing our driver changes. After a couple pretty tough shin scraps, Joe took over as our stunt double.

After taking a couple seconds off our pit stop times, it was time to relax. Yes, this is Vesko enjoying a beer!

Everyone is in good spirits tonight as we sit across the fire in the back yard of our bed and breakfast. There are peacocks… making peacock noises… (I don’t know what you call the noise that comes out of this bird) and watching the fire flies. Its been a great weekend so far and I think tomorrow will go well.

I will leave you with one piece of advice from Joe, Bolie and Josh which is based on experience from the drive home - Its bad luck on race weekend to pass an Amish cart.

Ponder that one for a minute… Sweets dreams.

Practice Day 2 at Mid Ohio

2009-06-20T18:13:00.000-07:00

This is delayed from yesterday:

Today was another practice day. Things went pretty well. We had a couple of rain sessions and both drivers were keeping up a good pace. Thanks to the Verizon/Penske Rolex team we got to hang out in their "condo" while our sessions were going on. The "condo" is a two story pit vehicle. Everything has carbon fiber trim. Its like a luxury super car that you can't drive... and that's two stories...

Things looked like they were clearing up and we were all excited to "relax" for the rest of the day. (I put relax in quotations because there really never is a way to relax at a race when

you're on a team). John and I went to talk out some radio issues with

Toto, when all of the sudden he kicks us out, tells everyone to lock up the trailer and says one key phrase- "This is tornado weather and I don't want the trailer spinning around like last time!" Whoa, slow down... Tornado? Last time? John and I booked it back up to the trailer. Sure enough, there was a tornado warning for our area. Thankfully everything mellowed out and the day continued as usual.

Once I wasn’t afraid of being swept up and carried away, I took a little tour of the track. I still can’t believe the post card landscape. It's amazing.

We left the track pretty early in race weekend terms, so we headed back to our bed and breakfast, Somewhere in Time” and introduced ourselves to some of the permanent residents. Molly, the old draft horse, is 31 years old.

Tune in for more tomorrow, its qualifying and the GS/Rolex race. I should have something more interesting to say.

Goodnight!

Practice, Day 1 at Mid O

2009-06-18T19:35:00.000-07:00

What a day...

We got to the track at 7:00am, after a 6:15 wake up call and awesome breakfast by Nancy (our house "mom"). It was humid and slightly hazy from the early morning fog. We had all prepared for rain but luckily it never came. The track itself is a little disorienting for one being used to a wide open oasis in the middle of the Tooele desert. The track is in the heart of the country, where there are bails of hay and red farm houses. It comes out of no where, and all of the sudden you see the familiar semis, smell the race gas, hear the engines and you know you're at a race track.

We were in meetings until our first session, which went well. It was Byron's first time on the track and he dropped time like crazy. Lara has had a little more experience here and sounded

confident over the radios, she says the track "feels like a roller coaster". Vesko and Keith went out next and everything went as planned. Still no rain. Both cars had another session, then it was lunch.

After lunch the Civic went out again. Byron was dropping lap times and let us know he was having fun and the car felt good, even for the track being so "snug". Once again, everything was running smoothly and by this time it had cleared into a warm sunny day, perfect for racing.

And then, in true racing style, our day went from smooth sailing to gail force winds in one lap. Vesko had just brought the car in on the Mustang's third session, he jumped out and Keith jumped in. Keith's lap times had been close to Vesko's and we were all excited to see how much more time he could drop.

The course went to a black flag, Josh radioed to Keith to bring the car back into the pits. No answer. John tired. No answer. I called, at this point, a little frustrated we couldn't get a hold of him. Still no answer. At the same time a woman ran over to our pit spot and yelled "is your driver okay?! He's on the roof!!" On the roof?! All of us jumped in golf carts and took off to see what had happened. Keith was in the medical tent, so the rest of us went to see the car. This is what we found:

Keith had lost brakes coming out of the Key Hole at 100+ mph. As he hit the curbing,

Keith and the Mustang caught air, about 15 feet of it say the drivers behind him. Keith landed on the top of the tire barrier, pushing a solid concrete block about two feet outwards. Then, he landed on the side on the ground below.

Keith was "banged up but not broken" as John put it. Luckily and thankfully no one was hurt. Our morale suffered a little, but this is racing, and unfortunately, this kind of stuff happens.

We got the Civic ready for tomorrow, figured out a plan, and ate some awesome dinner, (thanks to Andy - our "dead man") and after an "atheistically" pleasing sunset, left the track and headed back "home" around 9:45 pm.

We've got our fingers crossed for a better day tomorrow, and with all hands on deck for the Civic, I think everything will go back to being as planned (knock on wood).

Mid Ohio

2009-06-16T18:56:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my very first blog posting! I figured I would get a head start so I can keep everyone updated this weekend.

Well, after about a month of anxious anticipation about going to Mid Ohio with the CA Sport crew, I'm only approximately 14 hours and 25 minutes away from heading to the airport. I have packed and re-packed, written endless lists and gone over my rule book about 20 times more than bearable. Everything is ready to go and not even my random, out of the blue case of Strep is going to stop me now. I wonder if Lara and Byron know how to understand Morris Code, in case I lose my voice entirely... :-)

I'm really not sure what to expect as I try to prepare myself for the upcoming race. I have helped out when the races are local, but I've never traveled for this sort of thing. I've also never been such a big part of the team. I can't even begin to express how amazing this opportunity is. I have learned so much already. I had no idea the amount of time and energy that goes into making a team successful before you even hit the track. I have so much more respect for Lara, Vesko, John, Byron, Keith, Mark, etc... than I already had (which was a lot!)

I don't have a lot left to say tonight, but I'll make sure to keep everyone posted through out the weekend.

Thanks for reading! I'm off to re-pack my bag for the 10th time!