2:05:41

2 hours, 5 minutes and 41 seconds.  That is the time in which Samuel Wanjiru, of Kenya, ran the Chicago Marathon this morning.  It was a new course record, smashing the old record by a whopping one second.  It is also the fastest marathon anyone has ever run in the US.  (All facts according to the Chicago Tribune).  Never to be outdone by the men, the Russian Lilliya Shobukhova won in 2:25:56, and this was only her second marathon.

These athletes are Runners.  They are my inspiration, the catalysts propelling me out of bed and onto the street on a cloudy Wednesday morning before work.  Okay, not these two athletes specifically, but I have been reading a whole lot about marathoners and ultrarunners lately, dreaming and wondering if I could ever reach that level of achievement.  So am I a runner?  Someone posted that question after my last post (thanks!), and it has been pestering me ever since, hence the long post reply.

I definitely consider myself a runner, lower-case "r".  I started running as a junior in high school.  When I first started running on my own though, I could only run for five minutes at about a 10-minute mile before I had to take a walk lap.  But I kept at it; it got to the point where if I didn't run my 10, then 15, then 30 minutes, I would feel terrible.  Unfortunately, when I was running in high school, I was running for the wrong reasons, and I was being stupid about it.  Basically, I was running 5 plus miles and then going to the gym for another 20 or 30 minutes on a bike, as well as some basic weight training, but I was only eating maybe 1200 or 1500 calories a day.  I was obsessed with counting calories, and I am pretty sure that is the definition of an eating disorder.  So senior year, I had a revelation and stopped working out like a maniac.  I put on a bunch of weight, and my running went on hold.

For the next two years, it was the same sort of story.  I would take long breaks between running, only to have a resurgence of motivation to go back on the treadmill or run along the Charles River.  I think I was finally in a good spot, health-wise, the summer of 2006, after freshman year.  I ran 3 to 5 miles a few times a week, and I was biking maybe 50 or 60 miles a week.  And I was eating!  Maybe not as well as I could have, but it was an improvement.  After that though, life got in the way, once more.  I found out I had cancer, blah blah, and I have spent the past two years after returning to Boston struggling to gain some consistency as a runner.  It has been very hard for me though, because I was sick so frequently over the past two years.  And then last year's face tumor?  Forget it.

But now, finally, after three years of ill-health, I am starting to feel like a normal person again.  I am very gradually building miles, very slowly increasing my weekly distance.  This time, however, while still partially weight-motivated, I am doing this because I want to.  I love running, tying up my shoes and taking off, not thinking about anything besides my breathing for at least a little while.  I want to be a Runner, and I think, maybe, possibly I can do it.  Maybe not ultras, not yet anyway.  Baby steps.  S0 here is my goal, out there on the Internet.  If anyone wants to help, please, do:

In one year, I want to run in the Chicago Marathon.  That is the first part.  The second, somewhat loftier goal: I want to qualify for the 2011 Boston Marathon.  Qualifying times for the 2010 Boston Marathon are 3 hours and 40 minutes-ish.  That means running about an 8 minute, 15 second mile for 26.2 miles.  I think I can do it.  I figure, since the 2010 Chicago Marathon is in exactly 12 months, if I give myself 6 months to build up my mileage, I can use the last 6 months to work on speed.  I want to do it, to say, Screw You, Cancer.  All I wanted, the whole time I was in treatment and for the last two years, was to feel healthy, to be able to run again.  So here I go; I can run again, and that damn disease ain't got nothing on me.  I hope.

How old are we, really?

I have officially been kicking and screaming and fighting through life for 23 years.  I don't know if I will be doing it for another 23 years, but I am nonetheless still here, now.  If I do make it to 46 though, who will I have become?  How will I remember these years: so close to a cancer diagnosis, a struggling twenty-something in a terrible economy, living at home, trying to start getting serious about running, so unnecessarily self-conscious?  Will I still be a commitment-phobe, terrified of allowing myself to be vulnerable?  Let it be known and forever out there in the world (read: the Internets) that my biggest fear is that I will grow old as a jobless and achingly alone chubby woman.  The first part of the fear is totally unreasonable, and I know that, but it is still there.  The second part is slightly, if only very slightly, more realistic.  Hopefully this running thing will help combat the very last bit.

It's just that at this exact moment in time, I am so frightened.  None of us can foresee the future; no one knows when or how the economy will recover.  All the doomsayers of the world are predicting terrible things for the earth unless we make drastic changes.  And closer to home, people keep getting cancer diagnoses.  All of the negative "what ifs" are enough to make a person just want to disappear, to give in to nothingness.

It's funny (to me) that after everything I have survived already, I am panicking.  I feel like I'm drowning back here at home.  Dry waterboarding, if you will.  There is a little nagging voice in the back of my head reminding me, if I let it, that this was Never the plan; this stagnation is all Cancer's fault.  When that squeaky voice starts calling out to me, my future seems so bleak.  If I start to let myself give into those thoughts, everything else, all of my walls of strength and purpose, starts to crumble.  Every single day I have to tell myself, almost yell at myself, that this is temporary.  I am only 23; there are many, many years ahead of me, and the vast majority of them will not be spent living with my parents in suburban hell.  I think my difficulty accepting that arises because I feel so much older than I really am.  Perhaps that's a selfish and vain thing to say, but I am already just so tired.

My faith, shaky as it is, is enough for me to want to believe that everything happens for a reason and has a purpose.  I spent more than a few nights over the past three years struggling with the questions like, "why did I get cancer?" and of course, "what am I supposed to do with this?"  Those sorts of queries are important to consider, but they are often unanswerable, especially when the person is still emotionally invested in getting better.  Never before have I had so little direction.  High school was all about succeeding and getting to college.  B.C. (before cancer), college was all about double-majoring and earning money and gaining my total independence.  Cancer was all about beating cancer and getting back to school.  Then school, once more, was all about reconciling who I was with who I thought I should be, and graduating on time.  My goals were short term because I didn't know how to think about the long term.  I could only focus on getting through each day as it came to me.

But now, I can't seem to come up with any long-term goals.  There is too much uncertainty, too many variables.  Currently, I work at Starbucks, which I really do love and am fairly decent at, but I can't stay there forever.  I don't know if I will ever be a professional photographer or if that's even what I want.  Also, cancer again working its sticky tentacles into my life, I would like to do something in the young-adult cancer world, but it is difficult starting over in Chicago, a city with its own and many cancer celebrities.  There is this fun little knot of anxiety pulsing in my chest that had disappeared for a while back when I was in school and focused, but it seems to have returned.  I can almost reach down my throat and pull it out.  I wish I could throw it away along with the two-year old cake from the freezer I tossed earlier today.

AnyWay.  Please excuse my rambling ons.  Ramblings on?  One of them or both.  This is what is on my mind, and this is still my b-log, and everything is connected, somehow, to cancer.  Or maybe it's the weather.  So.  On that note, I hope everyone's weeks are going a bit more smoothly than mine.  Thank you so much if you are still reading here.  I'll be looking to you guys to buy the book when I write it!  haha.  You don't have to read it, necessarily, just leave it artfully placed at an angle on your coffee table.  :)  K, peace.

Eh? What? What's that? Speak up; I can't hear you!

Or something to that extent...  Prior to September 22, this past Tuesday, these are all phrases you would have heard from me at some point.  Prior to September 22, I had mild to moderate hearing loss in my right ear as a result of the Face Tumor.  Apparently when the tumor melted away (that's the technical term), it caused a bunch of scarring in my sinus area, which in turn closed up whichever ear tube allows for fluid drainage (also the technical term).  Basically, there was a large amount of fluid just chilling in my ear because it had nowhere to go, which meant I couldn't really hear out of my right ear.

Whew.  So.  Finally, after multiple ENT visits and more than a handful of frustrating delays, on September 22, this past Tuesday, I had a tympanoplasty and tube procedure on my right ear.  That really is the technical term.  For those of us who are not certified otolaryngologists, the doctor went through my ear drum and stuck a tube in my right ear.  After some mild sedation that turned out to be some serious general anesthetic and fifteen minutes of blissed out blankness, I can hear!  And there hasn't even been any strange ear-discharge.  Hooray...?  I guess this is the procedure doctors do on a lot of little kids with persistent ear infections.  In yet another example of how things come back to haunt you, I can distinctly remember being maybe five years old and freaked out by the other kids my age who had these weird plugs in their ears at the pool.  I wasn't a very accepting little person, and now here I am under strict orders not to get Any water in my right ear.  Ear plugs, here I come.  Apparently, it is very unusual for someone my age to have this procedure done.  So said my doctor to my mother.  He was a good, nice guy, the doc, but he was kind of oblivious.  Yeah, most almost-23-year olds don't have ear tubes put in.  Most of us don't get leukemia and face tumors either.  Deal.

Regardless, it is so strange to have surround sound in my head again.  I was in Target yesterday, and there was noise everywhere.  I was freaking out a bit because I didn't know what was coming from where.  But I am adjusting, and I am so happy.  I can hold my cell phone up to my right ear again.  I can stand to the left of someone and carry on a normal conversation without having to move to their right side so I can actually hear what they're saying.  I can go to bars again and actually talk to people!  The possibilities are endless.

So that's what's good here.  Also, I'm pretty sure I haven't mentioned this, and I will only do so briefly now, but I am currently living at home and working at the Starbucks in our little downtown.  So I am employed in some fashion, although it is Very weird for me to be living back here again.  So many memories that I would prefer to put in a little box for the time being and let them get dusty....  But I'm getting by, saving money, that whole big deal.  Life is okay.  Hope yours is as well.  Peaves.

Disappointment abounds

In a disappointing, albeit not wholly unexpected, turn of events, I did not set off any detectors when I passed through Logan International Airport yesterday afternoon.  As I approached security, I was prepared.  My shoes were in a little tub; I had removed all liquids from my bag; my pockets were free of change.  And I had grabbed a little paper card and stuck it in my back pocket, hoping I would get to use it.  What little card?  The little card I had received five hours earlier at my PET scan, stating this:  "This patient had a Nuclear Medicine Procedure [sic] and may still have small amounts of radiation capable of being detected by radiation monitoring equipment.  The amount of radiation poses no danger to the public and is allowed by NRC Medical use regulations."  In short, I was acceptably radioactive, and I had the card to prove it.

Alas, either those detectors do not, in fact, detect any radiation activity, or the amount of the tracer in my system had diminished enough so as to be undetectable.  Either way, I was disappointed when I sailed through security and on to my gate.  Oh well; maybe next time.

In other news, Cancer-Free!!

Still.  No tumor, blood counts are all normal, no questionable levels of anything in my system.  I was officially taken off of all cancer-related medications, which is so weird, but such a relief.  After two and a half years of so many pills, so many things to remember, I can finally start fully cleansing my system of all those chemicals.  From here on out, I get a PET scan every six months for the next two years, then once a year until 2013, which will be the five-year mark of treatment completion.  Blood work is thrown in there every once in a while, but I can have that done anywhere.  I'll be sticking with Dana-Farber and my doctor in Boston, at least for the time being.  I figure since everything else in my life is so up in the air, it is just easier to know I have to be in Boston every six months, instead of moving All of my records and such to someone new every time I move around.

So that's it for now.  Check back tomorrow or in a few days because I have an important and Long-overdue update on something very exciting.  Hooray!  Okay, peace.

Quick update!

On my way to Boston for my 6-monthly PET/CT scan.  Hopefully still all clear...  Fingers crossed, and if I'm super lucky, I'll be able to drop down to just one medication!  Good luck and happy weekend to everyone.  Go Bears!

Hey, remember that time I used to blog about my life as a cancer survivor?

Yeah, me too.  Good times.  Good times on the internets.  Well, following certain recent events that I will discuss a few lines down, I feel the need to b-log once more.  I am and have been struggling quite a bit lately with who I am and what's next for me.  Now, I recognize that uncertainty and doubt are pretty much the norm for recent college grads, especially these days when there are so few jobs floating around.  Unfortunately, a wrench was thrown into my works three years ago when my body decided it would be cool to go and give itself cancer.

I am, only now, beginning to feel like everything is catching up with me.  Basically, from the day I was diagnosed until I graduated on May 17, 2009, I did not stop.  I did the treatment thing; then I did the school thing; and then I did the Washington, DC thing.  The past three years are a blur.  I feel cheated of my college years, in a sense.  Sometimes I wish I hadn't been stripped of my innocence and invincible attitude.  Sometimes I wish I could have graduated and moved into some tiny apartment somewhere, barely making rent and living on PBRs and Cheerios.  But wishing never did anyone any good, nor does dwelling on what isn't.

This past week I went to Jackson, Wyoming, to climb in the Tetons with a bunch of young adult cancer survivors through an organization called First Descents.  Initially, I had been more interested in the climbing aspect of the trip than the cancer part.  I want to get more involved in climbing, and I figured this would be a good opportunity to climb in some of the most beautiful mountains in the U.S.  And, hey, I had cancer, so I was eligible for this program.  Bonus.  But I wasn't really thinking about the cancer part or what it would mean to spend five days with other young adult survivors.  I certainly didn't realize how inadequate and lost I would feel among 13 or so other people who have all had cancer and who all seemed so much more together than myself.  Some of the other people there were closer to their treatment than I am, but I was the youngest young adult there.  While I didn't feel younger in terms of maturity, I felt like the person with the least direction.

Over the years, I have gotten pretty good at deluding myself into thinking everything is okay.  I realized out in Wyoming that while I am pretty comfortable with myself, I am still not okay with this cancer thing.  This was the first time I have ever been around a bunch of people my own age who actually understand what cancer really looks like, feels like, smells like, is.  What it means to be in your 20s or 30s with cancer.  It was extremely painful for me to have it all brought home so quickly.  With my friends, I can pretend that I was never sick, that everything is okay.  But at camp, it was inescapable.  Right at the point when I was desperately trying to pretend that none of this ever happened, I found myself smack in the middle of it again.

And you know what?  I needed that so badly.  I needed to be with people who understood.  I needed to hear from someone who knows what I am going through that things will work out okay.  Just talking with them gave me hope and a little bit of peace.  The men and women I met out in Wyoming are some of the most amazing, strong people I have ever met.  And they are all just living their lives.  They have made it past diagnosis and treatment and a few are even a couple years removed from it all.  I am so grateful for their shared strength.  

Wyoming was one of the best times I have ever had, between the climbing and the spontaneous dance parties in the middle of a road and the juvenile humor and the laughter.  So much laughter.  I haven't laughed so hard and so truly in a long time.  It is amazing how just a few people can change your perceptions, even if only slightly.  I am still struggling with this whole cancer thing and how much I want to embrace it right now, but I am not as scared or uncertain.  We have all made it this far, and we will just keep on keeping on.  

"People call us renegade cause we like living crazy."

Wyoming is pretty much a photographer's dream.

Andre, aka 007

All of us together on Jenny Lake at the foot of the mountain

Just thought I'd drop in...

Yes, I know, I am technically supposed to be finished with this blog. But I have come to realize that even though the majority of my treatment has ended, cancer is still everywhere in my life. This morning, for example, I opened up the New York Times website, and this was the story that greeted me:

Advances Elusive in the Long Drive to Cure Cancer

I was very impressed with this story. It is honest without being insensitive. Kolata's story echoes what I heard last year at the CALGB conference I spoke at, that foundations and researches are wary of spending money on radical new trials, and progress is being made only incrementally. I had never really thought about, as well, her point that cancer rhetoric focuses on "cures," and "survival rates" and such. It makes sense from both sides though. Of course we focus on the positive aspects of cancer. No one wants to think about dying, and I'm sure no pharmaceutical companies want to advertise their drugs as "only possibly adding a few more months onto your already truncated life." That's just a downer. And yet, it is all a bit delusional, especially the curing cancer pledge. Even I, who had one of the supposedly "curable" cancers, don't believe a cure is possible.

On the other hand, that in no way means we should stop fighting. Last weekend I drove up to Boston for Boston University's first ever Relay for Life. I think eight or nine hundred people showed up, and we raised near $80,000 for the American Cancer Society. The whole premise of Relay is that people spend 12 or 18 hours walking around a track in recognition of the fact that cancer never sleeps. By the end of the weekend, after the all-night event, catching up with my friends, and two eight-hour bus rides to and from Boston, I was exhausted and sick. But I am so glad that I went. It was amazing to me to see so many people all gathered together in support of a single cause. We all want to keep this fight against cancer going.

Like I said, I don't think there is a cure, but there are certainly improvements to be made. If the slightly misleading rhetoric means that more people will change their lifestyles, that's great, but we need to be brave enough to face the reality of death as well. I guess I just hope that we don't lose hope but that we don't get ahead of ourselves either.

And that's my bit. Incidentally, I am healthy and still tumor-free. Follow-up for me now consists of scans and doctor's appointments every three to four months, gradually every six months, then every year or so for however long my doctor feels comfortable. ALSO. Today, TODAY! was my last day of class/work/college. The DC program finished today, which means that I am finished with college. In four years. Who woulda thunk it.