Full Circles? What is a "full" circle?

The two photos above are from August 25, 2006, not quite four years ago. On August 25, 2006, I had decided the time was ripe for a new haircut. I walked to the awesome hair salon in my downtown and told the stylist I was open for anything. We decided to go short, and I decided I wanted to go short enough that I could donate my hair. For no reason in particular other than I figured it was a nice gesture, and why not if I was already going to get a drastic new do? I was about to begin my sophomore year of university and was completely oblivious to the little cancer cells that were gradually taking me over.

I have thought a lot about that haircut over the past four years. The symbolism of innocently donating my hair to Locks of Love; my reluctance to shave my head the first time I lost my hair; my refusal to wear a wig. I actually even blogged about that haircut one year after the fact in August 2007, when I was mostly hairless and going through treatment. In retrospect, it only confirms my belief in the fact that everything happens for a reason.


This here fun photo was taken right now (woo!). Obviously, my hair is all back. Curlier, but otherwise exactly the same. And vain or not, I love it. Short hair was, for me, a constant reminder of the physical side effects of the chemo. As were the intense chemo curls I used to have, but those have mostly grown out as well. These days the hair is long and healthy and, actually, in pretty dire need of a trim.

So full circles: I had an idea a few days ago. Everyone knows (I hope...) that I am training for the 2010 Chicago Marathon with Team in Training. I think about my training and running and the marathon every single day. It is only 2 months away, and it scares me to no end. Anyway, I mentioned to one of my coworkers this crazy idea I had: I am throwing around the notion of holding off on a haircut until October, until the marathon. At that time, I would chop it all off and, once again, donate it. My coworker's response: "That's a great idea. It would be like everything has come full circle for you." Donating the hair; losing it; regrowing it; donating it once more...

Full circle. I don't like that image. In fact, it threatens me: to have gone through so much the past four years, hair being the least of it, only to end up right back where I started... But then I realized it's just an expression; don't take it so literally. I am training for a Marathon, for goodness' sake. Absolutely nothing is the same. I graduated college. I am not the same. Cutting my hair in anticipation of the 26.2 miles I will run for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society would be the end of the past four years, not a return to the beginning.

Maybe I put too much emotional emphasis on symbols in my life. Running this race is a symbol. Donating my hair. Turning 24... If I can do this one thing, I can finally let go of something else. And yet I need these milestones, these tangible reminders of how far I have come in four years. So I probably will wait for my haircut. Anyone want to join me....?! Haha, thanks, as always, for reading and putting up with my silly vanities. I think I'll go for a run now. Happy Wednesday. Pax.

Mind games.

Also titled:  Was Jerry Garcia, perhaps, a runner?

Also titled squared:  Am I a runner...?

This week's training run was a "cut back" week.  Only 90 minutes.  TNT's training schedule sporadically alternates between running set mileages and running for a set time.  So for me, today's 90 minutes meant 8 miles and a couple desperate 5-minute walk breaks.  Because today, for me, was an Epic Struggle.  I say that not in my usual, Oh, it's no big deal, self-deprecating way, but in an honest, this run was forced and ugly, kind of way.  I haven't been able to pin down the reason, but I can try and explain what I mean.  Perhaps someone can tell me where I went wrong with this...

Usually when I run, my brain turns off.  It is my time to totally decompress, to not have to think about or process anything.  I zone out in tune to my footfalls and the rhythmic sloshing of my half-full and warm water bottle.  Random ideas pop in and out, but nothing sticks, and I literally do not think.  Today, however, my brain did not shut down.  Thoughts kept popping up; I spent most of my first two miles trying to tell myself to focus on my breathing, clear out the distractions.  But two miles in, my legs were leaden, struggling, and my brain was loaded.

Right around 2.5 miles, this thought fired up: "I can't do this."  Rarely, very rarely, does that little "c-word" pop up for my consideration.  There is not much I can't do, and even less that I am not willing to try.  And yet, here I was, 20 minutes into a 90-minute run, thinking I can't do it.  Thinking my legs were just going to stop propelling me forward at a mediocre pace.  And then I thought, as smiling runner after smiling runner kept passing me, "I am just freaking jogging.  Not even running."  That thought lasted probably a good 3 or 400 meters before I managed to shut it out and let it go, focusing on the packed gravel trail we were running on.

I did not let myself stop until just over half-way through the run.  But stop, I did.  Who knows if I would have been able to keep running for another 45 minutes, if I could have forced a way through my mental roadblock...  Here is what I think though: this was not entirely mental.  As I turned around at about mile 4, I literally felt like I could fall asleep on my feet, right there.  My body was completely exhausted, utterly worn down.  I had this mental image in my head of my hip joints as rusty, ineffective gears, the type that takes a lot of physical effort to get turning.  I think our bodies know what they need, but we have to listen to them.  Mine was telling me that as much as my breathing was easy, as much as I mentally wanted to keep running, my legs were just not going to do it.  So I adapted to it.  I poured some cold Gatorade into me; I walked.

And then I was able to start up running again.  Two more miles and another water break, then a mile and a half to finish it off.  I think I ultimately ran for about 80 of the 93 total minutes clocked.  So, well, it is what it is.  To round out this post, my brain successfully quieted down on the second half of my run, thanks in large part to random Grateful Dead lyrics about running and trucking that kept popping up.  It was a pretty sweet mash-up actually.  But anyway, next week is a "long run," which, apparently, is any run over 10 miles or 90 minutes.  I would like to politely disagree with whomever decided that...  Pretty sure anything over 3 miles is a long run.  Hopefully, though, it will go better than this week.  Sleep might help...  A better pre-run meal; a better night-before dinner?  Sleep will help.

Hope you are staying cool wherever you are this weekend.  It is supposed to be 90 degrees with 90% humidity in Chicago today.  Movie day, anyone?  Thanks again for reading and cheering and laughing at my silliness.  Also, I know I am a runner.  My brain was just scraping the bottom of the barrel for reasons to get me to stop.  It is all good.  Pax.

Long-distance runner, what you standing there for?

The 2010 Bank of America Chicago Marathon is three months from today.  From Today. 10/10/10 is just over 90 days away, and, fittingly, my Team in Training group ran 10 miles this morning.  Somehow and somewhat surprisingly (at least to me), I actually ran 10 miles this morning.  Every Saturday at 7:00 a.m., the whole training team meets up for our weekly "long run."  And every Saturday morning I stand around with everyone, waiting, almost shaking in my sneakers with nervousness.  Sleep is rubbed from eyes; good mornings are exchanged.  We listen to each week's "Mission Moment," where someone shares their story or a friend or family member's story about their experience with a blood cancer.  The Mission Moment is basically a few minutes for us to reflect on why we are putting ourselves through this; it is a reminder that, whatever our personal reasons for running are, there is a greater purpose behind all of it.  And then we push ourselves out of the parking lot and begin the journey to a set mile-marker and back.

This morning, prior to our running 10 miles, I offered up the Mission Moment.  I briefly shared my story, my diagnosis and subsequent remission.  I also brought up the importance of running in my life.  How the worst part of treatment was being unable to run, sometimes even unable to walk from exhaustion and all the other stuff.  And now here I am, three years later, preparing myself to run the longest distance I have ever run.  I told my team members that I have trouble finding inspiration from myself; others' stories and accomplishments keep me going.  But I realized and tried to express that I am surrounded by inspiring people.  Watching my teammates run, knowing why they are running and that they are pushing themselves to their physical and mental limits because they can, That inspires me.  That is amazing.  People will do amazing things for the causes they believe in.

When we signed up to join the fall Team in Training program, we were all given TNT technical shirts to wear during our runs.  They are a bold purple and have TNT in large, block letters on the front.  On the back of the shirt, on top of the list of sponsors, is the phrase, "Creating a world without cancer," a pithy summation of the LLS mission to cure blood cancers.  I was just about at my eighth mile, and, while I wasn't exactly struggling, my body was wearing down.  (8 miles having been, so far, the longest I'd ever run...)  Anyway, I passed one of our run/walkers, and, for whatever reason, her shirt's message really struck me.  If you'll please excuse my language, basically, my immediate reaction was, "F*** cancer.  F*** it for screwing up my life and putting me in this position where I can have such deep-seated anger at something."  And then I clenched my fist and gritted my teeth and ran just a little stronger.

Because here I am.  I finished the run in about 1 hour and 45 minutes, which is about a 10:30 min/mile.  Certainly not fast, but, whatever; I finished strongly.  I am proud of myself, and I am proud of my teammates, and who knows...  Maybe I will actually be able to run a whole 26.2 miles.  You never know what life will offer you in the form of opportunity.  Maybe it's a job offer; maybe it is cancer.  Either way, I would not be who I am and where I am right now if the events of the past four years never happened.  Maybe for better or worse, but here we all are, so I guess it is all about getting up, getting off, and getting out of that door... to finish this post's title.  Thanks, Grateful Dead.

So that was this morning.  That was my running update.  As for everything else, the colonoscopy went well...  The biopsies were all negative, so now I just have a wonky colon and no good reason why.  It's fine.  It is hot in Chicago; I guess it is hotter in Boston.  I drink an ungodly amount of coffee, and yet I still desperately want to find a job where I don't get as much free coffee and coffee-based beverages as I want...  Oh Starbucks; what would we do without you?  Life is life I suppose.  I hope you are enjoying your summer, staying cool!  Thanks for checking in, and when was the last time you checked out my Training Page??!!  Thank you So MUCH if you've donated...!!  Happy Saturday; Happy July.

Peace...

Two dinners and Joseph Heller

In one and a half days, I will be signing in at the gastroenterology department of my local hospital ninety minutes before my first-ever colonoscopy.  For the record, this procedure was not on my early-twenties bucket list.  Then again, neither were most of the things that have happened to me over the past three years, so I suppose that really doesn't mean much anymore.  Regardless, tomorrow I will be taking all kinds of crazy laxatives to empty me out.  I guess the doctors need a clear view of whatever it is that they are looking for up there...  I really hope they find something.  I hope their little scopes, as they check me out from both ends, come across the source of 10 months worth of intestinal drama.  Yet I hope they find nothing.  Because who knows what they might find.  Having already had cancer once and a half (facetumor!), cancer is my knee-jerk reaction to anything wrong with my body.  Although if they do find nothing, then we're back to square one, so I hope they find something.  My rational mind, though, is fully aware that it is Highly Unlikely this will take the cancer route.  Whatever is going on with my gut may be a latent effect of my cancer and treatment a few years ago, but it is probably a totally different type of illness.

So I won't be at a bar cheering on the Blackhawks tomorrow night because I will be scuttling back and forth between my couch and my bathroom.  Although, beer is a clear liquid, right?  Haha, no, I'm not that dumb.  But I did just eat twice, knowing full well that there will be no solid foods in me for the next 36 hours.  Woooo hoo.

Anyway, I just wanted to quickly update because I'm a little nervous and a lot frustrated about this whole thing.  I hope it all ends soon.  And my apologies for not being a bit more positive.  There really are only so many good things you can say about some random person sticking a flexible, lit microscope up your bum and down your throat looking for what, we're not even sure.  Exactly how I want to spend my Thursday!  In all seriousness though, besides this little snafu, life has been pretty awesome lately.  Things can only keep getting better; this I know for sure.  So hopefully you're enjoying your weeks as well!  Happy Tuesday, sad toad.  Someone loves you in Chicago.  Peace...  and Go Hawks!

It's Hump Day!

When was the last time you checked out my Team in Training homepage??  I am officially Half Way to my goal!  Let's make it all the way, yes?

In case you've forgotten, I will be running the 2010 Chicago Marathon with Team in Training, for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  I set my fundraising goal at $1500, which is a bit over the $1000 minimum.  But together, I'm pretty sure this is an easily achievable goal.  If you are in and/or around Chicago, stay tuned for potential fundraisers possibly involving music, possibly involving photography.  Who knows; there are so many ways we could go with this.  In the meantime, once again, check out my Page.  It's pretty interesting...  :)  Thank you so much to everyone who has already donated.  You Are The Best Ever!!  Alright, happy hump days.  Enjoy yours; I'm intending to.  {Pax}

t.m.i. ...

Once, some time ago, I mentioned to my oncologist some random pain or ache or other that I was currently and inexplicably experiencing.  He responded, oh so reassuringly, that everything I was feeling, all the unusual and frequent sicknesses, all the random and probably harmless ailments, were a direct result of either the chemo or having had cancer or both.  I posed this question while I was still in relatively active treatment, still receiving some chemo once a month.  Now, 20 months after finishing any and all chemos for ALL, I can't help but wonder if I can still pull the "C" card as an excuse for current and inexplicable sicknesses.

Generally, as a rule, I don't like to bitch.  Grumbling serves no purpose to anyone and usually only reinforces all the negative energy that seems to run rampant.  That said, cancer sucks.  Rather, cancer Still sucks.  Everything that has been wrong with my body for the past 20 months, barring the one running injury, may or may not be a result of having had cancer.  I honestly feel like I haven't been really and truly Healthy since probably months before my diagnosis.  Case in point, I have spent the past two weeks alternating between feeling just OK, and feeling like I am dying.  Haha, and that is only a bit of an exaggeration.  After I returned from Moab, I came down with a gnarly little buggy that destroyed me for about a week.  While I know everybody loves bodily fluids, my own body was doing everything in its power to purge every drop of anything from my insides.  Pretty sure I'm still somewhat dehydrated.  Although I did manage to lose about 5 pounds, so Bonus?

Then, just over a week ago, I went to see a GI doctor regarding the intestinal problems I am still having.  (I brought them up in a post a few posts ago...)  He thought I might have IBS and prescribed me some anti-spasmodics to help with the irregular bowel spasming.  Well, those were a bad idea.  The spasms certainly didn't get any better, and, in fact, I'm pretty sure I just became more dehydrated.  The tips of all of my fingers actually started peeling, which, while interesting, was probably not a good sign.  He had also done a blood test to check my thyroid as well as to check for markers of Crohn's disease.  Supposedly, my thyroid is fine, but the Crohn's test came back with funky, unusable data.  I guess my blood or something has been affected by my ALL.  I'm shocked?  The nurse told me this information over the phone, and I didn't understand it, but she didn't need me to come back in, so I hope it's all good.  What isn't all good, though, is that following the little plastic-coated blue pills I took for my supposed IBS, my muscle cramps got worse, and Awesome!  I've broken out in a sick rash on my buttocks.  There's the tmi for ya.  Bam.  Haha.  Buttocks.

So, once more, I have spent my entire day in bed, wondering what I did in a past life to warrant so many random and inexplicable sicknesses that are preventing me from running, from eating, from going to the bathroom like a normal person.  The reason I bring this up isn't because I am looking for a sympathetic audience.  Nothing like that, because seriously, whatever; all this will pass.  What I am more concerned with is that there is no playbook for young-adult ALL survivors two years post-treatment.  Can chemo give you IBS two years down the road?  Or can it lead to an increased risk of developing shingles?  Or will it give you the colon of a 72-year old man?  I am 23 years old.  My knee shouldn't be busted; there shouldn't be wicked rashes on parts where the sun don't (usually) shine.  So who knows.  This is all new territory for me, and it is extremely frustrating.  I can't help but question whether I will ever feel "healthy" again, for any extended period of time.

In Moab, I had the privilege of rooming with a beautiful and strong woman, Phoenix.  Phoenix has chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), which means she lives with her cancer and its effects on her body and mind every single day.  This woman, quite literally, Owned the rocks out in Utah.  She was a natural climber, and if she was afraid at all, she certainly didn't show it as she pretty much just scrambled up cracks and over some serious overhangs.  By the end of the week, her fingers and her feet were torn apart, blistered and bruising.  Yet she persevered, ignoring the pain and proving to all of us that a little pain wasn't going to do Anything to interfere with her FD experience.  She has, like all of us, since returned to her "real" life in the city, waking, working, drinking coffee, and heading back home to her apartment at the end of the day.  She has also started running since she returned from Moab.  At camp, she had talked about how she frequently went to the gym anyway, but she biked more than anything else.  Now, though, for whatever reason, she is throwing running into her mix of awesome.  This woman's strength of mind and body blows me away.  Chronic leukemia be damned, she is going to Live her life.  I'm sitting here, feeling angry and sorry for myself, and for what?  Because my butt itches?  That's stupid.  Like I said, I have no precedent for these physical ailments, but if this is what life will be like for a while, I guess I'm going to have to take a page or two from Phoenix's book and get over it.

So those are my mid-May grumbles.  Hopefully you're all feeling better than I am, and if not, Feel Better!  Sickness stinks.  Nobody likes sickness.  But thank you for reading, as always.  :)  Peace.

motivation. (a vaguely self-indulgent running post...)

But first...  V-logs!!!  I recently became aware of a huge number of video interviews on the Dana-Farber website that cover pretty much any survivorship topic you can imagine.  Check out the link HERE!.  Dana-Farber has a Lance Armstrong Young Adult Survivorship Clinic, and they have really been working hard to increase awareness of the clinic as well as offer more support to young adults.  I've looked at some of the videos, although not all, and they seem pretty helpful as far as information goes.  Obviously the advice and info offered by the interviewees will not apply to everyone, but I think they've got the right idea at least.  The nutrition video was super interesting, although the chemo brain video peeved me a bit because my memory still fails me All the time, and I know I get enough sleep and eat well and take anti-depressants, so that wasn't much help.  Haha, but I digress.  I continue to be amazed by the resources available to young adults and the growth in awareness that has occurred even over the past three years.  A lot of this stuff was around three years ago, but there is so much more information now, and there is (I truly hope) a greater willingness from young adults to take charge of their lives in light of cancer diagnoses.  Amazing.

Segue to: Motivation.  Over the past six or seven months, this concept has been on my mind a lot.  Last August, First Descents sparked my running fire, which had been mostly dormant for a while.  In Jackson, I met a lot of runners and a few marathoners.  I realized these people are no different from me, really.  And they're running and accomplishing goals I have, so far, only dreamt up.  So I returned home to Chicago and decided I would run in the 2010 Chicago Marathon.  My motivation was at an all-time high because I was still riding the First Descents wave of awesome.

Of course, waves crest and fall, and mine fell pretty far beginning about January.  Treadmill running, the beginnings of an injury, and general winter-induced malaise all contributed to a gradual reduction in my marathon training.  And then in the beginning of March, my IT band pain got completely out of control, and I stopped running altogether.  For just about two months.  And then (timing being everything), it was time for me to once again meet up with my FD family, this time in Moab, Utah.  Once again, I met more of the most amazing people: funny, encouraging, generous, unconditionally accepting.  Oh and they run too.  In fact, our camp photographer, Bear, who I had the huge good fortune of getting to know a little bit over the week, is actually an Ultra runner.  I had a suspicion of this the first day or two we were there, and when I finally gathered my courage to ask if he was a runner, and he told me, Yes!  and I run ultras!, my mind seriously exploded a bit.  

I've recently been reading a bunch of running-related books, some on marathoners and a few on ultrarunners, and here, out in Moab, Utah, I actually, somehow, had met one.  We talked some about running, and I admitted, rather sheepishly, my goal of running the marathon.  I also voiced my growing fear that I won't be able to do it because I hadn't run in two months and my knee has been so super wonky.  He, like so many of my fellow campers that week, expressed his confidence in me and my ability to overcome the obstacles ahead.

Flash-forward to this past Thursday...  Having battled a Nasty stomach virus and come out on the winning side, my body was almost screaming at me to go outside and run.  My mind resisted, but my body was all like, "Girl, you can do this; I'm ready!  Remember that you seriously can do anything!"  So I did.  I ran.  Haha, I ran two whole miles!  But, but but...  My knee didn't hurt.  I don't really believe in miracles, especially when there is a physiological explanation for the recovery of my IT band (I've been using a foam roller).  But if I wanted to follow a mystical tack for a brief moment, whatever happened out in Utah, whatever I learned or realized that I still can't quite define, whatever motivation I found from meeting an ultrarunner who thinks I can run a marathon, any and all of those things combined to heal my leg.  It's still twinge-y, and I'm walking a fine line right now between desperately wanting to jump right back into training and not exacerbating the problem, but I still ran on Thursday.  I ran again on Friday.  And then, this morning, I saw Bear's Facebook status that he had run a "quick 14 miles," and, even though earlier I had talked myself out of going for a run, I quickly threw on my running shoes and went for Another run.  2.5 miles today.  And still no pain.

Good things are happening.  So many good things.  Not just with the running, but that is all I wanted to mention today.  There will definitely be more updates soon with other good things going on.  Let me just say that while I am talking about literal running, it is also a metaphor for my life over the past year.  Buncha waxing and waning, but now I am ready to go.  People are my motivation.  People's stories, their interests, their insecurities.  We are all in this world together, and who is to say that one person can run 14 quick miles before breakfast and I can't?  (I can't, but it's only a matter of time.)  So what's your motivation?  What gets you out of bed and running into your day?  I hope it's something good.  Peace.