Family

My cousin, Hunter, was injured in a dirt bike accident on Sunday. He fractured his C7 vertebrae (the neck area), broke his ribs, and bruised his lungs. He is most certainly lucky to be alive. He has feeling in his legs and arms so thank God he is not paralyzed. I'm thinking about him, his wife, and his two young kids. I talked to Gina, his sister, this morning and she thinks he might be able to come home on Thursday. I am so relieved. It's so hard being this far from him. He's in Texas - like the majority of my cousins - and I can't go see him. However, Mike's going down next week on business so I may ask him to go visit in my place. What's also rough is Gina's going to Vegas this weekend for her son's birthday so she's stressing about getting ready for the trip and Hunter.

Saturday Run

I made it - four miles, baby! I haven't run in at least 2 weeks so I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to keep up, but I did. I walked a couple of times, but I kept up with the group (until the last bit). I had some minor issues: my back's been bothering me and my new water belt kept jiggling around until I moved it to the back and cinched it up. It started raining just as we started to run and apparently some of the ladies in the other groups left - wimps. We are runners: we run in rain, snow, wind, heat, and whatever else mother nature throws at us! Luckily, it stopped raining somewhere along the way and the temperature stayed cool. It turned out to be a perfect running day.

After Prom was last night (at my HS) so I helped out for a couple of hours. Blair and I were nominated to get ice so we found ice machines in the locker rooms. We both commented on being in the locker rooms - I'd never been in a boy's locker room before (must say, the girl's locker room smelled better!) The best part was finding the ice machine in the boy's bathroom, next to the urinals. Ewww - that is just not right! My favorite part about After Prom is seeing how little has changed at my HS since I graduated. It's like taking a trip back in time with the hideous gold and green paint all over the place. After we got all the ice back inside the gym and the soda station ready to go, I left around 12:30am so I could get up get up for my run today.

Electric Avenue

Today I saw a neurologist in an attempt to figure out why I wake up at night with cramps in my calves and feet. He thinks it might be related to my back problems (from nearly 5 years ago) so he ordered up an MRI (Monday) and an EMG (June 3). He explained the EMG as a test where they will strap a bunch of electrodes to my leg and zap me with volts of electricity. Part two involves sticking a bunch of needles in my legs. FUN. Mike volunteered to give me the test just so he could zap me. I may have to take my last ativan to get through it!

Calm after the Storm

If you haven't seen me around much in the last few weeks, it's because I've been working like a dog. I haven't run, played volleyball, worked out...nada. My proposal was delivered on Tuesday (with a WHOLE bunch of issues. Try burning a CD with the cost volume in a parking lot. FUN). Anyway, I worked out yesterday with Ludmilla, my trainer. We focused on stretching (which I so "sorely" needed-HA!) but I also lifted some weights - chest press, squats, dead lifts, and more just to get me back into working out again. I play volleyball tonight and hopefully we won't have any issues (I was ready to put a beat-down on my captain last time I played!) I'm supposed to run tonight, but I'll do that tomorrow so I don't wear myself out before vball - but I'll be running on Saturday for sure.

I have an appointment with a neurologist tomorrow to hopefully help me figure out why I keep getting nasty charlie horses in my calves and foot cramps. I think one of the nasty chemo drugs (vincristine is my bet) left some lingering damage and I just want to know what is going on. It's worse when it's cold outside, but I have a feeling that's what caused me to tear my calf muscle last fall. My calf cramped up all the way home from work, I went straight to volleyball without warming up or stretching, and WHAM! tore my calf muscle. I have charlie horses several times a night that just wake me up out of a dead sleep. Last time I was at NIH, my electrolytes and potassium counts were normal -which is what everyone says. I just hope I found out something tomorrow.

Today I drove to Annapolis to renew our boat registration...only to find out that we had already renewed it and it wasn't expired. At least it's finally gorgeous weather here - 80 degrees and sunny! I picked up new stickers for the boat so now we are all set to take it out. Except it's Mike's turn to work like a dog. Anyone know how to hook up a boat to the truck and haul it to the Potomac? ;)

Running with My Peeps

After a long couple of days at work, it was nice to hit the trail and go running with my "girls" in my running group. We ran for 35 minutes and with the heat and humidity, it was difficult at times to remain motivated but I stuck with it and I'm so glad I did. It's only going to get more hot and more humid as the days go on, so I need to suck it up now and deal! My running coach broke up with her boyfriend over the weekend so we heard all the juicy details during the run, which helped distract me. I'm having a good time running with some women who are 10 or more years younger than me...and I'm keeping up just fine!

This weekend is Mother's Day and I've already started "sending" out the invites to my family for a BBQ over here. We didn't communicate very well over Easter and some people didn't know we had moved our plans from PF Changs to Carrabbas. I felt bad and decided that we'll just have everyone over here. We did a trial-run last weekend by having our friends, Andy, SK, and Casey over for bacon and cheese-stuffed burgers and dogs so we'll probably stick with the same tried-and-true menu. Last weekend was supposed to be our inaugural run with the boat, but we realized too late that the boat registration had expired in December so until we get that taken care of, there will be no boat rides on the Potomac.

Update

Okay, I've been chastised again for not posting in a while (this is for you, Greg!) so here's another update.

My last post left off with low white counts and a suspicious mole. I had a blood test the week after NIH and the WBC's were up slightly so the doc said they wouldn't worry since I typically had low white counts but if I had any fevers or anything weird like that to call them. It left me wondering about what I should do if I get the flu or something, but luckily that didn't happen this winter.

However, the mole turned out to be an atypical mole and I had it removed just in case. After I went in and had it biopsied, I got the call at work a couple of weeks later when the lab results came in. I answered the phone and their nurse asked, "Is this a good time to talk?" I've learned the hard way when they say that, nothing good can come of it. I laughed and steeled myself for bad news - which wasn't as bad as it could be. WHEW! The surgery went well and I left with stitches and a big band-aid full of gauze with strict instructions not to do water aerobics or volleyball that week in case I ripped the stitches. The following week I went back and had the stitches removed. Since I now have an allergy to latex, after a week of putting a big band-aid in the same spot my skin looked like it had been burned in a big square band-aid shape. I hadn't realized my allergy was that bad! After that episode, I have to report back to the dermatologist every year for a thorough check-up.

The week after I had the mole removed, Mike and I went to Key West for a long weekend before my next big proposal at work hit and before his schedule went wacky too. We stayed at an awesome hotel down on Duval/Front Street which was a close walk to everything. Even though it was a little chilly, we took a jet ski tour around the island (and paid for the windy weather with back aches from the rough water after we returned!). We also rented bikes one day and rode over to the southernmost point and took our picture at the marker, like good little tourists. We caught the sunset at Mallory Square a couple of times but decided to watch the sunset from our hotel balcony the last night because the view was just as good there. One of our volleyball friends and her family was in Key West at the same time, so we finally caught up with them at Irish Kevin's one night. Unfortunately for Mike, the singer was country. He suffered but I had a good time. Afterwards, we wandered over to the Hog's Breath and stumbled into an excellent concert by a band called 'Simplified'. They were awesome and we bought the CD and went back to see them the next night. They're from Charlotte and mainly play in that area, but they've been to DC a couple of times (apparently, they're friends with OAR who are from Rockville). If they ever come up here again, we are there.

I ran the Cherry Blossom at the beginning of April as part of my personal 3-year diagnosis day "cancerversary". I hadn't trained as well as I would've liked so I was slower than last year, but I finished. It was a little frustrating because I started at the front pack and got passed by a ton of people. Since then, I've joined a women's running group with the MoCo Road Runners' Club (MCRRC) and I'm training for the Run for Roses 5K in June. I'm running a little faster now, but I feel better about running. I'm also in the fastest running group, the Manolo Blahnik's (which totally cracks me up!) and we have a nice group of ladies. I think there are about 60 women in the whole group and about 15 in my group. When we do our Saturday runs, I feel sorry for anyone out on the trail who comes upon this 'herd' of women hogging the path. After the 5k in June, I plan to jump on over to the 8k program and do the Rockville Twilight run like I did last year. Maybe I'll do a 10k in the fall, but I'm toying with that idea.