Rebuilding again

This is much of what I posted on IG, with a bit more added in.

This photo is what rebuilding looks like to me.

I am once again starting to rebuild my running base, which is tiresome I will admit. 

In May 2018, I fractured my pelvis after running too many races that spring. That was definitely an over-use fracture and took forever to heal.

I started rebuilding in February 2019 only to be diagnosed with breast cancer in April that year. While I ran after surgery and all through radiation treatments, it knocked the stuffing out of me and my progress was sporadic. I kept trying but would have to stop and regroup. I did well enough to win my age group in the Heartland 30K challenge but I wasn't as fast as I'd been not even two years before. But I was out there. 

I knew I wanted to run a marathon, I’ve never run that distance and I thought it would be cool to run one the year I turned 60. So I started training again with the goal of running Grandma's Marathon last June. I ended up in Manila for most of January and running there was a challenge—first, because I worked nights; second, because of the heat and air quality; and third, because Taal erupted 35 miles from where I was staying. That definitely wrecked the air quality.

But I got a running coach, I had a plan and I started training. As you probably know, last May, my foot also fractured. This was not an overuse injury although my orthopedist still calls it a stress fracture. I prefer to just go ahead and say my bones are shit.

I’m working on that too, taking my daily injection, using my (second) bone growth stimulator (here's where I said good-bye to the first one), and doing all the right things. I’ve been rowing or doing HIIT during our nasty weather or when it’s snowy or icy outside. Also lifting. So I’m strong. But my running is basically in the toilet. I’m starting all over from the beginning again.

I am not ever giving up. Today I ran one lousy mile (slowly). But I ran. And I will run again.

It goes both ways

So Rush Limbaugh died. There's much rejoicing among a lot of my friends and much wailing among others. Rush was from Cape Girardeau, which is where I went to high school. In fact, one of his nephews was in the class behind me. But I only lived in Cape for four years so any connection to either the city or the Limbaughs is long gone.

Those I know from high school who are upset and angry that others rejoice in this loss call it unfair and mean and cruel. They think it's awful that people are celebrating this death.

I rejoice in no death but I am not sorry he's gone. 

Do you recall in the mid-90s when he celebrated the death of gay men from AIDS?  It was a segment called AIDS Update and was set to music as he celebrated those deaths. That's hate right there, pure and simple. And yes, he later said it was the "single most regrettable thing" he did. Points for some remorse, I guess, but I haven't found anything that says he tried to make it right. So zero points for repentance.

Which takes me to this. These same high school friends who are so angry about the nastiness being said about Limbaugh's death? I know of at least a couple who said very similar things when Ruth Bader Ginsberg died last year. And they all definitely knew my first boyfriend, Mark, who was born and grew up there in Cape. Mark was also gay and he died of AIDS in 1999. I doubt they would think it was OK to celebrate Mark's death from AIDS. 

I'm not going to post examples of the other nasty, hate-filled things Limbaugh said. I'm sure if you're really interested, you can do a quick Google search yourself and find plenty of examples. I know I did. And the point is, he was not a nice man. He did not make things better in our world.

So I'm not sad he's gone. I hope we don't get a bigger source of hate in his place. And I hope those who followed that hate will repent and turn away from that path.

Bonus shitten post to cleanse your palate (and mine).

Annie in one of her
normal pretzel positions

Learning to accept reality

Boy this pandemic has really been—well I don’t even know the right word. 

When we first all quarantined way back on March, I read the guidelines on who was considered high risk and who was not. I didn’t seem to fall into the high-risk category as I’m not quite old enough and was no longer in active treatment for cancer.

But in May, St. Luke’s (which is where most of my care team works) said that anyone who was 60 or older was in the high-risk category. I thought well OK, they said it and they’re the medical professionals.  

As more information came out, it seemed as though the definition for high-risk got tighter and that I sort of did/maybe didn’t fit. I am over 60, I do have reactive airway disease (which is not asthma and mine is under excellent control) but aside from all the surgeries and the two cancers, I’m quite healthy.

So, I’d pretty much decided that I’m not in the high-risk category and I’d resigned myself to not getting the coronavirus vaccine until June, in the last wave of immunizations here in Kansas.

Bonus Annie picture

But wait! On Tuesday I got an email from St. Luke’s. In that email, they said that since I’m considered high-risk (!!), I could get the vaccine on Sunday. They urged me to schedule that appointment immediately as openings were limited and they were first come, first served to the people who received this notification.

I immediately scheduled the appointment and then had to take in the knowledge that yes, I am high-risk. 

As silly as this may sound, I’ve struggled with that and it took Kent pointing out to me that I was equating high-risk with frail and being in poor health. Since I’m neither frail nor in poor health, it’s been difficult to accept that yep, I’m high-risk.

This has been an ongoing struggle; I minimize and discount the seriousness of various medical diagnoses or I outright deny them. Really, that’s just stupid and I need to stop. 

I get my first dose of vaccine on Sunday, yes Valentine's Day, at 10:40. They will schedule the second dose then. I don't know which flavor I get; fingers crossed any side effects are minimal.