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. 

And on the child

 Here's a photo of Grace wearing the dress and the hair tie, holding her octopus (the one Kent made her), and the doll with her tiny octopus. I love that Grace has a pair of slippers that so closely resemble her doll's slippers.

Scope creep

Or how a sewing project grows and becomes more complicated.

This project all started with a reminder from a woman who was my niece by marriage years ago (I never know if a divorce ends that relationship but saying ex-niece or former niece seems so weird). She asked me on Facebook if I’d made a doll for her when she was a little girl. That stirred a long-ago memory—in fact I had made her a doll. She’s still got it which blew me away because that doll has to be close to 35 years old.

Well, our youngest granddaughter turns 1 tomorrow so after that reminder from my niece, I thought oh hey, I’ll make Grace a doll! That would be pretty cool. I found a pattern online (no time to have one shipped and I’m not shopping at brick & mortar stores these days) and ordered some fabric and notions for curb side pick-up. I was ready to get started two weeks ago except I had that violent flare of Meniere’s and lost the entire weekend.

No worries, I started back in last weekend. Here’s where the scope creep came in: Kent made Grace a really cute octopus for Christmas, so I asked him to make a smaller version for her doll to have as a toy. 

Then I thought it would be really cool if I made Grace a dress to match the dress I’d be making for her doll. 

And then I thought, well the pattern has a tiny little shoe pattern so wouldn’t that be really cute? 

Oh and the doll has little hair ties and I think I can squeeze out a bow headband for Grace too!

I wish I'd gotten a better photo of the tiny little shoes, they are really cute. And the octopus is just wonderful.

Here's the dress for Grace, with the doll in the background. I don't know if the hair bow/band will work but hey, we gave it a go.

And that is how you scope creep a sewing project, one (baby) step at a time.

I made a thing

This is a stress relief kit for my sister. She’s an RN in Denver and worked in the ICU for years. But a year ago, she got a different job within her organization but outside direct patient care and has been so happy with her new position.

But with COVID, she got recalled to the ICU and even worse, was scheduled to work nights. So I made this for her.

The mask is made of a quilted fabric on the outside and silk on the inside—as I told her, if she uses it and needs to wash it, she’ll need to wash it in a mesh bag and line dry. I shaped this mask a bit so there's more padding around her eyes, and stitched the batting to the quilted side (you can see that in the first photo). I also put in a box of my favorite stress-reducing tea which tastes amazing, plus melatonin to help her sleep, a box of lavender-lemon tea lights (lavender is supposed to be great for relaxing), and then a small bag of Trader Joe’s dark chocolate peanut butter cups.

As it stands, she’s worked a couple of night shifts and then got moved to giving COVID vaccines, and has gotten her first dose herself. With any luck, she won’t need any of this kit but if she does, then she’s prepared.

It's still not a banana

But it probably is Meniere’s disease. Which isn’t really a disease, any more than the reactive airway disease I have is a disease. (I don't have asthma, pinky promise.)

Way back in 2014, I got my ears thoroughly checked out by both an ENT and an audiologist. I had some mild low frequency hearing loss, also fullness in the ears but I hadn’t yet had any vertigo or much tinnitus. I mean, let’s face it—as I’ve said elsewhere, I was a military musician for years and you cannot perform the 1812 Overture with real howitzers and not have some tinnitus. But it wasn’t bad, not yet anyway.

About a year later, I was back with the same issues: very full ears that actually aren’t full but sure feel that way, very mild tinnitus and increased lower frequency hearing loss. At that same visit, my ENT uncovered some pretty severe sinus infection issues I’d had for years; I ended up having sinus surgery which helped so much. And I also ended up with a hearing aid—I posted then that I gasped when I heard in stereo again, it had been so long.

But less than a year later my hearing resolved, which I did not expect. That’s when Meniere’s was first suggested and I pushed back hard. I felt like that was a BS diagnosis, and that people who are diagnosed with that tend to get slotted into the crazy, crackpot, difficult patient. No thanks.

I don’t remember exactly when I had the episodes of vertigo (probably because I don’t want to remember) but they were brutal. The world tilted and rotated; I couldn’t walk but had to crawl to the bathroom to puke my guts out for a couple of hours. That happened oh maybe three or four times and then vanished. (Yes, another Meniere’s symptom which I didn’t want to acknowledge.)

In the last six months, my hearing in my left ear has deteriorated a lot, the pressure in both ears is immense and the tinnitus in my left ear is more like standing right next to a Boing 767 engine roaring along on an international flight. It’s loud and it hurts. 

Then this last Saturday, I had an absolutely brutal episode of vertigo, complete with throwing up for several hours. I still feel the vertigo lingering at the edges but God willing, I’m not at the fall down and need to puke stage.

But that got me off my butt and I called my audiologist again, who said oh hey you have to see the ENT first. But he’s just going to send me to you! Yes, but you have to go to him first. And in a nice piece of luck, he had a cancelation the very next morning, which was yesterday. 

And yes, my hearing has deteriorated again. My audiologist reprogrammed my hearing aid for me on the spot, so now I’m hearing in stereo again. The ENT was great, did a really thorough review of my records with him and discussed everything in detail. Since I’m now presenting with all four symptoms, it’s pretty much a certainty that this is Meniere’s. He suggested considering a brain MRI since it’s been a few years (how sad is that that I’ve had more than one?) but doesn’t expect that will show anything. I don’t either but I agreed to get one because I also said I didn’t have melanoma, argued with my orthopedist that my pelvis was not fractured and didn’t really believe my oncologist that I had breast cancer.

So. Clearly I had better rely on my medical partners rather than my own opinion.

Here's my results from 2015 (dots show from 2014, the lines were from that day's test):

And from yesterday (dots are from 2018, the lines are from yesterday):

The right ear (which is weirdly on the left) now shows some typical high frequency hearing loss which generally happens to us all. It's the reverse slope hearing loss in the left ear that's the stumper.

The MRI is scheduled for January 28 so more to come.