Two weeks recap and a 4 miler

The day after my last blog, I went back to my surgeon to have a check on how I am healing. As many of you know, I have opted to not have reconstruction. This did come up during our appt. I am so unusual (being 33 and opting to spend the rest of my time on Earth without breasts) that he was surprised that I have not changed my mind. He obviously doesn't know me well as he thought I would change my mind! My prosthesis are working out for me and I love the feeling of running without sports bras and being able to breathe! Joe said that my doctor is invested in me being "normal" again and wants me to have all of the normal things women my age have. I think this is a learning process for me but as I'm running more, I am very excited about the things I can do without them. We also discussed port removal. I thought it would be a quick recovery time with me being able to get back to swimming, biking, and running within a week of the removal. I was very disappointed to hear that it will be at least 4 weeks off from running and swimming. This posed a problem for me as I am doing REV 3 Old Orchard Beach in August and I cannot afford to take off a month between May and June and still be prepared for the race. This made me really upset as I just want to have it removed to signify the end of my cancer treatment. As I was able to talk to Joe, Mary, and Jeanne, I realized that I have the ability to determine my treatment and have decided to wait until after the race to have it removed. This will give me time to take off after the race but still get in some of my fall race season and then get to Ironman training. It gets rid of my ability to do Ragnar Relay, possibly not be able to do the Boston Medley, and I will not be able to do a fall marathon but the big things of a 70.3 and a 140.6 are still on the table. The next week I went to see my oncologist. We discussed how I am recovering more quickly than most people do from chemo but how frustrated I am that I am not recovering more rapidly. I want to be back to my pre-surgery running self soon! I want to run how I normally did. I want my weight to come off more quickly. I made the decision to go back to being a vegetarian (but allowing myself to eat fish) again to aid in my weight removal too. I also thought that I am tired of the crap they are putting into me each week so I want to eat more cleanly to help my body through the process. I know I need to be patient - which when it comes to swimming, biking, and running, I am not. I recently told a friend of mine that Ironman almost prepared me for this because training for an Ironman is really hard work, it's painful, exhausting, it takes a long time to train for. I am working just as hard right now to accomplish a fraction of what I did for Ironman but I am working toward being an athlete again, not only an athlete but a TRIathlete. This appt had an interesting discussion about the drug tamoxifen. I had made a pro and con list to taking the drug and in the pro column it has one thing: decrease the chance of getting breast cancer again. In the con column I had 10 things listed. I had thought that post chemo things would get easier. I was wrong. It just becomes more complicated. I'm on a drug (Herceptin) that has many side effects including potential cardiac toxicity (which I am petrified of every day as this could take away many parts of my life before that I loved and made me happy), it makes me tired, it makes my joints ache on a daily basis, and it has slowed my recovery from chemo. Tamoxifen has many potential side effects as well including uterine cancer, cataracts, weight gain, blood clots, and many more. When I bring up the side effects I am told often that there are other drugs to "fix" the side effects. I started doing research on it and realized (and I'm not alone with this one) I don't just want to know that I am going to be cancer free - which I won't know because I could end up with another more aggressive form of cancer - but I want a great quality of life. I want a great quality of life for the next 50 years and I worry that I won't have that if we keep just giving drugs on top of drugs on top of drugs. I have worked my ass off to be off of asthma and arthritis meds my entire life. I don't want cancer to change that for me. This discussion of my life post chemo actually made me cry. I don't feel like there is a correct choice. I feel like I am picking the lesser of two evils and I hate being in that situation. I actually let me feel sorry for myself for an hour then got pissed off at myself for doing this, talked to a few people about what they did, realized what my decision was, and then felt completely at peace with myself. This is my life and I want to live it, for me, on my terms. And I will. This weekend I ran the Lake Placid Pub and Brewery's Octoberfest 5K! My second race went much better than the first one. The course clocked on my GPS at 3.2 miles and I completed it in 37 min. This was also much hillier than the last one. It had amazing views of Whiteface Mtn and the leaves were beautiful. The day was a perfect running day. I am still super competitive too. I couldn't take that these people were passing me, walking, I would pass then, and then they would run again and pass me. I had had enough of that so I started running faster - AND IT FELT GREAT!!! I missed racing. I loved every minute of this race. I even finished and went back out for another mile! I will be ready for the Great Pumpkin Challenge 10K in two weeks!!! I did have a moment this past week when I was trying to come up with a plan for running and I realized I now have to train like a beginner not like my Ironman mind wants me to. I am being kind to my body but loving the progress. I bought a bathing suit today. I want to get back into the pool last week but realized I didn't have a bathing suit that fit me. Today we went and purchased one. Wow, it made me realize where all of my weight is which was super difficult. I also realized how obvious my scars are when I am wearing the suit. But I want this. So I will go swim this week. Maybe it will only be 100 yards but I will swim. In closing, fall is being very good to me in many ways. It is challenging in others. I am working hard to maintain my positive attitude and appreciating that I am able to swim, bike, run, and go to hot yoga again. I am loving that with these cooler days, it is less obvious to others that there was something wrong or I have a port because of the layers of clothes and my winter hat being worn while out in the cold (Joe knows this and laughed at it so I can share, I even got hit on last weekend by a guy at Ragnar (not a runner and he wasn't drunk or delirious from not sleeping)). I love being treated as normal again. I am tired of being treated with kid gloves. I am one tough chick and want to be treated like one.