Swimming again... And other things

Disclaimer: I am very honest about my week here. Please do not comment on being too hard on myself. This is who I have always been and cancer won't change that. I wouldn't have gotten to accomplish the things I have accomplished in the past without this drive. Right now, it is tough for me to know I am not who I used to be and I expected to get back to "normal" more quickly than I have been able to. Here it goes... I went back to the pool this week. I was away on Monday working in the garden for the last time this year. Tuesday was my treatment day and I take that day off because I work and by the time I get home after treatment I want to eat dinner. So, Wednesday became my day to swim. I got to the pool around 2 pm and while sitting in the parking lot I was all of a sudden worried. Things I hadn't thought of occurred to me. I was all of a sudden scared to go in. Questions filled my head. Where was I going to get changed? Although I am comfortable either wearing my prosthetic boobs or not wearing them at times, I am very uncomfortable about getting changed around others. I have huge scars. I have to remove my fake boobs. I have a spare tire around my center that I am working on getting rid of. What if someone says something to me? What is someone sees me? You can see my scar when I wear my bathing suit. I don't want to be the one to change in the bathroom - I am more confident than that. What if someone says something about my lack of hair? All I want to tell people when they ask about the hair is "I just wanted to be radical?" but I don't have that personality. What if I can't swim????? I finally told myself that if I don't go in, cancer wins and that is not me. So, I went in. I was disappointed that there were a lot of people at the gym at 2 pm. I was thinking I was going to have to circle swim because of how many people were swimming. I didn't know how fast or slow I was and which lane would be right for me so I was happy when three people got out of one lane at the same time. I swam the first 50 slow and easy and my breathing was perfect. My balance was good. I was SWIMMING! Then at my 150 yard time I started getting some soreness in my shoulder. I thought it must have been because of the port. I stopped, stretched, and then went again. Another 150 and the pain got a little worse. I was determined to do 500 yards though. I had to figure out where this pain was originating from. The closer I got to 500 though the more painful it was. I had to stop reaching with my right arm completely. But I swam. I left knowing that my pain wasn't around my port but wasn't sure where it was coming from. I left swimming wondering if I was going to be able to swim with this port in. Was the pain from scar tissue being stretched? Was it referred pain from the port? Would I be able to train for the REV3 Old Orchard Beach? Was all of the things that I want to do not going to happen because of cancer? I have said cancer can have 1 year of my time but no more and I am already looking at more than a year and I was pretty frustrated and angry about this swim. This swim left me worried. I just kept saying to myself, it will get better. I was so frustrated I went home and since it wasn't raining at that moment, I went for a run to get rid of my anger and frustration like I used to do. It was another frustrating event though because I ran 1.7 miles in 20 min. It was slow and still felt like it was a really difficult. UGH!!!! Can't I just have one piece of my former life back!!! So, Thursday I decided to go back to Hot Yoga. I needed the relaxation and, although it was a different class than last week, last week went well so I could do this. After doing 4 sets of vinyasas with plank to downward dog, my instructor had the class do side planks. I sat back on my heals and actually laughed at myself. I was being shown again how much I still can't do. Then my IT band and hamstring cramped up - my body reminding me that this was harder than last time. Yippie! Another reminder of what I am still not able to accomplish. I failed at yoga that night. I have been facing failing to do what I expect a lot recently. Maybe failure is not the right word. I have been trying and not getting better. I am trying to see myself as a beginner again but beginners put in the work and progress - getting faster and capable of going farther. I am not getting faster. I am pushing to go farther yes, but faster, no. I know that I am able to go longer but speed is still really difficult because I still can't carry enough oxygen to do the speed. I am FRUSTRATED!!!!! I wanted to recover faster than I am. I was told that herceptin wouldn't have any effects on me and I would get back to being myself fairly quickly - Bologna (I used my filter here). The better I feel on a daily basis while getting away from chemo (7 weeks this Tuesday), the more I feel like I should be getting back to being me. This is not happening. I am being faced with more complicated situations that deal with a life happening post cancer. I am being faced with the person who I am compared to the person I want to be. This is extremely difficult for me. Even writing about this makes me want to cry because I am finding it hard to be faced with not being able to accomplish what I want to accomplish on daily basis. It is hard to not succeed in the athletic area that I desperately want to get back to on a daily basis. I am watching other people's lives move forward but mine is crawling through treatment. But I keep getting back on that proverbial bull. It has to get better. I will find the day where cancer isn't the only thing that I think of most of the time. I will find the day when I can just run and have a crap time and just feel like - "Oh, well, it happens sometimes" instead of "My running isn't progressing because of cancer treatments." It has to happen at some time. But again, if I didn't go back and try to swim again, cancer wins. So on Friday, I went back. Again, the fear associated with the locker room had me sitting in my car but I got out and went inside. I got my suit on and got in the water. 100 yards - pain in my right shoulder. I stood at the wall and knew I was not going to give up this easily so what could I try that may make a difference. I normally only breathe on my left side so I thought, lets try to breathe on the right side. I also thought this would allow me to see what I am doing with that arm and maybe it was a positional issue. I tried and no pain. Problem with breathing on this side - I suck at it. My balance is all off. My body position is all off. I can swim well enough while breathing on the left side but on the right it is soooooo hard! But there is no pain. So, I did the rest of the 500 yards on that side - it was not pretty (I believe I probably looked like a flailing whale). I am choosing to believe that this will ultimately lead me to becoming a better swimmer. When I figure this out, I will have balance on both sides of my body in the water. This will make me a faster swimmer. But it will also mean I have to work really hard to make this happen. This weekend I was able to go for a 5 mile run with a running partner who is training for her first marathon in two weeks. I was excited because she was tapering so we could go my speed and it wouldn't be such a big deal. We did 5 miles in 62 min. Why am I still running 12 min 25 sec miles? UGH!!!! Well, I left this run and decided it was my shoes so I bought a new pair of running shoes. That will make it better. If not, at least they are pretty! My oncology nurses tell me I am too hard on myself and I know that is true but I really want the old me back and I am facing on a daily basis the fact that this may never happen. This is hard for me. I hope that I can learn to be more patient but I really want these parts of my life to be normal again.

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.

My 1st 5K post cancer treatments

I did a 5K today! My husband and my father were going to do the race. We asked my niece Lila if she wanted to run with me as this would be the only opportunity for me to run with her and want to take my time. We anticipated her wanting to do a lot of walking during the race so it would be perfect for us to get her into a 5K. She was unsure if she wanted to do the race last night but said she was going to do it. We woke up this morning and I gave her an option of not doing it and she looked at me and said "I want to do this!" Off we went to sign up. (I am loving race day registration this year.) We got on the starting line and she was next to me. We started together and she turned to me and said "Go faster Kelly!" I told her I couldn't but that she could go ahead without me. And she did! Within 100 meters of the start she was on her own! She had her grandfather in her sites though and she wanted to run with him when she couldn't run with me. She ended up running a 35 min 5K which is pretty impressive considering that she is 11, the longest she has ever run is 1 mile at a time, and we went for a 7.5 mile bike ride the day before! She did remind me at the end of the race that she beat me too! I am so proud of her! I also realized that I have done a great job not allowing my nieces and nephews to see me as sick. She just left me and wasn't concerned that I couldn't do this - in her mind, this was my normal thing to do. She has been complaining that I am really slow and should go faster on the bike and run. Joe has been telling her to remember these days when she can beat me because it will be a different story next summer. I am actually hoping she can keep up - I would love to bring her on longer rides and have a running partner when she is around! That would make me happy. I had not run more than 1.5 miles with the strategy of run 1/2 mile then walk until I get my breathing under control then run 1/2 mile before today. Today I ran 0.7 miles then walked 0.3 miles, then ran 0.7 miles then walked 0.12 miles then RAN the rest! I got to a point where my legs finally moved like they were running and I felt the tightness in my calves go away. I was actually running! I have been complaining that I am experiencing the same things I felt when I was a beginner runner. I can't remember how I dealt with them back in 2001 but I am mentally much stronger now and know what it feels like to be in great shape so I will work through these tightness issues with the knowledge that I can get back into great shape if I just keep at it. This knowledge that I know what I am capable of gives me an edge that most people don't have so I am very fortunate in that area. Today, I was not fast. The run was not pretty but I was just running. It really reminded me of a late stage Ironman marathon shuffle but it was not an Ironman, it was a 5K! I can tell you that in my past long distance athletic career, I hated 5Ks. They were too fast for me - it hurt the entire time because you had to push hard from start to finish. I hate that I have to be a beginner again and I am nowhere near where I want to be in the pack. I hated my pace. I hated that I was third from last at the finish. BUT... I am so very excited to know that I could/can do this! I questioned my abilities like I have done 7 other times (marathons and Ironmans) and numerous times in the late stages of 1/2 marathons while pushing my pace - "Can I do this?" But it came down to me mentally saying to myself "Yes, you can!" I went over how much this meant to me. I went over how this was easier than recovering from surgery and going through chemo. I went over the mantra I use in Ironman "Just keep moving forward". I knew how much I loved that I was doing this and that this meant that I was on my road to the hangover half on New Years Day which I was questioning as of last Wednesday. I know that I am on my way to my 70.3 next year and my 140.6 in 2014! This day means so much to me and I am very proud of myself! I feel dangerous right now because I feel like I can do anything I put my mind and heart into and I love this feeling! I am on my road forward to the time where cancer is in my past and I am getting back to my old life! This is how much running means to me. Running links me to what I was before and I haven't been involved in that world since March 14th. I am glad to have done this race where no one knew I had cancer and I could just slog it out but it made me realize how excited I am to get back into the racing world and see my friends out on the run instead of seeing them after they have finished. I get to participate again and I am excited! Although I am still working on kicking cancers ass through Herceptin weekly treatments, I am running again! Here I come!

Learning from my students

I am in a situation where I went back to work, everyone knows I had cancer, everyone knows I had surgery, everyone knows I had chemo and am still getting treatments once a week, I have no hair, and I am a little bigger than I was before I left in March. This lack of hair has only been a "problem" for little children all summer long and they don't know enough not to stare which I am perfectly fine with. When I returned home from living in the Adirondacks, this was the first time that I had issues with people staring at me. I went to Target and Price Chopper twice and had adults stop in the middle of the store and actually stare at me and follow me. They allowed their children to scream out in the middle of the store "That girl has no hair" and did nothing to repremand or inform them that this was inappropriate but just turned and looked at me. I really wanted to yell at them for being extremely rude and inappropriate but I didn't. It was not fun though. I was not having a good day both of these times and I really wanted to hide in a corner and ask my husband to come and get me. But I didn't. I just kept shopping. This was the first time I was concerned about working with my students with all of these changes in me. My niece Lila (11 yrs old) pointed out that people were staring at me when we were out once and she asked "Don't they know it's rude to look at people like that?" I told her that some people have no manners and it was ok but she was very unhappy about this situation. I hoped this would be the reaction my students would have to me. I knew I needed to make sure my students knew I was ok and that life was moving forward and they could interact with me as they normally would. After my Target/Price Chopper experiece I was worried about how they would react to me. I went back to work 3 weeks ago and I can say that my students have been fantastic! They do not stare at all. They treat me as if I was the same person that I was before I left in March. I am so happy that my students are adult enough to treat me with respect. I wish all people out there who make fun of or stop and stare at people with "differences" would learn from my students and know that this is not how we act. I am in no way suggesting that my students are adult in all other ways - they are typical teenagers - but right now, they make me very happy in the way they are reacting to me. They are also learning that it is ok to joke around with me about my lack of hair - I pointed out how I don't know how the boys have crew cuts, don't their heads and necks get really cold, and there was a pause before they responded and laughed. I appreciated this. They are learning that I want to laugh through this because otherwise how would life be this much fun! I am thankful for them. I am proud of them! I am glad I am their teacher! On another note: Good news: my platelets are up and I am running again (actually it is a run/walk but I am doing it). I am up to 1.5 miles and, although it is slow, I am so happy to be running in the beautiful fall weather. Bad news: My white blood cells, red blood cells, and hemoglobin counts went down last week. My bone marrow just isn't keeping up yet. But it will! It can only get better from here.

143 days

Last Monday I went for a bike ride with my niece and felt immediately like I was going anaerobic, every muscle burned, I couldn't breathe. It was the worst ride of my life. I was in granny gear the entire time and felt like I was still trying too hard. I knew there was something very wrong on that ride. The next day I had my Herceptin treatment and found out that my RBC count was 2.58 million where the low end of normal is 3.8 million and my hemoglobin levels were 8.8 g/dl where the low end of normal is 11.9 g/dl. These numbers were the reason for me feeling horrible. I decided to give myself a week to heal without pushing my biking especially since I went back to work. I have been feeling really great though the past two days so I decided to get on my bike and just try to see how it felt. It felt great. I didn't really push too much but I also was not really out of breathe either. I am looking forward to seeing what my blood work shows this week and I am really excited that I am going to see it edge closer and closer toward normal every week from here on out since I am done with chemo! I am really happy about being done and becoming me again. On my bike ride today I was thinking about training - I miss having a training plan so much. I have been given a fabulous gift because of my friends Sarah and Jeremiah. I have been given an entry into Rev3 Old Orchard Beach 70.3 triathlon for next August. The people at Rev3 and Sarah and Jeremiah are allowing me to do something that means a lot to me and I am so grateful. I had been worried about how I can go from zero training to a 70.3 in one year but on my bike today I realized how I can do it. Starting tomorrow, September 10, I have 143 days until February 1. February 1 is the first day of my training for the race. This gives me 143 days to get back into a basic workout/triathlon shape, lose the weight I put on during chemo, and get myself able to swim and run with my new body. Then starting on Feb 1st will give me 6 months and 1 week to train for the race and 2 weeks to taper for the race. Starting on February 1st is also significant becasue that was the day I found out that I had something wrong with me - my doctor felt the benign lump in my breast that day which ultimately lead to my mammogram and my cancer diagnosis. February 1st is also my husbands birthday. I know that February 1st saved my life last year but I want to make February 1st show that I am really alive through starting my training plan! What a way to show cancer who's boss! So, this is the plan and I am more than excited about it! I have dreams of crossing the finish line of a 70.3 and a 140.6 again and it is the most amazing feeling in my dream. I can't wait to cherish that finish line again next summer. I also want to say that I went back to work this week. I was petrified to do this. I knew I needed some "normal" but wasn't sure how this would go. I wasn't sure how my students would react to me. I wasn't sure how my coworkers would respond to me. I can say that I am extremely happy to be back in the classroom. We haven't talked about cancer at all but I'm sure it will come up at some point and that is ok. I hope that I can show them that you have an option everyday of your life to get up and try or you can decide not to participate in life. Like the song says - I hope they dance! I do almost everyday and it puts a smile on my face. I hope I can teach them not only science but to be happy because life is good. Even when the situation that you are in is less than positive, there are so many things to be happy and grateful for and life is too short to be angry all of the time. I hope they learn to do positive things that make them happy. Even with all of the crazy new state mandates, I am thrilled to be back at work!