Three-mile run and a Giant turkey sandwich

Bald eagle on the trail.
Hard to see, but (s)he's there!

Three weeks ago, I ran one mile for the first time in an embarrassingly long time. It was short, and it was slow, but it happened. I went for a run. Over the past three weeks, I have run a few more times - still slowly, still not very far.

I first started running in highschool, when I was 15 or 16. I have never been fast, but I do consider myself a Runner. Running has been many things to me over the years: the enabler of my eating disorder in highschool; a way to lose weight and forget about my broken heart in college; proof of the resiliency of my body after cancer; and recently, a faster way to explore the trails and wild areas of my beloved Colorado. Also, and most importantly, it has always been my primary method of decompression. I turn to running in times of stress and distress, and it is perhaps the only thing I still rely on for my own health and happiness, as various other strategies and coping mechanisms have come and gone again.

I have had a number of running-breaks over the years, most notably during that whole cancer thing. But I slowly jogged my way back to health, and even went and limped through a marathon two years after finishing two years of cancer treatment. Somehow, I hobbled through another marathon, a year and a half later. So the last marathon I ran was in April, 2012. I have run a few more trail races since then, of which I am most proud of finishing the 2014 Imogene Pass Run.

In 2014, though, the strangest thing happened - I got a corporate desk job. I launched into a career with one of the biggest companies in Denver, blindly assuming that this is what I really wanted, what I was meant to do! Never mind that I left Boston, DC and Chicago to get away from high-stress, high-pressure companies and the individuals who value work as the end instead of as the means to an end. I have been at this job for almost three years, and I have begun to draw a few correlations between that job and my overall health and happiness. Let's just say that I believe my job has had a direct, negative impact on virtually every aspect of my Health.

But this post is about running. I'll save the story of the sad, stressed and sick Caroline for another day. Today, I ran straight through for 30 minutes. Well, to say I "ran" is incredibly generous. I felt like I was shuffling along a dirt trail, barely more than jogging. And yet, I was surrounded by prairie dogs, prairie hawks and a glorious bald eagle, and there were no other humans on the trail. For the past three weeks, I have had to come to terms with the fact that I am truly and unavoidably starting over. All of my Healths - mental, emotional, physical, etc. - have slowly been destroyed over the past three years. Perhaps not least of all, I have barely run in over a year. Finally, sadly, I have reached my rock bottom. The good news is that I didn't end up in the hospital, but I think I would have, soon.

I am changing my life. I am putting myself first. Among many other things, this means that I am running again. Slowly, and for only a few miles at a time, I am running again. I refuse to give up on myself and the "being-aliveness" that I love so dearly, and I will continue to put one foot in front of the other and remember to stop and take a picture of the nesting bald eagle because how often do you see that on a run??

Stay tuned because I have a whole lot more to share as I head down this particular life-trail. I am so scared, but I am so excited because, finally, I am going to acknowledge and prioritize the one person I can never escape - myself.

This is the most Me I can be.

How many lives do we live in a lifetime?

Nine years ago, today, I wrote my first blog post at http://carolineb-log.blogspot.com. My (B)log - forum for my fears, frustrations and exalted successes during my treatment for acute lymphocytic leukemia. Nine years was a lifetime ago, and yet, as many survivors might tell you, there are few sensations like the passage of time after a personal tragedy. Undoubtedly we are living, growing, forging a new path through unfamiliar woods. And yet I can't shake the feeling that I was stuck for so long and have only very recently begun to develop into my adult self.

When you are diagnosed with cancer at age 20, you are robbed of the opportunity to mature in tandem with your peers. You miss out on so many familiar experiences, both positive and negative - college house parties infused with that unmistakable jungle-juice aroma of college student invincibility. Mac and cheese and two-buck Chuck during those few lean post-college years, busting ass at whatever job you have and then closing down the bars that night, celebrating the little bit of independence you've eked out since graduation. Love and mistakes and heartbreak and the mostly inconsequential relationships sparked through Tinder. Finally, a salaried job and the sense that you might finally, maybe, be starting to Make It. Life in your 20s. It is different from any other decade - though I suppose all decades have their own distinct flavor.

This week was my nine-year "Cancerversary," the anniversary of my diagnosis. I have spent the past few weeks pestered by an intermittent pensiveness, occasionally considering where I am and whether this is where I want to be. First and foremost, I am Alive. There: the crux of my internal struggles of self identity and accomplishment. If you are reading this, you, too, are alive. Do you realize what that means, every single day? Do you inhale deeply when you step outside and see the sun rising once more, unbidden, in the east? Most days, I do. Most days, I wake up and am awestruck for a moment that here I am, again. It was only maybe two or three years ago when I realized that I could plan for a future. I had spent years just existing in the present, afraid of more disappointment when my plans would inevitably shatter.

The return of my confidence in myself has been so incremental, so snail's-pace slow that at times I still question what I am missing, what I must be doing wrong. I survived Cancer! I can do Anything! And mostly, I'm pretty sure I can do anything, but that isn't the point. The point is whether or not I am doing the right thing. Not necessarily right in the moral or ethical sense, but what is right for me. I am not so naive as to think this plight is unique to me or to cancer survivors. Most individuals struggle with these questions of self and direction, and I'm sure many people never come to an answer.

My adventures and experiences from the past nine years have taught me strange things, broadly. I have learned that our lives are continuations of days. One leads into the next and the next and that sun will continue to rise no matter what our human selves do to ourselves and each other. I have also learned that our bodies and our souls are more resilient than we tend to give them credit for. My body might be broken, but it will still begrudgingly oblige when I ask it to perform ridiculous feats of athleticism. I have learned that at the end of the day, regardless of friends and family and lovers alike, you have to be at peace with yourself because you are your sole biggest supporter in everything. And this seems like the hardest lesson to put into practice.

We are beautifully, tragically, amazingly human, which classification does not lend itself well to ease of living. Life is difficult. Every day, we are surrounded by struggles - private, public, global. Every once in a while, we assess our own lives and ask ourselves if what we are doing is meaningful, sustainable, worth it. In 10 months I will turn 30. Gasp! I'm so young! And the thought of quitting my stable, stressful corporate job and trekking across Spain keeps rolling around in my brain like a marble whose texture enchants me but I don't really know how to play the game and so don't know what to do with besides roll it around. Confidence in myself and my future self. Toss the damn marble and see where it rolls. I am not fully the adult-Caroline, but nine years after heading down this road, I get to keep growing and breathing and learning that we won't get anywhere exciting without taking some crazy chances. I pray for the confidence and faith to discover what living truly means, for me. 

Survival requires tenacity. And so much more.

I am eight and one-quarter years out from my diagnosis with acute lymphocytic leukemia. By medical standards and definitions, I am "cured." As part of my treatment plan those many years ago, I signed up for a clinical trial that included follow-up for a number of years post-treatment. I don't know how many years they follow us for, but I do know that once a year, I get a phone call from some research assistant at the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center wherein she asks whether or not I am "still alive?" The first time I received one of those calls, I was flabbergasted. "That's all you want to know?" I queried. But they didn't care about the extensive long-term side effects I was dealing with, just whether the drugs or the cancer or something else had killed me. Maybe the side effect issue is part of another clinical trial I haven't heard about yet.

I haven't really written about cancer in a few years. I actually don't really even think about it all that much. My medical issues have morphed into separate demons, and cancer has become so peripheral that it is almost part of a past life. That isn't to say I don't think about the medical issues because I do. I think about them all the time. I think about them every time I eat a meal or a snack because my stomach gurgles ominously, warning me that in about 15 minutes I'm going to have to find a bathroom. But anyway, over the past week, I have read a few articles that women have written about their own survivorship. One of them, by Suleika Jaouad, you may have already read. She's a celebrity, basically: a strikingly beautiful, young woman who writes about her cancer experiences for The New York Times. I haven't read any of her articles about her life as a twenty-something with leukemia. I didn't want to. But a friend linked to this specific article on Facebook with the caption, "Yes Yes Yes." So, I clicked through. What I read saddened me, more than anything else. She is much more eloquent and honest with herself than I was when I was a year out of treatment. At that time, I still believed I could charge forward with my life, break down walls, inspire others to push through adversity.

My life slowed to an unexpected and drawn-out pause. I lost everything that I once believed I was: driven; motivated by goals; fearless; powerful; confident. Yes, I had a remarkable appreciation for the beauty of living day-to-day, but I also felt there was a significant part of me that wasn't realized. I am grateful for the time I had living at home, and I appreciate so many things about my years at Starbucks and Hyatt. But I wasn't hungry for anything. I was drifting, and it was brutal. It was even worse when I realized that that piece of me was missing, and I had no idea how to either get it back or create it from scratch.

Suleika is barely in her first year post-treatment. Hopefully she will adjust better than I did; she is already heading down her path of recreation. I am seven years post-treatment, and I feel like I am barely getting a handle on my hunger, on my future. That drive is there; that burning in my chest to just Rule the world I inhabit, is Back. I wrote in a post on here, months ago, that there are no absolutes, no black and white situations. Maybe that isn't quite true: You Absolutely Have to believe in yourself. You Have to Want to live and Want to experience everything that this world has to offer. If you hesitate or forget or are dragged from that living river of excitement and emotion, it is its own struggle to find your way back. But we are resilient. We are tenacious. We are all survivors of something, and we are all fighting to find our ways in the world.

It may have taken me longer than some to dive back into myself and what I want from my life, but I am finally beginning to figure it out, once more. And I am not giving up.

Fair Warning: having a bad day.

Every once in a while I treat myself to a self-indulgent, self-pitying blog post.  The sentiments are usually short-lived, but I need to get them out or they just sort of fester and don't heal.  Like that frustrating sore on the inside of your cheek you keep poking at with your tongue and occasionally nibbling on with your teeth even though you know it will heal quickly if you just let it be...  Today is one of those days.  This morning (before breakfast, a mistake), I opened a hospital bill and saw a bottom line that is more than my monthly rent.  So much for a new hiking pack with my tax return.  And then I began panicking a bit because that bill was for those drugs that I supposedly need to keep me healthy, the ones I supposedly need every three or four weeks possibly for the rest of my life.  The ones I haven't gotten since December 13 that, while I so desperately wish I could keep putting off getting more of, I so desperately need because I am not properly digesting Anything. 

Whose great idea was this to keep throwing all this in my way, one more thing to try and figure out how to manipulate, the best way around or over of straight through it?  Nobody in the medical community that I've met so far gives a Flying F*** about me as a person and what this immune situation is doing to my body.  Each is only so concerned with his or her individual specialty, and every single specialist has deemed my "case" as "definitely interesting."  My assumption is that no one knows Why this is happening...  Possibly this total-body post-chemo meltdown has never really happened among young adult leukemia survivors.  It is all so novel; there are no answers and only half-hearted attempts to treat the surface symptoms.  And, of course, expensive treatments only Mostly covered by insurance.

Often, I feel like I blame everything in my life on having had cancer.  Occasionally it's justified - it is doubtful these medical issues would have ever popped up without a leukemia-catalyst.  As for the rest of the times, I don't know.  Would I be working as a grossly underpaid and undervalued barista?  Would I have lost my belief in myself and my ability to Do and Be Anything?  Too, would I be living in Denver, have run 2 marathons, fallen in love, learned how to truly take care of myself as well as how to appreciate and empathize with others?  There are no black and whites, no absolutes, really.

Everything has this crazy amount of potential energy.  I am trying so hard to figure out a way to release mine, to get going and start making a tangible difference in this world.  Objectively, I know these medical issues will be resolved.  I'm looking into alternative ways to pay for medical bills.  I just stocked up on toilet paper.  Someday, I won't be living paycheck to paycheck and I'll be able to go skiing with my friends on the weekend because I won't be at my hourly-wage job.  Yet emotionally, today, only right now, I wish my life hadn't gone this direction.  Just at this moment because I basically never feel that way.  Truly, I love my life and am thankful for everything and everyone in it.  I am blessed; I am beyond lucky.  I'm just giving in right now.  It will pass.  This isn't some cry for help or blatant need for pity.  Quite the opposite: this is my admission that I am so human and an acknowledgment that it is okay to have a bad day.  I don't know right now what I'm going to do, but this too shall pass, and it will be okay.  I have to believe that everything will be okay, even if it doesn't happen until tomorrow.

So, I warned you.  Hopefully you are having a grand Monday today, which I do mean.  I love when people have good, productive days in which there was a lot of laughter.  Go laugh.  I think I'll bike around some then head to my chemistry lecture (which I Love!!).  See what tomorrow brings.  Peace love and not nearly enough miles covered lately...

It is a Tuesday

Which means: jazz on the radio, garlic and rosemary sockeye, white sweet potato roasties, and, now, organic hot chocolate.  There is a mini Christmas tree glowing in the fireplace-space of my apartment, nestled beneath a large glass jar stuffed with some more glowey Christmas lights.  You cannot have too many Christmas lights glowing all around.  Standing in the corner, right next to my jam-packed bookshelf, are a pair of lime green and black and orange (?!) crazy, ridiculous powder skis that, every time I look at them, make me think of my crazy, ridiculous boyfriend powder skier. (I look at those skis a lot.)  There is a 1950s-era fully functional record player across the room, hanging out beneath our vintage disco ball.  It's time to bust out the Beach Boys Christmas album! which we do have.

I am blessed.  I am grateful and lucky and beyond amazed every day that I am here, living this life.  A blog I was reading earlier today contained this statement: "Life can change, powerfully, in six years."  She was referring to having been diagnosed with celiac disease six years earlier.  Six years ago, for me, I was diagnosed with cancer.  Life changed, powerfully, in the course of one week.  Six years ago, I had no idea what the next months, weeks of my life would bring.  I knew only that I had to do everything possible to stay alive, to go back to school the next year.

I don't think there is anything in this world that can prepare you for a life-shaking, paradigm-shattering event.  Doesn't matter if it is celiac or cancer or lupus or the birth of a child or whatever.  Other people say things like, "I couldn't do what you've done."  But that isn't true.  If you want it badly enough, you will do whatever it takes to adapt to this new challenge.  Even though I used it once, I really don't like the term "new normal."  Can anyone define for me "old normal?"  Is it normal to sleep 4 or 5 hours a night, depend on caffeine and processed foods to sustain us during the day, use alcohol or substances as a means of relaxation?  Don't tell me that is normal; don't even try.  We are all so individualized.  The glory of our lives is that we have the freedom to choose how we want to approach our days.  We really can choose our attitudes.  There is no science to confirm or deny that my (mostly) positive attitude helped me beat cancer, but I am cancer-free six years later despite still consuming mass quantities of sugar.

It's funny: most high school and college kids have a plan for their lives; they have at least a vague idea of where they'll be in five years' time.  When I was a senior in college, five years ago, I had no remote vision of my future.  I was still entrenched in the reality that I might not live to see the next semester.  Everything has gone in a completely different direction than I would have thought.  I always thought my younger brother would live in Colorado, not me.  I would have said, "Oh wow, that's super cool!  But so unlikely!" if someone had told me by 2013 I'd have completed two marathons, Chicago and Boston.  I'd have climbed in Wyoming and Utah and Colorado, photographed the President and countless bands, friends, mountain bikers.  Worked at Starbucks.  Still worked at Starbucks...  If someone had told me that in five years time, I would decide to go back to school for science.  Like, for real.  Science.  Who does science??

And yet here I am, six years later, doing science.  Doing science because I want to know what happened to my body and how I can fix it nutritionally.  I, too, was diagnosed with celiac, but it popped up as a result of the immunodeficiency caused by chemo.  Chronic inflammation, sinusitis: things that I can control with diet and exercise, things I so badly want to help others understand and control with diet and exercise.  "I couldn't do what you've done..."  What, couldn't eliminate gluten because it was a life or death situation?  Of course you could!  And discover quinoa and quinoa flour and garlic rosemary sockeye and white sweet potatoes!  Life is worth figuring out how to make it work.  It might even end up infinitely better than what you imagined.

In the meantime, so much for running and blogging about it.  I haven't been running almost as much as I haven't been writing.  I have been running a little bit, but not enough and with no motivation behind it.  I think I need something to work towards.  I'm not one of those people who can just Run.  I need to train, even if it's half-hearted.  I need a reason to haul out of bed when it's dark and cold when I would much prefer to sleep a little longer.  So, if anyone wants to suggest a spring/early summer race, OR, if someone wants to train with me, please let me know!

There are so many beautiful things in this world, in my life.  Again, so much to be grateful for.  I am normal (hah) and lose sight of that perspective sometimes, but I also always come right back to it.  It's been six years, and I am still kicking, and kicking it in Colorado, no less!  I have my very own pair of gnarly skis!  I have a plan and a vision for my future.  It's an incredible one, too.  I have No Idea how any of it will work out, but it is there, at least.  It is something to work towards while still living every day and appreciating everything I have.  We are all so lucky to be here.  I only ask that you consider everything you're blessed with, realize that nothing is permanent and it is all we can do to appreciate what we have right now.  Thank you for tuning in, hopefully I'll be back sooner.  There has been a lot on my mind lately; maybe I'll share some more of it.

Trying to run more; thinking less about the small stuff.  Love!

A strange victory

As of this morning, I am officially "in remission" from the lymphoproliferation that had been growing in my face.  A non-cancerous tumor in the lymph tissue in my sinuses, this little bugger wasn't exactly harmful, but it was growing and who knows where it might have grown to if left to its own devices.  They discovered the mass in late August, and I began a 6-month course of treatment for it in October.  Had my last drug sesh just after the marathon in April, and today I had my PET scan to determine whether the treatment worked.  Supposedly, the treatment worked!  Targeted B-cell therapy - not technically chemo, but a drug with the same idea: seek out any rapidly reproducing and growing B-cells, attack and kill them!  Hilariously, though, this is the second time I have gone through this.  So, please forgive me if I'm not jumping all around in ecstasy because, I'm in remission! 

Yes, I am happy, beyond happy that the facetumor is gone.  But I suppose it could come back.  It has happened before.  Also, this past December was my five-year anniversary of cancer diagnosis.  This past December was when this was all supposed to be finished, five years worth of treatment and follow-up care.  Today, though, marks the beginning of another five years worth of follow-up.  Scans every three months for a year, then every four months, then every six months for the remaining three years.  Get all that?  It is a strange feeling, knowing that you have a doctor's appointment in three months to make sure there are no foreign masses growing somewhere in your body.  Cancer wipes out any sense of security we have about our bodies.  It gives root to a very deep, mostly ignored fear of betrayal by the one thing that is supposed to be impermeable: ourselves.  A tumor physically removed is tangible proof that we actually have no control over what happens to us.  Yes, we can quit smoking; eat more fruits and vegetables; remain active; wear sunscreen.  We can take actions to Lessen our chances of cancer or sickness, but no, we can't stop it.  I had leukemia, a blood cancer caused by a defective gene.  Doctors don't know what causes it or why it manifests in some people at certain times and not others.  Why did I get ALL when I was 20 and not three?  Why did my facetumor return without the presence of any viral instigator (as was the case the first time)?  Why does a 28-year old woman with absolutely no genetic predisposition and a healthy lifestyle develop a lump in her left breast?  There are no answers to these questions, at least not today, but we are still allowed to ask them occasionally.  I think the key is to not dwell on them, though.

I just had an interesting visual: my body is constantly at war.  I always considered this cancer thing a war, that I was fighting for my life with a little help from my chemotherapeutic friends.  Now, I have an autoimmune disorder where my insides are beating up my other insides.  I get to help this fight by eliminating the main catalyst, gluten.  But then I also ask crazy things of myself: wake up every day.  Bike to work every day.  Run 3, 6, 26.2 miles, Right Now!  In a sense, I don't want this battle to ever end.  I don't want to ever stop pushing my limits, testing the waters of recklessness and endurance.  Now with the gluten thing, I get to get creative with my diet and nutrition and fueling all these crazy adventures.  It is all very interesting to me (cue up another post on that...), and I like being in control of the madness that is my body.  I don't like tumors and uncertainty and having to rely on drugs to stay healthy.

There are also days (sparingly), when I feel like I cannot plan my life too far in advance.  I have a doctor's appointment in three weeks for my immunoglobulins.  I'll have another one in another three weeks.  I'll have a PET scan in three months.  I'll have another colonoscopy in three months.  Life lived incrementally, plans made around requisite hospital visits.  Forgive me if this post sounds ungrateful or whiney.  I've written loads before about the fact that I love my life, my world, am so thankful for the experiences that have led me here.  But I am ready for this medical nonsense to be finished.  And it won't be for at least another five years.  So, today, I get to grumble a little bit.  We always get to grumble a little bit.  Like I said above though, none of it is worth dwelling on.  We live the lives we have and make the best of it.  I am planning a vacation to my happiest place on earth in two months, thinking about grad school (there's that other post teaser again!), baking delicious gluten-free foods.  Life goes on.

And I'm planning on going for a run tomorrow morning, after the pint of ice cream I ate earlier settles down a bit.  So, awesome.  And I'm going hiking/camping/off-roading with good people this weekend!  And, haha, I'm in remission.  Again.  So, yay, life.  Thanks for stopping by...  Keep on running.