Breathing Again

 

Hi all. I've been gone a while. Like everyone else, I've been coping with 2020 and all its weirdness and misery and pain in the best way I can. 

Now that it's the middle of November and the election is over, the fires are out, Coronavirus is still raging, I've lost my Dad, restructured my life around a full-time job, and streamlined my former business into a low key hobby, I'm ready to look forward to whatever life has to offer after this bout of insanity that we've all shared.

The answer to the obvious question here is, yes, I am still running. I've participated in a few virtual events this year, and I have to say it's been more enjoyable than I thought. I feel like I am retired from formal ultrarunning events with one exception: Across The Years. That one I will continue to do, except for this year with the COVID problem. 

Yes this year has sucked very much, even with some good things in between all the madness. I would have to say that the best two things that happened this year were starting a new job, which I love, and being able to hike in Rocky Mountain National Park every week this past summer until mid-August when the fires started. 

I love my job. I can't talk about it in too much detail, but suffice it to say in a nutshell that I work on data quality in cancer research. It's very mentally challenging and intense at times and it's extremely cutting-edge. I am learning a ton. Plus it's remote so I always work from home, pandemic or not. 

The really sucky parts of this year were: first, my dad died from Parkinson's disease on October 14th. I was able to go down there for a few days in early October visiting him and spending time with him, and helping my stepmom get him set up on hospice. He was still able to talk and joke about things while I was there, so it was a good visit. He was ready. He had almost no quality of life anymore. He told us he was done. And he was. I miss him. Parkinson's is a sucky, horrible disease and I'm glad he's not suffering anymore. 

The next two sucky parts of this year were: 1) the fires that burned west of here, in the areas where I usually hike and run in the summer. It will be at least until next year before I know how much damage was done, if they open the trails at all in the next year or so because of the erosion. 

And 2) the civil unrest that really blew up after the George Floyd murder, and there is so much to say about that and everything that's happened between then and now. It's terrible that it took until the George Floyd incident on video to get people to wake the fuck up about what's been happening forever in this country, and the sudden interest in anti-racism is a good thing even though it's so long overdue, and I hope it doesn't disappear from the forefront like so many important issues do when swallowed up by the next distraction. As far as I'm concerned, this inequality of justice is the most important problem facing our country, and it hurts us ALL. Including fearful white people who are scared to death of change and have a death grip on keeping us in the dark ages and/or the 1950's. 

I am not going on a rant about politics, this year has been filled with that. I have to admit I am scared. I am scared that 72 million people voted for the orange orangutan. I do not understand the logic-free, fact-free, reality-detached world in which those 72 million people live. I am scared that if we don't make some very necessary changes in the way our government operates, we are screwed. 

I am hoping to be here for at least another two and a half or three decades and I really don't want to move to another country, but I just do not understand how people could not want things like healthcare or equal justice or affordable housing or quality education for everyone. I just don't understand the whole attitude of, "It's my right to do whatever the fuck I want and screw everybody else". 

Enough politics for now.

I have an announcement to make. I am about to get my toes wet in a new sport. I don't know where this new path will take me, but for a very long time, I've wanted to climb the volcanoes outside Mexico City. I first heard about them 30 years ago, about the time I started doing ultras. The past year or so I've become somewhat obsessed by them and I am starting to plan to climb them once this pandemic is over and we can travel safely again. 

On December 5th this year I'm signed up for a mountaineering basic skills course where I will learn rope travel, ice axe self-arrest, and how to walk in crampons. I need to learn how to do that before I can do those climbs. I'm looking at a late 2021 (unlikely) or 2022 (much more likely) trip to climb Iztaccihuatl and Citlaltépetl, the two highest volcanoes in Mexico. 

As far as my altitude thing goes, I did make it up one 14,000 foot peak again this past summer, Mt. Princeton. I was still Gooney Bird, but I actually did pretty well sleeping at 9000 feet the night before. I need to remember when I ascend these things, that I'm not running a race. I think I tend to go too fast, because I do have good fitness, but I don't adapt to altitude as fast as my body thinks it should. 

And there is always Diamox if needed, which I have never tried before, but will definitely have on hand before I go any higher. 

Next summer, COVID and permit process permitting, I have a plan to climb Mt. Whitney with a friend, which will be a good opportunity to carry heavy packs and get up as high as possible without traveling out of the country. 

Again, it's been a while. I've been unable to write, just sort of paralyzed and overwhelmed by all that's going on around me. Writing has so often been therapeutic, but for the longest time this year it felt like I was re-traumatizing myself by writing about 2020 and the orange scourge, because it was all I could think about most of the time anyway. Somehow just knowing that things will change in a matter of weeks, 66 days until inauguration day, is so comforting, even though I realize how difficult it's going to be until then and beyond. 

I'll check in when I can, as this winter progresses. Be well, be safe, and find SOMETHING to look forward to. 

I Can't Even...

I've been gone a while. And it's not because I've had nothing to say. I have a ton of stuff to say and I don't even know where to start.

Here in Larimer County we are only on the first full day of a stay at home order, and honestly, it doesn't affect my lifestyle all that much. I work from home normally, and beyond grocery shopping I don't go out all that much. We do go out to restaurants a few times a month normally. I walk the dogs, and I run. I do socialize with a group of runners once or twice a week under normal circumstances. That's about it.

So now, I just work, walk the dogs, run, and occasionally grocery shop. Not that different. All my races and events so far have been cancelled, which is good. I can run anywhere, any distance, pretty much any time, so it really doesn't matter to me. It's not like I'm training for performance.

I need to bitch and vent a bit here but then I'm going to focus on some positive things and what I'm looking forward to, although without a clear timeline at this point. I'm feeling slightly depressed today, but it seems to be related to the lack of sunshine. Today happens to be overcast and foggy. When it's sunny out, I do much better. Today, I'm not doing so well.

As of the end of last year I stopped contributing monthly posts to a nursing online publication I've been writing for, for about 2 or 3 years. I couldn't come up with any more things to write about. And I just didn't care anymore. I didn't feel like anybody really cares about the stuff I think about. Nobody questions anything. I wasn't deriving any pleasure from writing it, either.

The local nonprofit I was working with, imploded, and the timing was perfect for me because I was suffering from burnout there too. And fortunately my side gig is turning into a basically full-time endeavor for me as of the beginning of next month. And it will be more hours than I want, but in a way, it will be a relief to not be spread so thin in a million different directions. Plus having a steady income and benefits will help.

I managed to lose some weight last year and now I've nearly gained it all back. My outlet of boxing classes is on hold for now, since everything is closed, and for good reason. Crazy shit has been happening in my family and to friends of mine. Just yesterday we lost a friend in our running community, Doug DeMercurio, husband of my friend Connie, father of my friend Marissa. It wasn't from coronavirus, but the social distancing aspect of end of life care and making memorial arrangements creates all kinds of unfortunate difficulties.

My stepbrother is very ill right now. He has myelodysplastic syndrome, which is a blood cancer that is often a precursor to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Since his is very aggressive, they treat it as if it were AML. That means the option of a clinical trial and/or a stem cell transplant (bone marrow transplant). Except he is so sick that right now the only thing that has a chance of slowing it down and possibly getting him through to the point where he could have a transplant, is starting on chemo. And that has been delayed since he needed to wait 8 days for his coronavirus test results to come back as negative, and then there was another delay.

He went to a big name West Coast cancer center and they seemed more interested in getting him to become a research subject in their clinical trial, than in taking care of his needs as a human being. Not surprising to me, of course. But maddening. I finally had a phone call with him in which I laid out all of his options and started discussing the pros and cons of each, since the cancer center didn't seem to be capable of doing that. Including talking about advance directives.

My dad broke his hip last fall. He has recovered well physically from that, but he has Parkinsons and that presents a whole range of other issues. My stepmom is on double duty between my dad and my stepbrother. I've been down there 4 times since November and trying to provide some company for my dad while she goes out to California to see her son, and now traveling is not wise at all.

In a nutshell, F*** the ### in the $$$!

I won't even go very deep into politics here because it raises my blood pressure and makes me angry and I don't need to do that when I'm already stressed. I am not even one bit surprised at the idiocy that has further revealed itself among our politicians and citizens and healthcare executives. I have had to limit myself on social media because I read all the stories about nurses and doctors and I have too many friends who are nurses and doctors and I can't stand it. They are being exploited in ways that should never, ever have happened and it's a function of our for profit system and the worship of productivity and profit above people.

Yesterday I was out walking and ran into a former coworker from ICU. She's been there for many years. We talked over about a 12 foot distance. But she told me what I've been hearing from my other nurse colleagues across the country- one mask a day, you can go into work if you test positive for coronavirus as long as you don't have a fever. WTF?

She is a mom of young kids and I heard the pain and worry in her voice. She said there is so much anger among the workers. And of course the suits are nowhere to be seen. They tell the staff to go in and risk their lives and then they are fired or threatened if they speak up in protest of any of these dangerous policies.

Yesterday it occurred to me that all the emergency preparedness training and disaster training my husband had in his old position could have been put to good use over the last 8 months, except he changed jobs after them pushing him out of management. And he would have been paying attention to this virus threat and would have pushed for preparation, because that's who he is. Not sure the higher ups would have listened, but what a waste of all that training.

When this is all done I would like to think people will see how ridiculous our system of siphoning off all the resources to the wealthiest few in our country is, starving the infrastructure and the public well-being, so that we end up in crisis situations like this, totally unprepared. But I don't have a lot of hope. People are so damn stupid and there are so many of them.

Trying to go outside in my usual running routes right now is a joke. Normally I get plenty of solitude where I run, but lately people are out at all hours in droves. It sucks, because I hate people breathing down my neck or having to listen to their conversations within earshot. Right now it's impossible to escape people, and I do know some places I could go, but I don't have the desire or energy to drive that far.

I was supposed make this positive by the end. I'm not sick, I am okay. My husband is not sick. We have our beautiful, fun, sweet dogs. I can still go outside and run. I have a job. I have friends. I have a Zoom account. I use it to stay in touch with my friends and running buddies. But I am watching myself for slipping into depression, because people vulnerable to that, like me, need to pay attention early, and this whole situation and current circumstances are the perfect host for a raging torrent of quicksand.

I bitched. Now here I am with nothing much to say except I hope we learn something from this as a society. I hope people realize that government is there for a reason and that it needs to function. And that we're all in this together, and it's not about me, me, me like that orange boneheaded dimwit who is making things worse on a daily basis.

So I guess my positive thoughts will be to you, readers of this blog. Stay well. Stay safe. Wash your hands. Stay the fuck home. Six feet apart, or six feet under, your choice.

And when the dust settles, let's make this country, and our healthcare, something that actually serves its people and not a few rich ass, empty-headed, heartless motherfuckers.

Strength and Vulnerability, A Two-Edged Sword

This is a tribute to our ultra friend Matt Watts, who died last Friday, and to my extended ultra family.

I’m writing this with love and concern, to clarify and remind, and to encourage everyone to keep on going. He left behind his partner in crime and wife Anne. She has always been at the events with him, a strong ultrarunner herself, and a great support not only to Matt, but a great friend and kind soul to everyone who knows her. I wish there was something, anything- that could comfort her right now.

Ultrarunning is that two-edged sword- at the same time as it makes us physically strong and mentally resilient, it can put us at risk. Especially as we get older.

Matt was a veteran ultrarunner. His sense of humor, spontaneously funny remarks, Cheshire Cat grin and “Matt in the Hat”, as I came to think of him, were a welcome fixture at so many ultras.

Matt used to sneak up behind me when he’d lap me at Across the Years and bark. LOUD. Scaring the crap out of me, even though I should have been expecting it.

Matt was trying to get 100 100 milers. He came very close- his 95th was his last.

Trying to explain what happened in plain English

People are asking me what happened. Since I wasn’t there, I don’t know exactly, I can only tell what I think I understood and try to piece a puzzle together. On Matt’s last ultra, apparently he fell and broke some ribs. I don’t even know if that’s what caused his quick demise.

I'm not sure if it was the broken ribs, a resulting pneumonia, or some other cause of the infection that eventually took him down, but Matt didn’t realize how sick he was. I don’t know if he had some underlying immune system issue, or another illness that had not been diagnosed, or if it was just his pain tolerance or willingness to endure discomfort past the point where he needed to seek help.

I do know that at age 62 our bodies don’t bounce back the way they used to at age 25 or 40. But that might not have been a major factor here. Maybe it was a complete fluke. Maybe he was just tired and worn down from consecutive ultras, or maybe his immune system was a bit weak from several years of running a lot of ultras. Maybe Matt had a blood cancer or another illness that weakened his immune system and he didn’t know it. Probably not, but we will never know. It doesn’t matter now.

I’ve seen it wrongly described as “he contracted sepsis”. No. I’ll try to explain the medical jargon in plain English. Sepsis is an advanced stage of infection, where the body’s ability to fight it off is less than the strength of the infectious process. It’s not something you can “catch”- it’s a consequence of an infectious process.

He had some kind of infection that progressed until it overwhelmed his immune system, resulting in sepsis. Sepsis has the ability to eat you alive from the inside, because it damages the most vulnerable organs- kidneys, gut, brain, heart, lungs. In Matt’s case it ate his heart valve. Sounds like they had no choice but to replace it. That’s a risky thing even in an otherwise healthy person, and with other complications it’s one of those life-or-death decisions.

Sepsis does funny things to your blood- it can cause little solid pieces of debris floating in the blood- septic emboli- that can travel to small blood vessels and clog them up- leading to death of the organ tissue. Or it can cause a state called DIC- disseminated intravascular coagulation- where your blood clots too much at the same time as it doesn’t clot enough, causing uncontrollable bleeding, or forming clots that travel to plug tiny vessels in organs just like the septic emboli do.

They replaced his heart valve to try to save his life- but the risk was that he could have a stroke or other organ damage. And that is exactly what happened in the days following, first a small stroke, then another huge one, from which he wasn’t coming back.

Again, I don't know the exact details but I am making an educated guess, to try to clarify for people who want to understand because it's part of their grieving process.

Now

Anne will need our support and while we need to respect her grief, we also need to remind her that we are here, and that we always will be here, and then follow through on that.

What I am saying here is not at all criticism of anything Matt did or didn’t do, he was living life fully and doing what he loved. I think that is the better route for all of us. But with advancing age and declining immune function, you are simply at a higher risk of something going wrong. It’s part of life.

I would have done the same- pursuing my goal, as he did. And I will continue to chase my own goals as I go forward.

What I wish to share with the running community is that our bodies are fragile, and more so as we age- we do need to remember that extreme endurance events can take their toll on us if we don’t allow ourselves to recover. We might feel okay, we might think we’re recovered, but unless we take a look inside our bodies at the cellular level (which is not really practical), and look at the components of our blood (which is pretty easy to do with a simple blood test called a CBC with differential), we can’t really know.

Just remember that we can’t take our health or our lives for granted. A good reason to keep on pursuing our goals, but also listening to our bodies. Sometimes our bodies don’t whisper loudly enough, or sometimes we forget how to listen.

Facing Death

Death truly is a part of life and all of us will die eventually. The best thing we can do is to live each day fully, work toward our dreams, have as much fun as possible, be a force for good and give as much love to others we possibly can.

Facing death is part of a healthy life- psychologically and emotionally, it doesn’t make it easier, but it does make you stronger and more resilient, and perhaps healthier overall. People who have a healthy attitude toward death tend to move through grief with fewer long-term physical and mental health consequences.

Facing death also means not forgetting those who were left behind, not avoiding them, letting them know you care and enjoying the memories when the time is right.

Avoiding death and emotion doesn’t mean you’re strong, in fact, just the opposite. Denying a universal reality does us no good. It’s coming for all of us. We do the best we can to live our best days, and then we need to step right up to it, look it in the eyes, run through the finish line without fear, realizing that it only means we will have arrived at the start of the next ultra.

And here's one thing you can do right now. Make your wishes known. Complete your advance directives- medical power of attorney, living will, and other documents- now. It's a gift to your loved ones to make things easier for them if they have to make decisions for you when you can't, in a time when they will surely be extremely distressed.

Moving forward

Matt’s sudden departure has made me re-think my own priorities and preparations, perhaps tweaking some things in my own advance directives that I could make more specific. And thinking about the real meaning of where I am in my life and what I’m doing. And what I hope is still ahead of me that I cannot take for granted. But mostly, to make sure I enrich my life to the fullest by strengthening my connections to the people I value most.

I'll miss Matt.

Of Philosophers and Kings...

Things are always bigger than they appear.

Life is one of those things. At one moment you might think you've got it figured out, contained in a finite space, and it spills over and gets messy. It lives on, taking on a meaning and life of its own, and you might never find out how it got out and where it went.

I was busy experiencing the pure joy that found me on Sunday as I ran twenty one-mile loops around Grandview Cemetery for my long run. I started early in the morning and had the silence of the place to myself, just a sea of headstones quietly covered with snow.

I enjoy the loops because it is a form of meditation, a spiritual practice of sorts, allowing me to clear my head and make room for clearer thoughts that come in. I think the ability to do this type of running, that many people find monotonous, is great for a creative person. It's refreshing mindlessness that leads to just the opposite, mindfulness.

So many ideas come to me on these loop runs, and I let the thoughts flow in and out, and they usually come back at a later time and I write them down. Many of them are just clearer or different perspectives on ideas, events, or experiences.

I've missed this. Maybe that six-day adventure is still ahead of me. I don't know yet.

It's always interesting to see what people leave on their headstones, any way they wished to be remembered, or that their families chose to engrave in the granite.

When I'm in the cemetery I think about the stories and people that I knew. I remember patients. After all these years in Fort Collins there are quite a few. Around the perimeter of the cemetery it's a one mile loop and I count as many as half a dozen former patients. If I venture into the inner roads of the cemetery, there are many more.

I remember the stories and the details come back, what happened, how things did or did not go well until their end.

I think about the content in my book. If more people would think about what life and quality of life means to them, before they get sick, then maybe we would spend less energy making a mess of things and ruining the quality of the time we are here.

I do know that there's a sense of peace in there, among the symbols of the lives that happened, and have now passed, that is a reminder of reality and mortality, and it's a beautiful reminder. We don't have to feel entitled to eighty or more years on this planet. We can go gracefully and accept less if we live each moment fully and true to ourselves, our values and those we love.

That's all.

2016: The Year of The Donut

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This year will go down in my mind as The Year of The Donut. It's a good way to put a sweeter spin on a year that rather sucked, in many ways, but also had a lot of good and great moments and was full of learning and experiences.

Death and History

In popular culture, of course, there was the fact that we lost many well-respected and loved celebrities in the entertainment business, David Bowie, Prince, Gene Wilder, George Michael, and Carrie Fisher, followed by Debbie Reynolds, among many others. I happened to like Prince, but David Bowie was an important icon in my life, I wrote about that in an earlier post.

It's a weird coincidence that I recently re-connected with my junior high friend on Facebook, the one with whom I went to the David Bowie concert in 1978 in Philadelphia.

Death has been nearby around here too, having said goodbye or in the process of saying goodbye to people who have been important in my life. Death is part of life, as I was telling a friend this morning on the run. We don't get to choose our time to exit this world, not most of us, anyway. But we can be happy when the person gets to choose comfort at the end of their life, because not everyone does. You can have a quality death as part of a quality life.

Donuts Saved Me

One of the things I struggled with this past year was getting back into a running routine, and I have to admit, if it were not for the Donut Friday runs, I wouldn't have gotten any momentum going. I also met new people or got to know several people better from the running community, and that would not have happened if I didn't start attending the Donut runs. Now I am being more consistent, although not running as often as I'd like, I am making progress.

The Dumpers

My friend Emma is training for her first ultra early in 2017 and I'm doing long runs with her. We had a couple of great runs at the bacon strip, I'll share some pics. We have done a 16 mile run and a 20 mile run in the past two weeks out at the Bacon Strip and got to see some interesting sights along the way. Namely, a TV, and a fridge.

The story behind the TV and fridge is that on our first long run, we found the TV that had been dumped on the roadside, it was screen down in the snow, and we turned it upright, there was dirt and grass stuck to the front of it.

We wondered how it got there, and as we ran that day, we fabricated elaborate stories about how it arrived at its dumping place. I guess you could say we found the remote.

Toward the end of our 16 miles that day, we were passed by a pickup truck hauling a fridge in the back of it. We joked about how they should dump the fridge next to the TV so it would be there for the Superbowl. Then all we'd need is some beer and a couch, and maybe a grill.

The next week we headed out there for a 20 miler. As we climbed the first hill, the TV was still there, with some fresh bullet holes! We laughed that it was still out there, no one had picked it up. As we proceeded on our run, we made a turn to do a small 4 mile loop before we went out for our big 10 mile loop.

When we made the turn at 2 miles, we were about the same distance into the road headed west, parallel to the road with the TV on it, and we saw a fridge lying at the roadside, in the snow. We went that way the previous week and there had been no fridge out there, so we're pretty certain that the people we saw driving with the fridge dumped it there, and were probably the same dumpers of the TV.

Trumpocalypse- The Gift That Keeps On Giving

OMG. I am freaking out daily on the Cabinet appointee recommendations coming out of Trump Tower, or from wherever he is making his edicts. I am trying not to think about it and just breathe for now. I am hoping this whole debacle sheds light on the mess that is Washington, and the mess that lies outside of Washington, namely the great masses of the uninformed, misinformed, and generally clueless.

I cannot go into a rant about that, too upsetting. I value the outdoors, the environment, peace, justice and equality and it's countering everything I value. If someone had some common sense, they would create a giant orange wind turbine, because we have a giant windbag about to run the country. Now that would be environmental stewardship.

The Reluctant Entrepreneur

Let me just say when it comes to the commonly accepted ways of doing things, I am not cut out for this business shit. I don't have the burning desire in the pit of my stomach to go balls out (okay, ovaries) and go after money. I am not motivated by the stuff. Especially when it takes me further away from who I am and I have to deal with people I'd rather not deal with, namely, people who are motivated by greed and/or function in that world that expects 24/7 focus on business and money.

It's not that I don't want to make money, I really do want to, but it is not the reason that drives me in what I love to do, and that conflicts with how the world of business operates. I like to do things at my pace, when it appeals to me, and what appeals to me, otherwise, I'm not happy. And I certainly have re-discovered that quality in myself, confirmed it, again. The lessons will be repeated until they are learned.

The online program for Cancer Harbors did not go as planned. And that's fine, you have to try things and they don't always work. I did learn a lot though, from the many people I've talked with and the clients I have. As a result I am redirecting my energies around my project, Cancer Harbors, into the publication of a book this coming year. It's going to be aimed not just at people with cancer, but everyone who has any dealing with cancer and healthcare. Namely, all of us.

Now THAT's something I can get excited about.

Returning to My Creative Roots

I am going to go back to where I feel happiest and most comfortable, which is, where I can write, paint, and create as the ideas come to me. That is where I belong. If you wipe clean the messy slate of all of the "career"-type pursuits: education, business, nursing, and look underneath, dig a little into the dirt and look at my roots, they harbor unlimited creative energy.

I've learned a lot, and I have a great collection of knowledge and skills to share if I allow myself to be creative and unencumbered by day-to-day bullshit that being in the business world dumps on top of you. Getting past the old wounds and traumas and moving forward. I see things differently, I do things differently, and I'm not going to make any more attempts to "fit" anywhere.

I just am. Alene. Gone Bad.

Allowing that energy to come back into my life and relieving myself of the burden of feeling tied to a business model has allowed some great opportunities to come along: a paid writing gig, an opportunity to get my artwork out there again, and putting a workshop together for runners, women runners, that a couple of friends suggested was needed. I will have a separate blogpost about that within the next week, and I'll post a link to allow people to sign up in the right-hand column of the blog. It's in Fort Collins, so you have to be local, or willing to travel to the Fort for it. If it goes well, I'll do more.

And running, dammit.

And did I mention running? I want to get back to doing long runs again. I miss them. Now that I got my ipod to work again, I'm loving the tunes, miles, and fresh air.

Despite Struggle, Gratitude

I am so fortunate to have experienced some great things this past year, my dad's improvement with his cancer, that is in remission now. He does have some other health problems, but he is doing well in terms of being able to stay active and busy and enjoying life. I am also thankful for our little family that has grown over the past two months with Velcro, and Gypsy, the newest member of The Buffalo Family.

I am healthy enough to be increasing the amount of running I'm doing, and have been able to take the time to do the necessary soul-searching to get myself back on track again with what I do with my energy when I'm not running.

Being a Stay-At-Home-Dogmom is pretty damn great.

And I'm thankful for donuts. Even though I can't eat them anymore because I'm trying to bring my cholesterol down again. Last time I quit eating wheat I dropped my cholesterol by 65 points and now it's creeping back up again, probably because I've been indulging in various wheat-containing foods too often. Menopause has a way of messing with every part of your body. Things you would never even imagine are related to hormones are affected. I just take one thing at a time.

So...my personal mission statement over the coming year as I write my book and move forward with reclaiming my enjoyment of life again will be something along the lines of fostering creativity, respect, authenticity and empathy and showing people the value of those qualities. Which are sorely missing from many things...

Let's see what 2017 has in store for us. I'm not sure I want to know, but some things like the earth's rotation are unavoidable.

And donuts are round too, sort of like the earth's path around the sun. Donuts revolve around the donut hole, like the earth revolves around the sun.

Even my puppy understands that, along with other concepts in physics, like gravity. She's not an elitist, she just values science and facts more than faith.

Someone needs to tell a certain orange windbag to share these small facts with his Cabinet. They might be small details, but they should prove helpful in 2017.

Happy New Year!

Back Up...Unloading!

Yeah, that's me. I have a lot to say. I've been hiding out, buried under piles of work. I needed to breathe, so I'm indulging myself in a little creative writing and unloading today.

It's been nearly a month since I've posted here! I don't like that, I try to be consistent, but I thank my readers and followers for sticking with me.

First, feast your eyes on South Park and the Arkansas River Valley near Buena Vista. Last weekend we went up to the shed, on our property overlooking Pikes Peak and South Park.

The reason for the long break is, as usual, work. I've been extra busy because I picked up a small project on the side in order to bring in a little income and that helped. Starting a business requires constant investment and re-investment, and when there isn't anything coming in at the beginning, it depletes your reserves quickly.

But that's okay because I am doing what is important to me.

So first, a few minor orders of business. I finally, after 8 1/2 years, bought the domain alenegonebad.com so now you can find me without having to type in the extra blogspot stuff. Takes you right back here. No change.

I haven't been running much. This morning I did run for an hour and a half. It finally got hot, in the 90s, and might hit 100 by the end of the week. I guess that's what it takes to motivate me to run?

I am planning on running/walking an event over Labor Day. My friend Marissa is putting on her 12 hour fatass "There Goes the Sun" on September 3, and I'm "training". That means I am getting out and walking with a little running mixed in. Shooting for being able to stay upright and moving forward for the entire 12 hours.

The weekend before last I went running/hiking Round Mountain with my friend Emma and we encountered two unhappy snakes, one bull snake, one rattlesnake. Got a good closeup of the rattler.

You know where this is going...Orlando, of course. And I am so disgusted, but something feels like this was a turning point. It's disgusting to see the party of homophobia suddenly saying all these platitudes (because you know they are only posturing in an election year)about the LGBTQ community. Just last month they wanted birth certificates to go to the bathroom, and so on.

The gun thing is finally shifting too. #NRASTFU is what I say. The refusal of the gun lobby to have a mature, intelligent conversation about reality, and their endless excuses as if the second amendment is some sort of divine ruling from the heavens. They freaking worship guns, and the second amendment is their god.There is no reason why any group should have so much power, that they can even prevent research into gun (safety) violence as a public health issue. That is insane. And we continue to have all these shootings and gun deaths day after day. Like little boys throwing a temper tantrum. There are some girls in there, too, but the leadership is mostly men. That's part of the problem with everything in this country, and it looks like it's about to change in a big way.

And I'm sure those misogynistic pasty old white dudes explaining righteously(M-POWDERs) will be just as obstructionistic toward Hillary Clinton as they were toward Barack Obama. Except they might lose their majority after all the nonsense and putting their clown lineup on display, to show the pathetic lack of substance and outright denial of the real issues facing the people of this country. A breath of fresh air, that would be, if the whole damn Republican party imploded. And let's clearcut and burn the Democratic party too. Start over. With real people, who look like the ones in the general population, not a bunch of POWDERS! We could finally make some forward progress.

Okay, back to earth. What's real. Good news first.

A Twinkle in the Eye...

After searching for several months, we found an Australian Shepherd breeder we like in Nebraska, just 5 hours from here, and we decided to splurge and put a deposit down on two puppies, to arrive either late this year or early next. They are not even a twinkle in the eye of some Aussie dude yet, but we are expecting.

We plan to get two girls again, at least one black tri, maybe one black and one red. We are looking forward to puppy-proofing the house and some of the work we will do this summer involves checking out garage sales for things like baby gates, agility equipment and toys for the girls. We'll have to puppy-proof parts of the house and the garden.

We miss Iris and Isabelle so much, every single day. We were going to take their ashes to the place we planned, but we weren't ready. We're not ready for pups yet, but we are moving closer. I miss having my buddies around!

Life & Death

Three of my running friends have been diagnosed with cancer in the past few months. It's been tough seeing them go through their separate situations. One of them, an ultra buddy of mine, is fortunate to have had an early diagnosis, and I hope the outcome will be as good as it can be. The other two have quite advanced cancer. One is young, the other is older but not old. Also, one of my neighbors, in his 80s, also received bad news about his own advanced cancer. He's been active, walked everyday and we had many occasions to walk together and talk. He always was a friend to Iris and Isabelle. He's a fascinating person, and he is the most spiritually healthy person I know.

I'm going to miss him and my other, older friend who is being treated to manage symptoms. She has prepared herself too, and I am proud of her for taking the steps to do what no one wants to do.

Death runs in the family. It does in mine, anyway, I don't know if your relatives are immortal. I certainly wouldn't have wanted some of mine to stick around forever. I definitely don't want to. We're all going to die. Let's confront it, accept it, and plan for it, before we find out the end is closer than we expected, so we can have a good death as the end to a good life.

I wish that more people would examine their own mortality and face it, because it makes things so much less chaotic, it's better for everyone around them to know that they've thought through it, decided what they want, and are okay with it. But we have a long way to go in this country. Our collective immaturity has deemed us the world's teenager. Impulsive, without a fully developed frontal lobe. Thinking only of ourselves and not of the person next to us, or how our own actions, or lack thereof, affect them.

Clinical Trials and Boob Smashing

Speaking of life and family and cancer, I just enrolled in a clinical trial, because of my extensive family history of cancer, especially leukemias. The trial was looking for people over 50, never diagnosed with cancer, with a strong family history of it. It involves genetic testing and looking for early cancer markers. I'll find out the results, too. I realize that I might find out something I'd rather not know about or have to deal with, but knowledge is power.

I'll be getting my blood drawn next week for that. I'm excited to be a lab rat. It's so hard to get subjects for clinical trials, and they are absolutely necessary for us to advance our state of knowledge about cancer and how to treat it. So if you have the opportunity, please participate in one. You never know who, down the road, might benefit or even have their life saved by your participation.

Since we're on the subject, I decided to also splurge on a 3D mammogram when I go in next month. Breast Tomosynthesis is the name of the screening. It gives a 3D picture, actually about 11 different images from different angles. Also I heard they don't smash your boob as hard, which is good news for me, because that hurts! It's a good way to get a better image especially in people with dense breast tissue, like me. I'm dense. I'll have a report on it here, of course.

I have some other topics to touch on. Mental health is another one. And I have more, much more to say about healthcare, as you know it's one of my favorite rant topics. But I'll get to that later. I'll be back, I've missed blogging and I am starting to miss running. I wish I had more than a few days a week where I felt motivated to take running steps rather than walking. But I still feel fine when I run most of the way in a 10 mile outing, like I did today.

Scroll down and enjoy the rest of the photos from last weekend. Most are from our property but many are from the Colorado Trail and areas nearby. So great to live here, and to hang out in the shadow of the Buffalo Peaks and looking out across lower South Park at Pikes Peak.

When I have those difficult days, I just need to remember I am surrounded by so much good. Working alone, feeling like it's a forever uphill climb, and feeling like the world wants to duct tape your mouth so your voice is muffled, and they pretend they don't understand you, but really, they do, but it's just too hard for them to gather the courage to climb out of the box.

I'll keep being myself, even if I'm a lone voice (which I know I'm not) and at a distinct disadvantage because of power and resources (which I will not allow to stop me) and I'm just going to keep getting louder.

Thanks for reading!

Turbulence and Challenge

After a pathetic week with the snow and cold, I finally got out and ran an easy five mile run with Emma on Sunday. We did Bingham Hill, which gave it a little challenge. I didn't feel bad at all running up the steep side and we talked the whole way.

Yesterday I got a good ten miles in on my feet, about seven of those were running. I'm running with Wheaties Boy tonight. It's warm again but windy today. There were whitecaps on the lake when I went out to do a therapeutic walk late this morning.

Now I'm tapping my feet at the desk. It's the calm before the storm. Tomorrow I meet with the marketing firm to plan the last steps before we launch my new service, Cancer Harbors. I'm nervous with anticipation. I don't expect miracles to happen and certainly not overnight success. It's going to be a process, much like an ultra, with ups and downs, good and bad patches, without a finish line on the horizon.

I'm troubled by something I learned yesterday, about one of the runners I've admired for many years, he's in his 80s, and just got some bad medical news. Cancer is something I am around all the time. I hate what this disease does to people, and I like that I am able to intervene in some ways and make things somewhat smoother, even if I can't fix any of it. There's been enough cancer in my family, and around me, in addition to my work and my clients, that it is something I've become used to, but not in a way of losing empathy or numbness.

I do know that burnout is something I will have to avoid, it is always a possibility when you're in healthcare and working with people who have intense needs. There's a certain distance you become able to maintain, but not enough that you can't emotionally grasp what they are experiencing. I don't know how to describe it. The ability to do that must be somewhat of a necessity if you're going to work in this field. You also need to be able to give something back to yourself, to refill your own tank.

Right now in addition to my dad's recent treatment and tentative remission, and the fact that a young person close to our family is in a hospital being prepped for a second bone marrow transplant after a leukemia relapse, and doing all I can to support my stepmom and others through coping with my dad's health problems, and my daily work which involves caring for people going through various phases of treatment or after treatment, it seems like I've been going along doing pretty well.

And then this news yesterday hit me. I was trying to figure out why it bothered me so much. He's lived a long active healthy and fun life. He expresses gratitude for all he's been able to do and experience in his time. It makes me mad that he has to deal with this, but then I know that cancer bully doesn't care, it picks on anyone and for no particular reason.

Those who think that by being a runner, eating healthy food and living a low stress lifestyle they can avoid cancer are just fooling themselves. There are other reasons to take care of yourself, of course, but if you're going to develop cancer, you're going to. At least until the day when we figure out whatever goes on inside our bodies molecularly and genetically to get cancer started and stop it.

Maybe it's because lately I wonder about my own existence, I've been working so hard on Cancer Harbors that I have foregone running, ultras, adventures, traveling, and having the money to do it. I've always felt that if I died tomorrow I would not regret it, I feel like I have packed a lot of living and fun into 52 years. If I'm taking up space on the planet, I need to be contributing something, and by coloring outside the lines and being disruptive and vocal, not following the beaten path, I am.

Recently I've been missing something, and maybe it is the accumulation of the caregiving role combined with the lack of spiritual outlet that running ultradistances gives me. Maybe it's working alone, without coworkers or people to talk to for most of the day, not even having the counsel of Iris and Isabelle anymore, in all of their superior wisdom. I don't know what independent health care providers do to take care of themselves, to cope with the emotional burden of the work they do. I have probably two dozen people I could reach out to, but they're all too far away for face-to-face conversation, in the flesh.

There's also the nagging thought that rarely surfaces but is back there somewhere, with my crazy family history of leukemia and other cancers, and who knows if they are hereditary or just random, that something could be waiting for me up ahead, and I want to be able to face it if I need to, with no regrets. So maybe what I really need to do is start running long again, just getting out on the trails around here more often, being outside and experiencing as much as I can while my resources are limited. Being outdoors always has been my solace. I need to find a way to challenge myself regularly again.

Climbing fences and trees with a corncob in your mouth adds an element of challenge.

Yesterday my friend Marissa saved the day for me, she is putting on another run like the Equinox run we did last spring in Arvada. This time it will be over Labor Day weekend. It will be an early fall equinox event, called "There Goes The Sun". That gives me a little over five months to get ready to spend 12 hours on my feet. I needed that much more than I realized. I'm going.

Evolution of a Runner and Thoughts on Life and Death

Monday was solstice and I made a commitment to myself to get moving. So far this week I have been successful. Lifting, doing my abs and core work, my hip strengthening exercises, and running and walking. My neighbor has helped, she's been off work after hand and wrist surgery so she can't do her usual yoga, and we decided to walk while she is unable to do her routine, which helps me get out the door.

It's been cold and I haven't been running a lot, I did an hour on Monday and a little over a half hour each on Tuesday and today. I will try for an hour of running tomorrow even though it's supposed to be super cold. But Christmas and any big holiday have always been my favorite times to run because traffic tends to be light, people tend to be in a decent mood, at least less likely to run you over. I'm sure that will all change on the 26th when the shopping frenzy resumes.

I was thinking a bit about how I've evolved as a runner. For me it has never been a straight line, I have gone back and forth with being competitive and non-competitive, being highly driven and laid back. I love to run and I am thinking about finding some fun adventures to do in the coming year, though they won't be about racing or being competitive. I am ready to explore some trails and places I've been wanting to go but my specialized training for roads and my ankle problems never allowed me to put much effort into it. I have some new running partners who are also on-foot adventurers, and one of them is as much a photo freak as I am, and I find myself looking forward to their company.

Tomorrow is Christmas. We are taking it easy, having one friend over and that's it. I made tortilla soup and I got some stuff for quesadillas, and baked some cookies. After two tries on the cookies I finally did it right. I don't know why but cooking in the kitchen has been disastrous this week, I attribute it to the lack of a kitchen supervisor watching me. Isabelle took over Iris's position, and she was getting good at it. But now it's just me. Cooking is not nearly as much fun without Buffaloes.

We got Isabelle's ashes back last night. Dennis cried as he walked in the house with her, having picked her ashes up on his way home from work. A little turquoise box. It's almost an affront to fourteen years of companionship. But that's the way they do it, and now we have them both back.

It's so strange to receive the remains of your dog, the whole, wiggly, soft, furry, loving, interacting, communicating, responsive creature, in the form of a little cheesy-looking box in baby turquoise blue with a little pawprint charm attached to it, with some fake flowers to top it off. Now Iris and Isabelle are both home for Christmas, sitting together on top of the dresser, next to the hedgehog and bone pillow they each loved.

I remember how Iris and Isabelle used to run and could go forever, running circles around us, covering ten times the distance we did. Then they gradually slowed down, going from running Dennis's pace to my pace, to slower than me, then just walking, and in Isabelle's case, barely walking, until she could only go places being pushed in the cart.

I miss my girls, but I wouldn't have wanted to prolong either of their lives beyond where they both ended. I wouldn't have subjected Iris to being reliant on medications to prevent her from having seizures until she got so bad that she herniated, and I wouldn't have wanted Bella to keep losing her balance, falling, not being able to get up without help, losing bowel and bladder control, and living with the pain in her joints.

I know I'll keep moving as long as I can. I just hope that by the time I am unable to move forward on my own feet, that I or someone will be able to help me end my life when I feel like there's no reason to live. I hope by then we have more progressive laws that allow for that to happen for humans.

Death is a part of life and we're all going to die someday so we might as well accept our mortality and live each day the best that we can. If more people would not avoid thinking about and discussing death, and learn to face it as a normal part of what happens in our lives, and deal with the reality of it, we would be so much better off.

We would live our lives better, take better care of ourselves and each other, spend so much less on medical interventions, and we would finally expand palliative care to be a major part of medicine and health care. Instead of treating people as diseases, we could treat them as people who need help either healing or being made more comfortable.

The days are getting longer, and that means more daylight to enjoy each day. Only one more week until spring. Full speed ahead!

Obituary: Isabelle Leck

The Buffaloes have reunited.

Isabelle Leck was born July 5, 2001 in Mesa, Arizona. She came to live with her parents and sister Iris in Fountain Hills, Arizona on September 6, 2001. Isabelle was bred to be a show dog, but she was destined for a much better life.

Isabelle was the shy, quiet one of the two girls, but she was full of surprises. She could be sneaky, and her vicious bark belied her lifelong sweet puppy face. From the first day we met her, her favorite activity was lying down. She loved the cool feel of the tile on her soft pink belly.

Iris was her big sister, trainer, disciplinarian, and groomer. The girls started out as the Buffaloes, stampeding around the tiny house in Fountain Hills and exploring the desert. When the girls were five years old, they moved with their parents to Fort Collins, Colorado. Mom and dad promised them a house with a big yard, grass, trees, and squirrels, and they delivered.

Isabelle loved to fence fight with the neighbor dogs, leaping over anything in her path to be the first one snarling at the fence. She was an ace mouse chaser and bird catcher. At the same time, Isabelle was afraid of many things, particularly insects. Moths and flies were her nemesis, they were terrifying. She relied on her sister to catch them.

She also hated sprinklers, but her sister would protect her, biting the sprinklers to keep them away. She did not like four letter words. We had to watch our language carefully so we did not offend the Flying Nun.

Isabelle had many nicknames. She was the Hedgehog, Mouse, Flying Nun, Sister Bella, but most of the time, she was The Bella. "Don't scare The Bella" was our household mantra.

Isabelle loved to sing and dance, swim in the pool, and cool her belly on whatever surface was available. She loved blizzards, and would stay outside until the snow buried her, with only the tips of her black ears visible above the snow until she shook it off.

She loved to play in the mountains, visiting the shed and the cabin, chasing her sister through the tall grass, sniffing for doggie M & Ms that the deer and elk would leave behind, camping out under the trees and going for long trail runs.

Isabelle had a devious streak. When her sister wasn't looking, Isabelle would finish her own food, then nonchalantly move over and start working on her sister's bowl. She would let her sister do all the work of begging, but Isabelle was always rewarded. Food was Isabelle's comfort and raison d'etre, all the way to the end.

When her arthritis got so bad that she couldn't walk very far, dad would take her for a ride in the Rocket, a special cart her dad built, to get Starbucks pup cups, or for drives on summer evenings to Dairy Queen for cones filled with whipped cream. Isabelle thought Dad was the greatest creature on earth.

She is survived by her Mom Alene and Dad Dennis, grandparents, and many aunts, uncles, and cousins.

There are no words to capture the pure joy these two beautiful girls added to our lives. The Buffalo generation will be missed and remembered with many tears, smiles, and laughs for as long as we live. And the next generation, whenever we bring them into our lives, will surely hear endless stories of their predecessors' antics and legacy.

Now Isabelle joins her sister again on the other side, free to chase squirrels and run, or just lie down, whenever she wants to. The Buffaloes always belonged together, and they always will be.