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!

Quality of Life...

I haven't really been in the mood for writing lately. I've been surprisingly together since Iris is gone, but I do miss her. I realize every day that there is some habit that I've acquired just because of her, that I no longer need to continue. It's really strange as I keep discovering all the ways she affected our lives and how many things we did for her.

I haven't been overly motivated but I am slowly getting things done, chipping away at a long list of tasks that I need to stay on...I have a new student working with me, which helps to keep me on my toes.

Since we skipped our vacation and stuck around I got a few things organized. I got some bookshelves for the woman cave that I've been needing: I had piles of stuff everywhere.

Running-wise, nothing, but I have been getting out for lots of miles on my feet, did over 60 this past week. This is the view I see now. I've been pushing Isabelle around in the cart. Her arthritis in her right hip is really bothering her. We give her Rimadyl but it just doesn't seem to be enough these days, so what I want to do is try giving her some marijuana-laced dog treats. I ordered some and we should have them by early this coming week. They have the active compound that might help her without much THC, so it shouldn't be psychoactive. I'm hoping that that helps her enough to make her more comfortable.

We've been trying to keep her busy, trips to Dairy Queen for pup cones, Starbucks for pup cups, and so on.

If that doesn't work I will call the pet palliative care service because they might be able to help us figure out ways to make the house and her everyday activities more comfortable for her.

We're talking about a 14 year old dog who still enjoys some things, like eating, watching squirrels, howling at us when we come home, and sitting in the grass in the yard letting the breeze blow in her hair, I just want her to be as comfortable as possible and not be bored or depressed, especially after losing her lifetime companion a few weeks ago.

Last night I walked to the bookstore just to get some miles on my feet while Dennis went to watch a Broncos game with his friend Mark. I got some bedtime reading for Isabelle: I needed some Selp-Helf. The new book by Miranda Sings. I can TOTALLY relate to her doing her character. I am a loyal Mirfanda.

Last week we were going a little stir crazy and we decided to have a garage sale. That was an interesting study in human nature. No need to go to Walmart, you can just bring it to your house. I think next year on my birthday maybe I need to run from garage sale to garage sale instead of going to Walmart.

Grief is so unpredictable. You don't know how you're going to respond. I have been amazingly tear-free. I keep thinking that maybe one of these days it's going to hit me, but maybe it won't hit me until Isabelle's gone. I don't know.

I feel like Iris's time was done, she was such a great dog. Nobody had a personality like that. As I walk through the neighborhood, it amazes me how many people knew Iris around here. Not just on our block, but for a good mile radius from the house, so many people knew us from walking and running her. The entire Starbucks staff. And many of the customers too. She lit up the room and commanded all the attention. She was like a bright light that you couldn't look away from. A true soulmate.

I was thinking about maybe taking Isabelle to a 5K in pushing her in the cart and see how I feel about being around runners. Local short road races don't get me motivated because I have so little interest in them. If anything I can just do the miles on my feet and just so that I'll be able to tolerate it when I get back to doing some ultras.

I do have my work cut out for me as far as work goes because I need to finish the content for this online service. One thing I can say is that work still brings me an incredible amount of joy. I don't know how many people get to have that feeling where they do their work and feel so good about it. How do I describe it other than this warm feeling that spreads and takes over your entire being. It feels so satisfying, purpose-driven and right.

I can't even describe it any other way, I know never felt that way as an oncology nurse in the hospital because of all the little mindless tasks that had nothing to do with taking care of patients and helping them make their lives better. I knew that I was helping people and I felt good about that but it was nothing like this.

Which reminds me, I keep seeing all these articles in medical newsletters talking about how cancer survivorship care plans are not really helping people and they're causing more anxiety. Well, DUH!!! I could've told you that because all you're doing is telling people all the things they need to watch out for, in terms of cancer recurrence, and the thing that people are most anxious about is a cancer recurrence.

The follow-up screenings are important, but you have to show people what they can actually do, in terms of actions you can take to help yourself feel better, live better, and enjoy life more. But that's the stuff that the medical profession doesn't help with or know how to do or convey. They're not trained to do that.

It's okay if doctors don't know everything, but they need to acknowledge that their patients need something that they can't provide, so they need to stop being fuddy-duddies and start admitting that they don't know it all, because there are things that exist outside of their scope. They need to open their eyes, learn about other options for their patients, and start referring people to those services.

Basically what the medical establishment doesn't get, is that after you clearcut, burn, and salt the earth, you have to restore it somehow to bring it back to life. You can bring out all the chainsaws you want, but if you don't plant the seeds afterward and nurture the seedlings, you'll never have a forest again.

They're starting to catch on, but they don't have a way to act fast enough. They're tripped up by their own rigidity, dogma, and bureaucracy. And need I mention, profit interests? Not only that, but doctors are pathetically overworked, overstressed, and undersupported. And it's only getting worse as they've become employees of the big corporate health systems.

That's been one of the biggest frustrations for me, I pretty much have to ignore people in the medical profession, which is unfortunate because I'd love to work with them if they could just acknowledge that what I could bring to their patients would actually be very helpful. But, of course, when healthcare is really just about money, anything that helps their patients spend less money on healthcare is actually in competition with them. It's unfortunate that healthcare is the misnomer that it is.

People just don't trust science or medicine the way they used to, because there is so much corruption and greed on all levels. Just like our political and legal systems.

I didn't mean for this to launch into a rant. I'm thinking about the cancer stuff and how it takes years for the medical establishment to change anything they do. There's a lot of talk now about the inadequacy of cancer survivorship effforts but by the time they change anything from the current practice, I'm going to be retired or close to it. Meanwhile, there are people suffering and the medical people have little to offer them.

And on my way to the bookstore last night I was walking past the A & W and there was a sign that said, "Now hiring talented individuals starting at nine dollars an hour". They also had the same sign over by the dumpsters in back so it makes me wonder. Sad.

Bedtime reading for Isabelle.