Hey! We are officially on Christmas break! That means I can sleep in a little. Sleeping in was a lot more fun when I was younger. These days I tend to still wake up fairly early, and in pain so that staying in bed is not enjoyable. So I get up, make my coffee, get my mental work done, and then, depending on how I’m feeling, go back to bed for a morning nap.
I had a good morning at church today. God and I are working on some things. He’s tugging at my heart and helping me to let go of some of my idols. Getting back into a healthier routine. Every day is an opportunity for a fresh start. Today was that for me. A reset, for sure. My fluctuating hormones and energy levels have really made it hard for me to feel balanced, and I think that by getting back to some basic daily routines, I will start to feel more steady.
The routines I’m trying to work back into my daily life include drinking 64 ounces of water, reading, spending time in prayer and Bible study, and exercise. The idols I’m working to eliminate are binge watching television and the coloring app on my phone (which has since been removed… again.). These two things are not only big time sucks, but they aren’t great for my mental health and clarity. They’ve got to go.
Daily exercise may be my biggest challenge. I don’t have much energy these days, so it’s a matter of talking myself into it. Every day. The vicious cycle is that the less I exercise, the more my energy levels drop, and the more my energy drops, the less likely I am to exercise. So I just need to resolve to do it. And that is starting tomorrow.
I also want to get my writing mojo back; I miss it. I am journaling daily, so I am still writing. I don’t think that will ever change with me. I’ve journaled since I could hold a crayon. But part of getting that mojo back is why I’m posting more here, even if it’s mindless drivel. I’m hoping to write more content that I can be excited about. Writing wakes up parts of my soul that have gone dormant, but it takes a bit of work sometimes to chip away at the crusty covered up parts.
So that is what I’ve been hammering out today, new habits. Writing, reading, hydrating, praying, studying, and exercising. Hoping for the start of a new phase. I’m getting really bored of the current one. So here’s to new days and new habits. Until next time, shalom!
Category Archives: Prayer
Week 12 Marathon training 2.0
*I feel like I need to put a disclaimer here. I’m having a difficult time writing this but I’m doing it anyway. A tragedy occurred this past weekend in our small community and so everything I’m talking about here seems trivial at the moment. While I had a great morning after completing my long run on Saturday, my son came home and informed me of what had happened. So I’m balancing that need to keep moving forward while pondering and praying for the people who are affected by the tragedy. Following is my trivial training update:
Monday: Leg Day
Tuesday: 85 minute walk, 6.21 miles
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Infusion day, skipped my planned run
Friday: 30 minute walk, 1.33 miles
Saturday: 18 miles
Weekly Miles: 25.54
Miles since marathon training started: 200
Half Marathon training miles: 193
Total miles banked for marathon preparation: 393
I was nervous about this week’s long run, because so much of my training plan has been thrown off in the last several weeks. I had not been able to complete the last two long runs due to heat and then a busted blister. I consulted with my sister, a veteran ultra-runner, and she helped me adjust the remainder of my training plan. Instead of jumping in where I left off, we lowered the miles to meet me where I am. And I’m semi-confident that with this adjusted plan I will still be prepared once race day comes.
I had been watching the weather, hoping it would cooperate enough to allow me to complete these 18 miles outdoors. I was looking at the forecast for Saturday, and it looked near perfect for running. The only problem was that my son had a tennis tournament scheduled for that day and I had hoped to be there to watch him play. No worries, I would just run on the treadmill on Friday instead. But then Thursday evening came, and a massive storm came through our area and left thousands of homes without power, including our own. So treadmill running was out. I wasn’t sure now what I was going to do about this run, but I was so preoccupied with the power outage and all that entailed (seriously you really take electricity for granted until it’s gone), so I wasn’t concerned. And then the tournament got cancelled, because the school didn’t have power, and the visiting team’s hotel reservations were cancelled so that the hotel could house the people who had lost their homes in the storms. I could now run my 18 miles on Saturday, outside in the beautiful weather. A tiny selfish win for me, but an enormous loss for the families.
This week has been an emotional rollercoaster for my heart. Bittersweet. I ran my 18 miles. I couldn’t do a complete out and back because the bridge was flooded, so I was going to have to run the last 5 or 6 in my neighborhood. This was not ideal, but I made the best of it by deciding to drop my cumbersome hydration pack at my house and run the last 3 miles without that burden literally weighing me down. It was these last several miles when I was really feeling the pain of running, in all the muscles that counted. So it was a mental challenge to continue on when I could have easily quit early and walked back to my house. But I didn’t! I pushed through, and it felt amazing. I finished the 18, pressed stop on my watch, and said to myself, “You did it! 18 miles. Only 7 away from a marathon.” Because I can’t do math and run at the same time. (Marathons are 26.2 miles, fyi)
The pain I was feeling most acutely was in my feet, my glutes, and my left hip. The left hip was probably the worst pain, so I’m taking care of that and will keep an eye on it. I do think the training I’ve been doing at the gym with the weight machines has really been helping my running, so I’m going to keep doing that. I didn’t have much trouble with either my left ankle or my right toe, although my right toe does have some lingering soreness today. I still might call the imagining center in town to see about getting some x-rays. What I’ve been learning in this training cycle is that it’s important to listen to your body and treat the pain as signals or messages alerting you to what needs to be strengthened. I caught this nugget of wisdom from Jerry Seinfeld on Comedians in Cars getting Coffee: “Pain is knowledge rushing in to fill a gap.” It’s true, the pain gives me knowledge. Knowledge about where to focus my strength training on my next day at the gym, or when to seek professional guidance. So I’m treating this run as a win, because a day later my body is still giving me all sorts of knowledge.
I hope you all have a blessed day, dear readers. Please don’t take anything you have for granted. Enjoy it all, while you have it. And hug your loved ones. Shalom.
Trigger Warning: Suicide
Doctors never did figure out why I had been sleeping so much. They tested for all sorts of things, but came up short. They suspected Susac’s Syndrome, which at the time I thought was fatal, so I’m glad that turned up negative. I’ve had a couple fluorescein angiograms to take pictures of the blood vessels in my eyes, but both times they showed that everything was normal. To this day, I’m still a medical mystery.
After sleeping a couple months of my life away, I started to wake up a bit more to what was going on. I was still very deaf and still could not see well, and still had no answers and no hope. The reality of it all was starting to set in. I was now, ironically, having trouble falling asleep at night. The tinnitus would get so loud. I remember the ringing sounded a lot like chanting monks, which would normally be a comfort to me, but at four in the morning it was a nuisance. I brought this issue up to Dr. Hong at a follow up visit and he prescribed me Xanax to help me sleep. It worked wonders. I was able to get proper rest at night and was miraculously still able to wake up in the mornings to help get the kids ready for school.
I want to convey my level of desperation at this point in time without being overly dramatic. Mike and the kids had left me home alone for an evening because I had seemed to be doing so well, but that turned out to not be the case. I was feeling scared and beat down and I couldn’t see any way out of my situation. I was unable to communicate effectively with everyone I cared about. I felt utterly ALONE. I was at the end of my rope, and wanting to let go. I was feeling so desperate for a way out that I seriously considered swallowing the whole bottle of Xanax. Even more frightening than the hearing and vision loss was the thought that I wanted to check out of life permanently. I reached out to my girlfriends, hoping and praying that one of them could come over and save me from myself. My friend Tracy was the first to respond and she rushed over to the house. She prayed with me and hugged me and reminded me that I was not alone in this struggle. She left that night with the bottle of Xanax so I wouldn’t be tempted again.
As awful as it was, that night was a turning point for me. I had to stop retreating into myself. I needed to reach out, both to God and to the friends and family He had put in my life. After my family returned home that night and we put the kids to bed, I shared with my husband what had happened. I could see from his face that he was both shocked and sad, but he was glad I told him and he reassured me that we were in this together, and that he and the kids needed me. We hugged for a long time and he let me cry on his shoulder. It was good to be reminded that he was there for me because, while we didn’t know it yet, we had an important trip coming up at the end of the month to the Mayo Clinic. I’ll be sharing more about that in the next installment of Adventures with Mel 😉
Cherishing the silence
I’m finding that I do my best thinking when my “ears” are off (my cochlear implant processors). Even at night, when the house is quiet. It’s just a whole different kind of quiet, because all I hear is the low ringing tones of tinnitus and absolutely nothing else. You probably don’t realize there is noise to be heard, but just try plugging your ears for a few seconds and you’ll see what I mean. There’s a word for that noise but I can’t think of it at the moment. Ambient maybe?
What’s funny about me enjoying this silent existence is that it used to terrify me. So much so, that I needed medication just to sleep at night. But 4 years of deafness and now I welcome the silence. It’s helpful to retreat into myself, to focus my thoughts, but mostly I embrace it because it’s now my favorite time to talk to Jesus. He meets me here in the silence. He was here with me every day while I wrestled with hearing loss and vision loss back in 2013, and he’s never left me since. I don’t share this info often, but there was a song I used to sing during that time, over and over and over mostly in my head, and it brought me peace and comfort when not much else did. I’ll post the lyrics below because you might see how unbelievably appropriate it was for what I was going through. The interesting thing about it, no – miraculous – is that prior to losing my hearing, I had only heard that song one time that I can recall. It was in a movie that I watched once years ago. How on earth could I have remembered that song? Only God knows. But boy, did that song ever save me from a really ugly and scary time in my life, and I believe it will now forever be my theme song.
Losing my hearing and vision was an enormous life changer for me, for obvious reasons, but God has used it all to bring about incredibly wonderful changes. The biggest change, and the one I am most grateful for, is that it solidified my faith in Jesus. He showed me through that song, through the support we received from family and friends, through Scripture, through the fact that we survived it all, that He will never leave me.
So. When I’m settling in for the night and am taking off my ears and entering the silence, I am delighted to talk to Him. He is my peace, forever and always, amen.
Jesus, Lover of my Soul
Jesus, lover of my soul
Jesus, I will never let you go
You’ve taken me from the miry clay
Set my feet upon the rock, and now I know
I love you, I need you
Though my world may fall, I’ll never let you go
My Savior, my closest friend
I will worship you until the very end
I’m not dead! I’m getting better! I think I’ll go for a walk…
That title is a Monty Python and the Holy Grail quote for those in the know… best read out loud with a British accent.
It’s true! I’m still here! Blog still somewhat active! The irony here, folks, is that when there is much going on and much to tell, there isn’t much time to sit down and write about it. But that time is coming. In fact, it’s kind of here, and as soon as the dust settles, I’m sure you’ll be hearing more from me.
Our little family of four (plus the dog) is happy and healthy. It’s beautiful and amazing and I am so thankful. However, I am surrounded by friends and family who are struggling in a variety of ways; sickness, disease, financial struggles, you name it. And seriously, my heart is aching for every single one of them. I am overwhelmed with a desire to help, now that I am awake enough to be aware of others’ needs. That fog has lifted from my internal/mental space. I am free to be aware. Which is a gift, yes, but with my limitations I don’t know HOW to help, other than to pray. So I pray, a lot, and I reach out as much as possible, because I know when I was struggling it meant the world to me when people did that. A note here, a message there, it all made such a difference. People say that it’s the thought that counts, but that’s not true. Unless the thought leads to action – great or small – it means nothing. But those actions do mean a great deal, no matter how small we think they are.
So that’s all I have for today, and I realize it’s a bit of a cheat, but oh well. Life goes on. Ob-la-di, ob-la-da.
Wait, before I go, can I challenge you all to something today? Turn your thoughts into actions. The positive ones, of course. If you think about doing something nice, DO IT. Be kind and courageous. I dare you!
Little M.S. Runner 