The 10 K

I ran five miles once. My brother and I challenged ourselves to run around the entire section. A county road section is normally a total of four miles, but the one that we ran was actually five. You could definitely say that we took it slow! But we made it. And I was pretty sore the next day.

I'm thinking back on that experience because early tomorrow morning, Tracy and I are going to do the Omaha 10 K. We signed up months ago figuring that this would be a good challenge for us as we celebrate a return to normal after the conclusion of Tracy's chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

Or so we thought.

We vastly underestimated the time that it would take Tracy to recover from her cancer treatment. Everybody's different, of course. But in Tracy's case, she has tried to get back to where she was before the diagnosis. She used to work out regularly. She's even run a couple half marathons. But Tracy experienced light-headedness during or after workouts. One night, her symptoms were so bad that we went to the emergency room. Given her history with herceptin and the way that it affected her heart, we were very concerned. We wound up spending the night in the hospital that night, but in the end we were relieved that the tests showed that her heart was fine. We found out that she had been having trouble with low potassium. Since then, she's been able to manage that problem, but we decided against training for the 10 K.

One thing that we learned from all of this is that, cancer treatment is not easy to come back from. It takes a long time for things to even start to feel normal again. But we will be there tomorrow and we will participate.

We will take it as a small victory.

A Year of Marriage

It’s Saturday morning, September 19. A year ago at this time, I was spending my last few hours as a “free man”. It is hard to believe that it’s already been a year since Tracy and I got married. As any regular reader of this blog knows, it’s been an eventful year. The devastating news of Tracy’s cancer diagnosis one month into our marriage overshadowed the excitement of being a newlywed. It’s left us with a most unusual feeling. It seems like our wedding was almost yesterday, but it’s been a very long year. When your wife is diagnosed with breast cancer, it’s always going to be tough. We’re just very fortunate that we were able to catch the cancer when we did. But one thing this whole experience has done for us is that it has given our marriage a chance to be tested.

Today’s weather reminds me of our wedding day. The sun is bright and the temp is about 78 degrees. My brother and I went out and played tennis in the morning. It was just a great day all around. I was nervous, of course. And I have to say that our decision not to see each other on the day of the wedding really added to the excitement. Everything went smoothly until we realized that we were running late. We had to pick up someone on the north end of town and then make the drive to the south end. Fortunately, Paul was up to the task, because I was too nervous to drive. But when we got there, everything settled down for me. With my entire wedding party there to joke around with and reminisce, I really just enjoyed the rest of the day.

And the rest is history! When you get married later in life, you have plenty of time to think about what kind of husband you would like to be. I was resolved to the fact that when I got married, I was going to be someone who could be counted on. I think I was prepared for the adversity that was to come.

But this weekend is not about cancer. We’re celebrating our one-year wedding anniversary. Next month, will bring another one-year anniversary--

the day that cancer introduced itself to our lives.