Chasing Kris

My First Year of Running, (that's how I think of it, like it's a title) included a 7 mile race and two half marathons, with another half marathon relay (that's a quarter marathon, which sounds less impressive).  I was finding my happy pace that year, chugging along toward my first half marathon. To be blunt, it stunk.  It took all my secret dreams of a smooth and easy race and crushed them.  I walked the last 2 miles. Afterward, I dragged my stiff self home and figured I could do better.  So half marathon number two came up and I aced it.  That's a personal definition, as there were so many people who did it "better" than me in terms of time, or energy left over, or really fun outfits.  But for me, I accomplished my goal of proving that I could actually run, with no stops for walking, a half marathon.  But I lost three toenails as a result and took a month off to recover.  That seemed pretty excessive, even to my untrained, newbie running mind.  Do

This little cancer boob nugget of mine has caused me quite enough grief lately.  In deciding what to do about the diagnosis, the prevailing thought was that the first step was to carve it out.  I'm someone who asks a lot of questions and doesn't always go with the conventional wisdom, but all roads seemed to turn to the chop shop on this one. I scheduled my lumpectomy for the end of April.  Despite the fact that it is full on surgery, complete with the tube-down-the-throat complete suite of anesthesia, this did seem like a pretty routine procedure.  Certainly, my doctor seemed well qualified to perform the task and I had no doubt all would be well. I reported for surgery at 7am.  In the paperwork process, they want to know things like whether you have a healthcare directive or a living will.  Let me just say, this is not the most comforting thing to bring up when someone is presenting themselves for what they believe is to be a routine procedure! After the paperwork phase

I'm about six weeks into my cancer journey now.  On one hand, this has been such an unexpected path to pop up in my life suddenly, and on the other it sounds like a long time ago.  Six weeks to accept the diagnosis, six weeks to choose the attitude I intend to go forward with in the face of this beast.  Six weeks to really understand that I have cancer. Cancer is such a broad name for this disease, because it can mean so many things.  There are important additives to that word.  The stage of cancer, the location of cancer, the size, the intensity of its growth are all add ons that clarify and quantify the threat to life.  In my case, I have the luxury of saying mine is stage 1, it's breast cancer and it's not near my chest wall, it's small and I appear to have had it detected before it starts to take over.  These are great things; and yet, it is still cancer.  There is still the potential threat to my life.  Certainly, it has already affected my life in a permanent a

I am five days past my diagnosis of invasive ductal carcinoma and have spend countless hours digesting information on the disease.  I do not have a medical game plan yet, as I have to meet with surgeons this week to discuss the options for treatment. In the meantime, one of the key factors that has clicked with me is the understanding that cancer cells operate on a glucose based energy system.  These little nasties can apparently not use fats to grow, instead relying on glucose.  They are also anaerobic, meaning they don't need or like oxygen in their little bubble. There is a diet recommended by several sites that is designed to switch the body's fuel cells to fat burning.  Chief among them is the ketogenic diet.  This is the hard core phase of the Atkins Diet.  The idea is to burn off all our glucose and begin getting the body to use its fat stores.  The measure for success is the presence of ketones in the urine.  With cancer, there is also a need to be as organic a

Life can take some really interesting twists and turns, let me tell you.  This week, I was fairly blindsided by a diagnosis of ductal carcinoma (aka breast cancer). A few months back, at a regular exam, my gynecologist noticed a small lump in my right breast.  I took note of it and started being more mindful of it: did it change during my cycle, was it getting bigger, did it hurt, etc. This may seem like a lackadaisacal reaction to something that many women would immediately take action against.  But I have no history of breast cancer anywhere in my family, and I've done everything right in terms of having a low risk of this disease.  I've breastfed three babies for two years each, I exercise regularly, I eat mostly healthy food, I'm not overweight (140 lbs at 5'9"), I don't smoke and never have, I don't take birth control or hormone therapy medications, nor do I have any hormone related issues.  So I figured I'd watch and wait. A week ago, I noti