My Cancer Adventures: Looking Back, Moving Forward

Exactly one year ago today, I received my diagnosis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer. It’s also been exactly six months since my final cancer treatment. I’ve always referred to all my tests, surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation treatments, and so forth as “my cancer adventures.” To mark this day I wanted to have a normal outdoorsy adventure, but one that somehow linked back to my cancer. I decided on a run.

Running is not only one of my hobbies, but it’s also one of the things that I missed doing the most while on chemo. There were times I couldn’t do anything but lay in bed, but something in me always wanted to be outside moving my body. As I’ve mentioned on here before, I started running again in May as I was going through my radiation treatments. Since then I’ve progressed little by little, getting some muscle fibers back, getting faster, and gaining endurance. My longest run so far has been 10K, or 6.2 miles.

That was until today.

Like I said, I wanted today to be an adventure. Today’s route was from to my main oncology clinic (where my doctor is located and where I went for chemo) and back - a round trip of 8 miles. (I didn’t do it on purpose and it didn’t dawn on me initially when I planned the route, but 8 is significant. It’s the number of chemo treatments I ended up having.) Running 8 miles was going to be a stretch at this point in my training, but it was doable.

The run was indeed fine. My legs were hurting towards the end, but I made it - and did so with a decent pace. I wish it would’ve been a bit warmer however as I was a bit cold at times, especially when I stopped to take the above selfie outside my clinic. Nevertheless it felt really good to be out there, pushing myself on just a regular everyday adventure.

During my cancer treatments, many people commented on how positive I remained (with a few mentioning that this often caused them to sometimes forget that I even had cancer). I did lots of reflecting on my run today, but one thing I realized is that much of this optimism probably comes from running (and biking too). When a run isn’t going so well, I just shrug my shoulders, decide to get on with it (because there isn’t anything else to do), and just keep moving forward. For all of life’s adventures, that’s the key. Forward, always forward.

Of Snow & Cold (and Colds)

Winter has come early this year, with nearly everyone thrown a bit off guard. Maybe we’ve been spoiled by winter coming (for the most part) after Thanksgiving the last few years, but it seems like we barely got an autumn to really enjoy. The trees just hit peak colors, the leaves were starting to really fall - and BLAM! - snow. Write down October 27th for the first official snow of winter 2017/2018. The cold temperatures also came with it and we’ve never warmed up since.

For me the change in temperatures in the late fall always means I get sick. Right on schedule I picked up a cold the last full week of October. I took the week off of running but by that Friday (the day of the first snow) I was getting antsy. While I knew I shouldn’t run yet, I decided to venture out into the snow for a walk. In hindsight, being sick was a blessing in disguise as it meant I got to more thoroughly enjoy the beauty of the snow.

My cold is mostly gone now and I’m back running again. I’m still being very careful to wear a Buff over my mouth/nose, as it seems to be the cold air that eventually leads my nose/throat/ear canals to get plugged up and be all overactive with the mucus production. Pounding down hot beverages, sucking on cough drops, and taking a decongestant also help.

Because of injuries and my mandatory break during cancer treatments, this is the first time in many years that I am and will be running so much during the winter months. Even though winter hasn’t really started, I’m already noticing that I need to make adjustments in my winter running wardrobe. Basically, I have a crazy amount of long-sleeved shirts but too few tights. As far as the shirts go, I need to be better about rotating through them and possibly getting rid of a few. On the tights front, I really need to get some more. Right now I only have two - a very light pair and a fleece-lined pair. The light ones are really only good down to 40F, so I’ve been wearing the fleece-lined pair for every run I’ve done these two weeks since it’s gotten colder. (Typing that out made me realize how grody they must be getting by now.)

So now if you don’t mind, I’m heading off to do some laundry...