A Retrospective on the Last Month

As anyone living with a brain tumor can tell you, the process is not easy. Like training days- there are good days and bad days and some days will be easier than others. I was prepared for this, but when I got the declaration from my secondary brain-tumor expert that I need surgery, and no, I cannot wait a couple months, hanging out makes me feel like an elephant in a room. 

I love my friends, and I’ve always relished opportunities to hang out with them and meet their friends. To be able to connect more with the people and be able to pull them into my fold of friendship is something that I’ve always enjoyed. But for the past month, hanging out with friends where people I may have met only a few times before was not appealing. There was that thing looming over my head like a giant neon sign- brain tumor. When will the surgery be? Where are you having it? What kind of brain tumor is it? Is it Cancer?  Aren’t you scared? These questions not only put me on edge, but they took away from the meaning of why we were gathering. The gatherings were not for me to receive attention and questions.  The gatherings were for something bigger— a birthday, a return home, a baby shower…  I do not want to have the focus put on me, especially in this way.  If/when these questions are not asked, it feels like they are on the tip of everyone’s tongue.  Those who are friends quietly ask me a more provocative question away from the group, and those that are on the perfierary may want to know more and when I tell them, I get the look and usually the series of questions.

For a long time, it seemed best not to tempt fate or to start a series of actions that will result in the same thing- a question or look of “Poor Sarah.” For this reason, I have chosen my activities carefully.  Sometimes, there are prior commitments that keep me from celebrations where new and old friends will be, and other times, it’s just easier not to be the elephant in the room.

Training Detours

Training for a marathon takes commitment and guidance. If you look online, many of those schedules are 18 weeks long and then you have the big race. I think the theory behind this is to get the inexperienced runner across the finish line with minimal injuries before they get bored of the training. The problem is, training this quickly can result in injury, and the best way to run a marathon is to train steadily. I’m still supremely grateful to my running coach who laid out a plan of 33 weeks. It allowed for multiple long runs of 18-20 miles and it allowed for injury and detours.

These detours are never fun, and sometimes you find it necessary to shift your prospective. It’s even more frustrating when detours stop you from getting to the start line of a race.

With my traveling to see specialists, staying on a schedule was already difficult. I was shifting my training from afternoon to morning just to beat some of the summer Los Angeles heat, but when you try to see doctors before work just to muster up the courage to run in the heat after work is difficult.

The weight training I have added to my routine has made me stronger, but hasn’t helped my cardiovascular system to keep me going the 26.2 miles to get me across the finish line of a marathon.  Naturally, to get across the finish line, I would have to add in more weekly mileage. But, this recent training has focused more on building total-body strength.

After nearly 8 months, my neck is finally stronger and I have been able to start back with pushups with a stability ball. The Ragnar Relay of 190 miles through Napa Valley was on the books with a half-marathon to raise money for the Children’s Tumor Foundation was going to be October 9… all those will have to wait for future races.

I still have the benchmark goals to reach as I get back into marathon shape, but as with most training schedules, I must take a detour. Unfortunately, this detour won’t take me a couple days off course; it’s a detour of several weeks, and more likely several months.

I’ve sought opinions from many renowed specialists in their field, and they have encouraged me to have ANOTHER operation. Well, at least this won’t be looming over my head, but darn- it’s frustrating. Surgery will likely be the same week as the Ragnar Relay (naturally, I won’t be able to participate in that)…. And it leaves a big question mark over competing in the Long Beach Half-Marathon. I have friends competing there and I want to be there to support them, but weather I will be going as a spectator or as a runner/walker will be contingent on my surgery, and the blessings of my doctors. After all, I want to have a long running career, and if that means sitting on the sidelines rather than jumping the gun and risking injury, spectator/cheer support is what I will do.

Among prayers and good medicine, my doctors credited my running as one of the reasons for my speedy recovery. As co-workers pointed out I only missed 7 weeks of work.

My current doctors have said that I am much healthier than my last surgery and it’s “only a little tumor,” and I will be out of the hospital in about 72 hours. I bring Ryan Westmorland, a Center Fielder for the Red Sox who had to have surgery to remove a similar tumor. He walked the day after surgery, and I have repeatedly said that I want to do that. They again assure me that I will be able to do physical therapy the day after surgery.

It’s tough not to fall down in the pit and let it get the better of you- you can always question- what’s the point? Why should I bother doing anything? I’m just going to have to do it ALL over again. The truth is, sure I will have to do it all over again, but if running more miles a week in the sticky icky CA sun and combine it with weight training means a more speedy recovery, then that’s what I will have to do.  Other outlets in my life have taken a nosedive, but now’s the time to focus on health so I can do all those other things for many more years.

CONFRONTING TRAINING SCHEDULES, HEALTH QUESTIONS AND DEPRESSION...

Just before my head is about to sink below the surface and I’m going to drown in frustration and self-pity for all the setbacks I’ve had, whispers of encouragement come from so many places. Last Saturday, I stayed in the Valley and ran with friends since the 405 was closed. (This closure was dubbed as Carmageddon.) The pace felt blistering fast, but when it was over, it was about an hour. It’s slightly slower than what I was running at prior to surgery, but I know without friends at my side, I may not have been able to push myself to accomplish this. (A 5-mile run in under an hour was my secret goal.) So I came close to meeting my secret goal. And I accomplished what was on my training schedule which includes weights and running. 

This week I’m continuing the weigh lifting, but I’m increasing my mileage.  (Yay!) One area that has been sorely neglected has been my neck.  Legs and cardiovascular are a given and for long-distance running, core is a smart thing to build up, but I had neglected my neck. It had bothered me during long runs, but exercising the neck is just so, well, boring. It didn’t really hit home until I was doing a push-up using a stability ball and after a set my neck bothered me. So here I am, training for an ultra-relay (190 miles)  and half-marathons and I have to worry about my neck. (This does make sense since my surgeon in essence filleted my neck to get to my cerebellum to resecet that darn tumor.)   So, I’ve committed myself to doing these lame exercises in addition to my normal long-distance training.

Not too far after surgery, a running friend who also goes to Bible study with me recommended that I read IN THE PIT WITH A LION ON A SNOWY DAY.  I never made it to the bookstore to buy it, but with my recent iPhone purchase, I downloaded it to the Kindle app so I could retrieve this book. Without turning a marathon training blog into a book report, the author, (Mark Batterson), raises a good point, “He (God) is always using past experiences to prepare us for future opportunities.”  So far, I highly recommend the book. Moreover, this idea slapped me in the face to just take what I’ve viewed as setbacks to my life and to training and let those experiences be my springboard to something else. 


This week, like all weeks for people on a training schedule, will be a challenge to balance with work, and friends, while increasing mileage and/or speed. It's not just the ultra-marathon relay or the charity half-marathon the following month, the training is about getting to each race and crossing each finish line at my personal best. 

Friends Make the Best Jetpacks

The summer wind blew back a friend that moved away in 2007. We’ve been friends since college- doing a lot of the same TV production co-curriculars and ultimately migrating to Los Angeles. During school, we faced similar challenges and our move to Los Angeles was no different. We struggled to stay sane, to find a religious community, and ultimately to find work.  She’s always been one step ahead of me in many aspects… She found the church first and took me along- and that became my place of worship for many years. She kept me sane and when I was struggling to make rent she sat me down and dealt me the harsh truth… “I know you don’t want to, but you should consider getting a job in retail to get you by.”  I applied for and got a position to help open a new Linens N Things that ultimately carried me to my next position at Paramount.

Like all my friends, this one bares a great light and love and wisdom.  In 2008, she ran her first marathon.  Her courage to complete the 26.2-mile journey gave me the courage to listen to the voice within me that had been yelling for years, “I want to run a marathon.” A day after, she crossed the finish line of the San Diego Rock n Roll Marathon, I signed up for my first marathon – The San Diego Rock n Roll Marathon.

She is now challenging herself in a different way- with a new exercise program. She looks terrific. It’s more than just the way her shape is transforming, her spirit has transformed as well. Again, she gives me the insight to step into who I am deigned o be. Over lunch, we talked about food and challenges that it has, especially with portions when you eat out. While I had started down this road on my own, the uncertainty of my cranial future has put me into a foul mood, and I felt like, “why bother eat right and exercise when I have to do this whole recovery thing again.”

I have been neglecting every training schedule I looked at and every running article I read. At the most, I've been running 10 miles a week. This past week, I had slowly started my accent from this low, looking hard at my future races and production schedule and designing a new workout routine incorporating weights and running, and ultimately doing mid-week runs in the hills. But this visit with an old friend was like strapping a jetpack to me.

 

All the doctors credited my long-distance running as why I “bounced back” so quickly. Despite my frustration of only walking a little over a mile on Christmas, that was 10 days after surgery, and when there was the possibility, I could have “the dexterity of a 1-year-old,” I am now thankful for that one mile.

I know that getting into the shape I want to be in will be a mental and physical challenge, but as I’ve told myself before, “if it were easy, everyone would do it.” I can create the life and health I want. Even though I know I will be having surgery in the next couple years, I can design my recovery now. Simply looking at it as staying in shape to have the optimum recovery is a little bleak. BUT, if I can incorporate races and other physical challenges, staying in shape won’t have this dark cloud lurking over it.

Shortly after surgery, when it was clear I was going to be okay, my running buddy goaded me into signing up for a 187 mile relay with 10 of our other friends. This challenge is what made me train off-and-on, but in eleven weeks, I will be running a Ragnar Relay. It's time to get serious. 

The Good, The Bad, and the Crummy

It is nearly 6 months since I underwent my craniotomy. Last week I put my final thank you cards in the mail for the gifts I received while I was at the hospital (including thank you cards to my boss and another co-worker who bullied me into taking the ambulance).  I have two final thank you cards ready to go out in tomorrow’s mail to my neurosurgeon and ICU nurses, telling them the good news about my half-marathon.

Six months post-op, I’m now at the benchmark where my neurosurgeon said I would be in my recovery and almost healed.  Six months to a year he said it’d take for me to heal completely. I’m feeling better than I’ve ever felt.  

  

The future has more than marathons… I have more MRIs, more doctors visits, more surgeries. The surgery is hard to get past. I have pushed so much to get here, to be able to do another half-marathon, even though the overall time was abysmal.  Friday marked my second EMMY celebration since moving out here… The first nomination was for a Public Service Announcements I co-wrote, and now one of the shows I work on was nominated. It’s a very surreal thing to be able to say this.

I have a deeper and clearer understanding of life and despite my happiness with my current state and looking to the future, there are shades of grey. Despite the excitement of this and knowing I had years and years of physical therapy growing up, it’s hard not to get trapped into the spiral of, “well what’s the point, they could screw up and I might not have the ability to run again.” I feel like I’m trapped in the Molasses’ Swamp, almost unable to get out. My neurosurgeon was judicious and now, one of my doctors is suggesting another craniotomy. I knew at some point the craniotomy would be necessary since it was impossible to remove the entire tumor without causing damage to me. I was hoping that I would be able to pretend to have a normal life, despite trying to live it in an any but normal way. Normal to most is go to work, come home, flop on the couch, eat dinner, watch TV and go to bed. Regretfully, my life has taken on a shade more like this, but I’ve been running, and despite the facade of Los Angeles being uber-fit, it isn’t. We are like most cities- Pay a gym membership but try to get the closest parking spot to our destination. I’ve tried not to be “normal” but I’ve tried to be above average in my existence.

I want to do so much and make a big difference on this world. Now, that I am getting closer to my normal of work + run + friends + bigger goals, I am told that all that again may have to be put on the back burner AND I may have to go to a different hospital. It is odd to say, but I have a very warm place in my heart for the ICU at Providence St. Joseph’s.  Now, I have over a year to stress about the surgery wonder if I’m making the right decision… even though there really isn’t a decision because the residual tumor needs to come out.  I have a year to get mentally and physically prepared. I want to be in the best shape of my life- I want to be able to walk the day after surgery.