I got off to a good start with my new plan. I was carefully measuring my food, counting calories and staying well under 2000 calories per day. For the first dinner on my new plan I pulled out a kitchen scale and started weighing each food item at the table. My sons gave me the strangest looks but didn’t say anything – at first. Then my youngest sons couldn’t hold it back anymore and blurted out, “what the heck are you doing Dad?” My sons now think I’m a big weirdo. They are embarrassed to sit next to me at our own private dinner table. Don’t they know their father is a scientist? They should know better.
During the week my weight came down to 173. On Wednesday I ran 10 miles and felt really good during and after the run. It’s been a long time since I’ve run that long of a distance. I felt so good after running it I ran another 10 miles on Thursday. However, for the last 2 or 3 miles I felt really weak, kind of like hitting the wall at mile 20 in a marathon. I think what was happening is that my calorie intake had been so low that I didn’t have much sugar in my blood to support fast long distance running. I was burning fat, which I want to do for loosing weight, but burning fat for energy doesn’t work well for fast running. I may need to boost my calories, in particular carbs, the night before I do my weekly long run. My wife likes spaghetti so that would be a good spaghetti night.
So things were looking great for my fist week, then there was the weekend. Not just any weekend, but a 3 day weekend with a snowboarding outing, watching the grandkids, and a big garage project. There were delivery pizzas, a trip to Fuddruckers, and more delivery pizzas. My father-in-law help me put insulation up in my garage. That was a big project that called for a couple of beers. I need to be a good host, you know! I didn’t want my grandkids to think I was weird like my sons do, so I ate what they ate. I did record everything, sometimes having to estimate. I averaged 2447 calories per day, missing my goal by 447 calories. With my running I figured I probably burned about the same amount, so I went nowhere this last week. Well, I did learn a lot.
I am not going to give up on my plan. I’ll need to find a better way to handle the weekends. I’ll just have to learn to say no!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
My New Adventure: The Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon
I miss having a marathon in my plans, but I promised my family I would take a break from full marathons. So I’ve decided to run in the Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon (http://www.lakeminnetonkahalfmarathon.com/) on May 3rd, 2009. To make it adventurous I’m setting a time goal of better than 1:39, which should place me in the top 10 for my age group (50 to 59) based on last year’s results. I was in my best shape when I ran the TC marathon in 2007 and at the halfway point my time was 1:48:52, so I need to cut ten minutes off that time to reach my goal. Now my thinking is I should be able to do that. When I made 13.1 miles in 1:49 time back in 2007 I had to complete another 13.1 miles, so I was saving a lot of energy at that point. Furthermore, it was hotter than heck during the 2007 TC marathon. So I’m thinking with good training I should be able to do this no problem. Last week I get on the treadmill and crank up the speed to 8.0 MPH or a pace of 7:30/mile. Holly smokes! I was surprise how fast that was. There’s a huge difference in the speed for a half marathon time of 1:49 vs 1:39. I can’t imagine running 8.0 MPH for 13.1 miles. Never the less, I’m going try.
I wanted some adventure into the unknown, well here it is. This requires a big change to my training. I’ve never done any serious speed training before, but now’s the time. Last week I started by speed training by employing the Fartlek (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fartlek) method on my treadmill. I’ve tried Fartlek training in two different ways. One is to start out at normal pace for a few minutes to warm-up, then run for about 3 minutes at 9.1 MPH (almost a sprint for me), then back to normal pace to rest for a few minutes, then sprint again. I repeat this cycle until I finish 6 miles. The other method I’ve tried is to run again at normal pace, then up my speed to 8.0 MPH (my goal speed for race day) for as long as I can, then back to normal speed to rest, then repeat the cycle as often as I can. I love this type of training. It makes time go much faster when running on the treadmill.
Speed training may not be enough to reach my goal so I’m planning on doing something else to help my speed – loose weight. During chemotherapy last spring I gained about 7 or 8 pounds. There were a few reasons for that. The Prednisone increased my appetite. It also caused my problems with stomach acid and gas to flare up, way up, and eating actually helped with that, so I ate very often. The other cause of my weight gain was comfort foods. My sons like milkshakes. During chemo I would get through the day by looking forward to an evening of making and eating milkshakes with my sons while we watched our favorite TV shows. Fortunately I was running about 40 miles a week, otherwise my weight gain would have been much more.
I’ve read that you can improve your percentage improvement in marathon time is about the same percentage in weight loss. I’m assuming this is roughly true for a half marathon too. I’m at about 175 pounds right now. So I if loose about 15 pounds I could expect about a 9% improvement in my half marathon time. A 9% improvement over my 2007 TC time gets me pretty close to my goal. I have 15 weeks before the race so I need to loose about 1 pound a week. That’s not unreasonable.
I’m not planning on loosing weight just to improve my race time. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. 160 pounds is a very healthy weight for me. Maintaining a good weight has tremendous health advantages that are obtained in a natural way and without drugs. Before I lost my 30 pounds in 2007 my cholesterol was high and my doctor wanted to put me on drugs to control it. I lost 30 pounds and my cholesterol came down into the normal range without drugs. There are so many health risks associated with being overweight (http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/) and one of them is an increase risk in cancer. I don’t need that! So I’m going to use my half marathon time goal as a motivational means for obtaining my weight loss goal. I’m also using this public announcement as a motivational means – I must be crazy!
This will not be easy. Many of you know that loosing weight is not easy. I love food and many of the foods I love are not good for me. However, there are a lot of foods that are healthy and are wonderful for the palate too. For the most part I do have very healthy eating habits. My diet is very high in fiber, I eat a lot of fruits (mostly berries which are the best fruits) and vegetables (probably could do better with veggies), I go with low fat versions of most foods, I avoid foods with refined sugars as much as possible, and get low or no sugar added foods when available. So all I need to do is tweak my diet; mostly cut out those evening milkshakes. I’m not going on any special diet. My plan is to have a well balanced diet and to watch calories. For weight loss the bottom line is calories. To loose weight one has to burn more calories than what one consumes. It’s that simple. However, I’m not going on a strict diet like a 1200 calorie a day diet. I don’t have to with the running I do.
Here’s my plan and how I’ve figured it out. I’ve checked with many websites that have online calculators that calculate calories burned. They don’t all give the same answer, so I’m taking an average. For my weight, age and gender, I burn about 2000 calories a day without running – if I were to lead a sedentary lifestyle. The calculators also show that I burn at least 700 calories for 6 miles of running. So if I run 6 miles a day for 5 days a week I’ll burn 3500 calories per week just running. One pound of fat is equivalent to 3500 calories. So, if I eat 2000 calories a day and run 30 miles a week, I should loose 1 pound a week and reach my weight goal by race day on May 3rd. One way to look at this is that all my weight loss is due to running, not cutting calories. I just need to be careful and not eat extra calories.
Ok, now I’m going to get a bit anal with this plan. To make sure I eat the right amount of calories I’m going to watch my calorie intake very closely. I’ve bought a kitchen scale to weigh all the food that I eat. Weighing food is a lot easier than trying to measure the volume. For example, for breakfast I put my empty bowl on the scale, hit the tare button to zero out the scale, add my cereal, write down the weight, hit the tear button, add my fresh blueberries, hit the tear button, and so on until I have the weights of all my ingredients. It really doesn’t take much effort and it’s kind of fun. Then I’m going to try a trial version of some software from CalorieKing’s website that will help me keep track of calories. Once setup I’ll just enter in the weights and the software will keep track of calories and other nutritional data. If the software works well I’ll buy it. My poor wife, she didn’t know what she was getting into when she married me.
Besides keeping track of my calories I’ll keep track of my daily weight. They say you shouldn’t weigh yourself every day because there are normal fluctuations that occur and a normal but temporary weight increase may be discouraging. However, they weren’t addressing a scientist with this advice. By using curve fitting functions I should be able to average out the normal fluctuations and get a better measurement of weight loss trend with daily measurements than I can get with weekly measurements. Here is my weight over last week:
I can’t believe I’m doing this – posting this kind of detail on the internet. Oh well – I’m on the hook now.
I wanted some adventure into the unknown, well here it is. This requires a big change to my training. I’ve never done any serious speed training before, but now’s the time. Last week I started by speed training by employing the Fartlek (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fartlek) method on my treadmill. I’ve tried Fartlek training in two different ways. One is to start out at normal pace for a few minutes to warm-up, then run for about 3 minutes at 9.1 MPH (almost a sprint for me), then back to normal pace to rest for a few minutes, then sprint again. I repeat this cycle until I finish 6 miles. The other method I’ve tried is to run again at normal pace, then up my speed to 8.0 MPH (my goal speed for race day) for as long as I can, then back to normal speed to rest, then repeat the cycle as often as I can. I love this type of training. It makes time go much faster when running on the treadmill.
Speed training may not be enough to reach my goal so I’m planning on doing something else to help my speed – loose weight. During chemotherapy last spring I gained about 7 or 8 pounds. There were a few reasons for that. The Prednisone increased my appetite. It also caused my problems with stomach acid and gas to flare up, way up, and eating actually helped with that, so I ate very often. The other cause of my weight gain was comfort foods. My sons like milkshakes. During chemo I would get through the day by looking forward to an evening of making and eating milkshakes with my sons while we watched our favorite TV shows. Fortunately I was running about 40 miles a week, otherwise my weight gain would have been much more.
I’ve read that you can improve your percentage improvement in marathon time is about the same percentage in weight loss. I’m assuming this is roughly true for a half marathon too. I’m at about 175 pounds right now. So I if loose about 15 pounds I could expect about a 9% improvement in my half marathon time. A 9% improvement over my 2007 TC time gets me pretty close to my goal. I have 15 weeks before the race so I need to loose about 1 pound a week. That’s not unreasonable.
I’m not planning on loosing weight just to improve my race time. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. 160 pounds is a very healthy weight for me. Maintaining a good weight has tremendous health advantages that are obtained in a natural way and without drugs. Before I lost my 30 pounds in 2007 my cholesterol was high and my doctor wanted to put me on drugs to control it. I lost 30 pounds and my cholesterol came down into the normal range without drugs. There are so many health risks associated with being overweight (http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/) and one of them is an increase risk in cancer. I don’t need that! So I’m going to use my half marathon time goal as a motivational means for obtaining my weight loss goal. I’m also using this public announcement as a motivational means – I must be crazy!
This will not be easy. Many of you know that loosing weight is not easy. I love food and many of the foods I love are not good for me. However, there are a lot of foods that are healthy and are wonderful for the palate too. For the most part I do have very healthy eating habits. My diet is very high in fiber, I eat a lot of fruits (mostly berries which are the best fruits) and vegetables (probably could do better with veggies), I go with low fat versions of most foods, I avoid foods with refined sugars as much as possible, and get low or no sugar added foods when available. So all I need to do is tweak my diet; mostly cut out those evening milkshakes. I’m not going on any special diet. My plan is to have a well balanced diet and to watch calories. For weight loss the bottom line is calories. To loose weight one has to burn more calories than what one consumes. It’s that simple. However, I’m not going on a strict diet like a 1200 calorie a day diet. I don’t have to with the running I do.
Here’s my plan and how I’ve figured it out. I’ve checked with many websites that have online calculators that calculate calories burned. They don’t all give the same answer, so I’m taking an average. For my weight, age and gender, I burn about 2000 calories a day without running – if I were to lead a sedentary lifestyle. The calculators also show that I burn at least 700 calories for 6 miles of running. So if I run 6 miles a day for 5 days a week I’ll burn 3500 calories per week just running. One pound of fat is equivalent to 3500 calories. So, if I eat 2000 calories a day and run 30 miles a week, I should loose 1 pound a week and reach my weight goal by race day on May 3rd. One way to look at this is that all my weight loss is due to running, not cutting calories. I just need to be careful and not eat extra calories.
Ok, now I’m going to get a bit anal with this plan. To make sure I eat the right amount of calories I’m going to watch my calorie intake very closely. I’ve bought a kitchen scale to weigh all the food that I eat. Weighing food is a lot easier than trying to measure the volume. For example, for breakfast I put my empty bowl on the scale, hit the tare button to zero out the scale, add my cereal, write down the weight, hit the tear button, add my fresh blueberries, hit the tear button, and so on until I have the weights of all my ingredients. It really doesn’t take much effort and it’s kind of fun. Then I’m going to try a trial version of some software from CalorieKing’s website that will help me keep track of calories. Once setup I’ll just enter in the weights and the software will keep track of calories and other nutritional data. If the software works well I’ll buy it. My poor wife, she didn’t know what she was getting into when she married me.
Besides keeping track of my calories I’ll keep track of my daily weight. They say you shouldn’t weigh yourself every day because there are normal fluctuations that occur and a normal but temporary weight increase may be discouraging. However, they weren’t addressing a scientist with this advice. By using curve fitting functions I should be able to average out the normal fluctuations and get a better measurement of weight loss trend with daily measurements than I can get with weekly measurements. Here is my weight over last week:
The solid line is a linear fit to the data and shows that over the week I had a weight gain trend of about a quarter of a pound a day. Kind of alarming! But my guess that besides a daily variation there is also a weekly variation. After a couple of weeks I get a better idea of things. The R2=0.6 is basically an indication of how well the line fits the data. The closer to 1.0 the better the fit. A value of 0.6 is not good correlation and is due to having a lot of variation over the fit period. What this means is that there is not a lot of confidence in the accuracy of quarter of pound weight gain trend. Whew! Eventually I hope that the fitted line extrapolated (extended) out to May 3rd will show that I will eventually get to my goal. I suspect that a linear fit may not be the correct model to use and I may need to go to something like an exponential fit (a curve that starts out steep and the beginning and less steep at the end).
Besides monitoring my weight I’m going to monitor my improvement in running speed each week. In a couple of weeks I’ll be running 13.1 miles for my long run each week. I’ll keep track of my time to finish 13.1 miles and chart that too. Hopefully a fit to that data will show that I will eventually reach my race time goal.
I’m really excited about this. Training for a half marathon will not take nearly as much time as a full marathon and there will be less risk of injury. From my experience I start to run into injury problems when I start running about 16 miles or longer. Keeping my weekly long runs to 13.1 miles will save a lot of time. Not only from running shorter distances, but also shorter recovery time. When I run 16 miles or more, I’m kind of useless for about 2 or 3 hours afterwards, whereas I can do something like mow the yard after a 13.1 mile run. That helps a lot in the wife department. The speed training is a lot of fun and from what I read can actually help reduce injury risk.
Besides monitoring my weight I’m going to monitor my improvement in running speed each week. In a couple of weeks I’ll be running 13.1 miles for my long run each week. I’ll keep track of my time to finish 13.1 miles and chart that too. Hopefully a fit to that data will show that I will eventually reach my race time goal.
I’m really excited about this. Training for a half marathon will not take nearly as much time as a full marathon and there will be less risk of injury. From my experience I start to run into injury problems when I start running about 16 miles or longer. Keeping my weekly long runs to 13.1 miles will save a lot of time. Not only from running shorter distances, but also shorter recovery time. When I run 16 miles or more, I’m kind of useless for about 2 or 3 hours afterwards, whereas I can do something like mow the yard after a 13.1 mile run. That helps a lot in the wife department. The speed training is a lot of fun and from what I read can actually help reduce injury risk.
I can’t believe I’m doing this – posting this kind of detail on the internet. Oh well – I’m on the hook now.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Don’t Believe, Just Do It
It’s been one year since I started my blog and announced my plans to train for Grandma’s marathon while going through chemotherapy. I look back to that first posting on January 6th, 2008 and I remember how unsure I was about my proposal. You may think I had a bad attitude towards it; that I should have believed that I could do it. You have heard from other apparently successful people that, “if you believe enough in something, you will accomplish it”. I say that’s bull and those people are either mislead or just snake oil salesmen. I don’t believe in the mind over matter thing.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe that attitude has a major role in how well we perform at something and can affect our physical strength. For example the mind can help release adrenaline which can greatly increase our physical performance. I know very well the effects of adrenaline during the first miles of a marathon. Attitude controls how well we use our abilities. I just don’t think that the mind can heal torn tissue, create glucose for additional physical energy, and all other things that follow the natural laws of the universe. There are physical and mental limitations that cannot be exceeded with even the best attitude and strongest beliefs.
What’s interesting is that we don’t exactly know our limitations and each of us has our own unique set. I prefer some uncertainty. Why pick a goal that you absolutely believe you can achieve? To me that approach lacks mystery and adventure. The most rewarding goal to work towards is one that we are not sure about. The road to this kind of goal is full of self discovery. You don’t have to believe you can reach the goal. What is more important is that you have a strong desire, the motivation and commitment to keep pushing forward.
A year ago I really didn’t know or believe I could finish Grandma’s. What I did believe in was that the road to Grandma’s was a good one to take, no matter how far I got. So I started down it one mile at a time and not knowing exactly where it would take me. There were times I thought that Grandma’s was out of my reach, but I never gave up. I wasn’t going to give up unless it was obvious that I could seriously harm myself. I’m sure glad I took that road.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe that attitude has a major role in how well we perform at something and can affect our physical strength. For example the mind can help release adrenaline which can greatly increase our physical performance. I know very well the effects of adrenaline during the first miles of a marathon. Attitude controls how well we use our abilities. I just don’t think that the mind can heal torn tissue, create glucose for additional physical energy, and all other things that follow the natural laws of the universe. There are physical and mental limitations that cannot be exceeded with even the best attitude and strongest beliefs.
What’s interesting is that we don’t exactly know our limitations and each of us has our own unique set. I prefer some uncertainty. Why pick a goal that you absolutely believe you can achieve? To me that approach lacks mystery and adventure. The most rewarding goal to work towards is one that we are not sure about. The road to this kind of goal is full of self discovery. You don’t have to believe you can reach the goal. What is more important is that you have a strong desire, the motivation and commitment to keep pushing forward.
A year ago I really didn’t know or believe I could finish Grandma’s. What I did believe in was that the road to Grandma’s was a good one to take, no matter how far I got. So I started down it one mile at a time and not knowing exactly where it would take me. There were times I thought that Grandma’s was out of my reach, but I never gave up. I wasn’t going to give up unless it was obvious that I could seriously harm myself. I’m sure glad I took that road.
Monday, January 5, 2009
2008 What a Wonderful Year
A couple of weeks ago I was going to title this post something like, “Good Riddance 2008”, because of all cancer and chemo stuff that happened. Then during New Year’s Eve celebrations I started to reflect over this year’s events and I couldn’t help but focus only on many wonderful things that happened in 2008. I’ve already shared words and photos on our Lutsen winter family get together, the marathons and the Minnesota Boundary Waters adventure, which were all fantastic times. There were many other great things that happened in 2008 as well.
A life changing thing that has happened to me this year is getting my Harley – a 1998 Fat Boy. My wife has been a Harley driver for many years and has had her own bike for a couple of years. When I was a teenager I loved riding dirt bikes and riding a motorcycle on the road seemed boring. So I was apprehensive when buying a road bike. But I was getting tired of watching my wife ride off on her Harley while I stayed at home working on chores. Once I got my bike I fell in love with it. I use it to commute to work whenever I can. My youngest son Daniel likes to be taken to and from school. Renee and I will take the bikes to go to the grocery store or do other errands around town. Renee and I have plans to eventually spend many days on the road exploring the U.S.
Me and my Fat Boy.
Renee and her Super Glide.
Renee and I on a day ride in Arkansas.
My oldest Son, Chris and his High School bowling team won the conference championship and went to the State tournament. His team was ranked 4th in the conference and had to upset all three of the leading teams to take the championship.
Chris applying his skill on the alley.
Daniel was chosen to be one of three Captains for his middle school wrestling team.
Daniel (in the grey/green shoes) performing a perfect switch from a sit-out. Daniel’s record was 11 and 1 with most wins by pin.
In December Renee and I went on a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary. We were big spenders by betting a dollar each at each of 8 casinos we visited. We left Vegas way ahead by $5.
Me eating a Kobe beef hamburger at the top of the Stratosphere.
Renee and I outside the famous Bellagio casino watching the water fountain show.
A life changing thing that has happened to me this year is getting my Harley – a 1998 Fat Boy. My wife has been a Harley driver for many years and has had her own bike for a couple of years. When I was a teenager I loved riding dirt bikes and riding a motorcycle on the road seemed boring. So I was apprehensive when buying a road bike. But I was getting tired of watching my wife ride off on her Harley while I stayed at home working on chores. Once I got my bike I fell in love with it. I use it to commute to work whenever I can. My youngest son Daniel likes to be taken to and from school. Renee and I will take the bikes to go to the grocery store or do other errands around town. Renee and I have plans to eventually spend many days on the road exploring the U.S.
Me and my Fat Boy.
Renee and her Super Glide.
Renee and I on a day ride in Arkansas.
My oldest Son, Chris and his High School bowling team won the conference championship and went to the State tournament. His team was ranked 4th in the conference and had to upset all three of the leading teams to take the championship. 
Chris applying his skill on the alley.
Daniel was chosen to be one of three Captains for his middle school wrestling team.
Daniel (in the grey/green shoes) performing a perfect switch from a sit-out. Daniel’s record was 11 and 1 with most wins by pin.
In December Renee and I went on a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary. We were big spenders by betting a dollar each at each of 8 casinos we visited. We left Vegas way ahead by $5.
Me eating a Kobe beef hamburger at the top of the Stratosphere.
Renee and I outside the famous Bellagio casino watching the water fountain show.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Cold+Snow+Ice+Darkness+Holidays=Little Running
This is the hardest time of the year to keep a consistent running routine going. First it has been a very cold December this year in Minnesota. It is so hard to get motivated to run early in the morning when it is only zero degrees outside and dark. If I don’t get my run done in the morning chances are I’ll won’t run in the afternoon or evening. I’m a morning runner. There also has been plenty of snowy days that make it more difficult to run outside, and I don’t like the treadmill. Some call it the dreadmill. Time seems to nearly come to a halt on the treadmill. But when the outside temperatures are below zero and the wind chill factor is something like 30 below, the treadmill is a much better choice.
Then there are all the holiday gatherings and Christmas shopping and cleaning the house for holiday gatherings and …….. My problem is that I cannot do a quick short run; I need to always make my workouts a long run. I need to change my thinking and do just a short run if there is not much time. It’s much better to do short runs on a consistent basis than an occasional long run. Furthermore, I could try something different with a short run, like interval or Fartlek training (a method developed by the Swedes), which helps with improving speed.
This week has started well with two 6 mile runs. Tomorrow is the last day of 2008 and I plan to finish the year with a 6 mile run outside, no matter snow, ice, cold or dark.
Then there are all the holiday gatherings and Christmas shopping and cleaning the house for holiday gatherings and …….. My problem is that I cannot do a quick short run; I need to always make my workouts a long run. I need to change my thinking and do just a short run if there is not much time. It’s much better to do short runs on a consistent basis than an occasional long run. Furthermore, I could try something different with a short run, like interval or Fartlek training (a method developed by the Swedes), which helps with improving speed.
This week has started well with two 6 mile runs. Tomorrow is the last day of 2008 and I plan to finish the year with a 6 mile run outside, no matter snow, ice, cold or dark.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
My Darkest Days; My Brightest Shine
I recently had my one year anniversary of the infamous day I got that call from my doctor – you have cancer. I was laid up in bed recovering from a hernia surgery and my wife was out all day doing errands and picking my boys from school events. I was waiting for my surgeon to call my about the results of a lymph node biopsy, but I was expecting the news to be something like, it’s nothing, just a virus or an infection, or irritation from the hernia. I was not expecting, “you have an aggressive form of cancer”. The good news my doctor said was, “it’s curable in up to about 50% of the cases”. Okay, I’m typically the-glass-is-half-full kind of guy, for when it comes to my life, I like the glass at least 99.999% full if not overflowing. A 50% cure rate just didn’t seem like good news at first, and I didn’t like the “up to” part neither. What’s with that “up to”?
Just after my surgeon called I started to Google my disease. My surgeon warned me that I would find some really scary stuff on the internet and I did. I learned what “up to” meant. The 50% cure rate doesn’t apply to all of those who have diffused large b-cell lymphoma, only those who are in stage I, where the cancer is caught early and has not spread beyond the lymph nodes and not all lymph nodes are affected. Depending on the stage of the cancer, the water in the glass can get pretty low. The news hit me like a sledge hammer; I was knocked dizzy and there was a whirlwind thoughts going through my mind. I had to pull it together before my wife got home.
When my wife arrived I nailed her with the news before she even got her coat off in the entryway. My poor wife, she was blindsided by a Mack truck. I kept the news positive though, focusing on the 50% cure rate and I think I left out the “up to” until later. That night I don’t remember any grieving, we were mostly numb.
Because the cancer was very aggressive I was placed on the fast track for testing to see the extent of the cancer and determine the best course of treatment. The next day I got a CT scan and that showed a big tumor in my gut and a small one in my armpit, but the rest of my organs looked pretty good. The following week would be a PET scan and a bone marrow biopsy, all showing that the cancer was only in my lymph nodes on only one side of my body. So we were relieved to find it was only stage I. One way to look at a 50% cure rate is take a six shooter pistol, load half the barrels with bullets, then over the course of a couple of years you need to place the pistol to your head and pull the trigger. And that’s better because if you’re unlucky at least you go quickly without pain. That is a really dark way to think about it and even with the positive attitude I normally have, those kinds of thoughts were flooding my mind for the first few weeks after I got the call.
Even though I was devastated by the news, I had to take care of my family. The day after I got my diagnoses I started to seriously plan for my death. Not that I was giving up. I had every intention of fighting the cancer and wining. But with a 50% chance one has to be pragmatic about things. I needed to know that my family would be ok if the dice don’t go my way. So I checked into my life insurance policies and added up our debt to find that my family would be ok. I thought about who would be a father figure for my boys and how this would affect my daughter who has two kids of her own and would my wife find someone else that would make her happy. That was a tough day with lots of tears.
It was just before Christmas that all this happened and there was many family gatherings planned for the season. You would think that this would be a good time to gather with family, but it was really a hard time. My wife and I were exhausted by the anxiety of dealing with all the tests, hospital visits and the grim prospects of the future. Together we did our share of grieving, so when it was time to be with other family members and friends my wife and I were all grieved out. We just wanted to put all the cancer stuff on the back burner and have a good time, but there was always someone who wanted to leave the fun and joy behind and turn the party into a bereavement session. They have good intentions, it’s just their results really suck. Fortunately I was prepared and had my shields up (my big impenetrable smile) and remained mostly positive during the holiday gatherings, but my poor wife was nearly crushed, once again blindsided by a Mac truck.
About three weeks after my hernia surgery I was able to start running. Since it was cold outside and my wife believes in the wife’s tale of being out in the cold will cause one to get sick, I was relegated to run on our treadmill. Nevertheless I was just happy to run. It was one of the best medicines for my mental health. I felt the strongest when I was running, and the harder I ran the stronger I felt. My wife knows I have a tendency to go overboard with things and she feared I would go too far with my running. But when I first started running again after my surgery I was more focused on my own needs and forgot that some compromise is required to consider my wife’s needs. One morning I was running on the treadmill and my wife was upstairs. It may have been the day just after a chemo treatment. When I completed my run I went upstairs to find my wife hunched over with her body shaking in sobs. That day I fully realized there were two people fighting my cancer. We had different needs and some compromise was required. I promised I would rest the first day after chemo and wouldn’t run until the second day, which was also a compromise on my wife’s part. If she had her way I wouldn’t run for a few days after chemo.
Just before I got cancer I would spend some time thinking about the future. My wife and I have plans for traveling around the USA on our Harley’s. All of sudden, it was difficult to think about anything other than making it through the day and completing chemo. There were times when thoughts of the future entered my mind, only to be blown away with thoughts of, “why bother, I may not be around in the future anyways”.
One night my wife and I were lying in bed snuggled to each other and she said while breaking into sobbing tears how scared she was. At that instant all my pent-up anguish escaped and I too burst into sobbing tears. My wife and I were holding each other while our bodies shook uncontrollably with each sob. That was a turning point for us; we hit rock bottom. From that night forward we continued to get emotionally stronger and more positive about life.
A couple of months after my diagnosis I was visiting with my father. I think we were out for a walk at his place out in the country. I basically told him that I was ready to die, but not in those words. I told him that I was happy with what life has given me and I had no regrets, that I felt fortunate even if the cancer takes me soon. I had no feelings of resentment. It wasn’t that I was giving up my fight against cancer, no way! I plan to fight to the bitter end anything that threatens to take my life. I just finally realized that I was not invincible and there was no good reason to worry about the things we cannot control.
These were the darkest days of my life. But from the darkness came my brightest shine. The love between my wife and I got much deeper and stronger. My oldest Brother and I were drifting apart with busy lives. In the past we have done many adventures together, but as time wore on we were hardly talking to each other. Now we meet often at a coffee shop to discuss plans of our next adventure like the one we did last summer in the Minnesota Boundary Waters Canoe Area. I don’t need big things in my life for enjoyment. Just walking out to my mailbox, hearing the birds, seeing the trees and feeling a cool breeze across my face makes my day. I’ve tended to be a recluse, but now being with people has become very important. Rather than running with a headset listening to music and withdrawn from passersby I now run without music and greet everyone I can.
Shortly after being diagnosed I started to think about running Grandma’s marathon. I created this blog at first to publicly announce my intentions in order to provide some motivation to go though with it. And I admit that I like public attention and like to brag every now and then. I saw this cancer thing and running Grandma’s marathon as Chemo-Man as an opportunity to get some fame and bragging rights. But quickly I realized that this could be an opportunity to do something good, to turn the cancer thing into something positive and constructive and help others who may be going through something similar. The fame really didn’t come, I guess running a marathon in a tutu is a better way to get on the nightly news and in the paper, but I got something much better. Being able to make a positive difference in the lives of others, even though it’s just a few, is worth all the effort.
We all have dark days in our lives. Some people have much darker days than others; I can think of much worse things than getting cancer. The biggest difference though is how one reacts. There are basically two ways people approach dark days. Some cower into a corner and wallow in their grief, blame others for their problems and only see darkness. But some look into the dark and see light. They refuse to accept defeat, take responsibility for their life, and make something good happen.
If I was given a chance to do it all over again, I would never decide to have cancer. I think I would have done just fine without it. Life would have thrown me plenty of opportunities to grow. Furthermore, I am far from being out of the woods. Statistically, there is about a 20% chance I won’t be around four years from now. I don’t need that. However, this is what life has giving me and I plan to turn it into something good. What kind of person are you when the days turn dark? Do you only drop to your knees and let darkness swallow you up, or do you stand up and try to shine? The wonderful thing is that you have a choice.
Just after my surgeon called I started to Google my disease. My surgeon warned me that I would find some really scary stuff on the internet and I did. I learned what “up to” meant. The 50% cure rate doesn’t apply to all of those who have diffused large b-cell lymphoma, only those who are in stage I, where the cancer is caught early and has not spread beyond the lymph nodes and not all lymph nodes are affected. Depending on the stage of the cancer, the water in the glass can get pretty low. The news hit me like a sledge hammer; I was knocked dizzy and there was a whirlwind thoughts going through my mind. I had to pull it together before my wife got home.
When my wife arrived I nailed her with the news before she even got her coat off in the entryway. My poor wife, she was blindsided by a Mack truck. I kept the news positive though, focusing on the 50% cure rate and I think I left out the “up to” until later. That night I don’t remember any grieving, we were mostly numb.
Because the cancer was very aggressive I was placed on the fast track for testing to see the extent of the cancer and determine the best course of treatment. The next day I got a CT scan and that showed a big tumor in my gut and a small one in my armpit, but the rest of my organs looked pretty good. The following week would be a PET scan and a bone marrow biopsy, all showing that the cancer was only in my lymph nodes on only one side of my body. So we were relieved to find it was only stage I. One way to look at a 50% cure rate is take a six shooter pistol, load half the barrels with bullets, then over the course of a couple of years you need to place the pistol to your head and pull the trigger. And that’s better because if you’re unlucky at least you go quickly without pain. That is a really dark way to think about it and even with the positive attitude I normally have, those kinds of thoughts were flooding my mind for the first few weeks after I got the call.
Even though I was devastated by the news, I had to take care of my family. The day after I got my diagnoses I started to seriously plan for my death. Not that I was giving up. I had every intention of fighting the cancer and wining. But with a 50% chance one has to be pragmatic about things. I needed to know that my family would be ok if the dice don’t go my way. So I checked into my life insurance policies and added up our debt to find that my family would be ok. I thought about who would be a father figure for my boys and how this would affect my daughter who has two kids of her own and would my wife find someone else that would make her happy. That was a tough day with lots of tears.
It was just before Christmas that all this happened and there was many family gatherings planned for the season. You would think that this would be a good time to gather with family, but it was really a hard time. My wife and I were exhausted by the anxiety of dealing with all the tests, hospital visits and the grim prospects of the future. Together we did our share of grieving, so when it was time to be with other family members and friends my wife and I were all grieved out. We just wanted to put all the cancer stuff on the back burner and have a good time, but there was always someone who wanted to leave the fun and joy behind and turn the party into a bereavement session. They have good intentions, it’s just their results really suck. Fortunately I was prepared and had my shields up (my big impenetrable smile) and remained mostly positive during the holiday gatherings, but my poor wife was nearly crushed, once again blindsided by a Mac truck.
About three weeks after my hernia surgery I was able to start running. Since it was cold outside and my wife believes in the wife’s tale of being out in the cold will cause one to get sick, I was relegated to run on our treadmill. Nevertheless I was just happy to run. It was one of the best medicines for my mental health. I felt the strongest when I was running, and the harder I ran the stronger I felt. My wife knows I have a tendency to go overboard with things and she feared I would go too far with my running. But when I first started running again after my surgery I was more focused on my own needs and forgot that some compromise is required to consider my wife’s needs. One morning I was running on the treadmill and my wife was upstairs. It may have been the day just after a chemo treatment. When I completed my run I went upstairs to find my wife hunched over with her body shaking in sobs. That day I fully realized there were two people fighting my cancer. We had different needs and some compromise was required. I promised I would rest the first day after chemo and wouldn’t run until the second day, which was also a compromise on my wife’s part. If she had her way I wouldn’t run for a few days after chemo.
Just before I got cancer I would spend some time thinking about the future. My wife and I have plans for traveling around the USA on our Harley’s. All of sudden, it was difficult to think about anything other than making it through the day and completing chemo. There were times when thoughts of the future entered my mind, only to be blown away with thoughts of, “why bother, I may not be around in the future anyways”.
One night my wife and I were lying in bed snuggled to each other and she said while breaking into sobbing tears how scared she was. At that instant all my pent-up anguish escaped and I too burst into sobbing tears. My wife and I were holding each other while our bodies shook uncontrollably with each sob. That was a turning point for us; we hit rock bottom. From that night forward we continued to get emotionally stronger and more positive about life.
A couple of months after my diagnosis I was visiting with my father. I think we were out for a walk at his place out in the country. I basically told him that I was ready to die, but not in those words. I told him that I was happy with what life has given me and I had no regrets, that I felt fortunate even if the cancer takes me soon. I had no feelings of resentment. It wasn’t that I was giving up my fight against cancer, no way! I plan to fight to the bitter end anything that threatens to take my life. I just finally realized that I was not invincible and there was no good reason to worry about the things we cannot control.
These were the darkest days of my life. But from the darkness came my brightest shine. The love between my wife and I got much deeper and stronger. My oldest Brother and I were drifting apart with busy lives. In the past we have done many adventures together, but as time wore on we were hardly talking to each other. Now we meet often at a coffee shop to discuss plans of our next adventure like the one we did last summer in the Minnesota Boundary Waters Canoe Area. I don’t need big things in my life for enjoyment. Just walking out to my mailbox, hearing the birds, seeing the trees and feeling a cool breeze across my face makes my day. I’ve tended to be a recluse, but now being with people has become very important. Rather than running with a headset listening to music and withdrawn from passersby I now run without music and greet everyone I can.
Shortly after being diagnosed I started to think about running Grandma’s marathon. I created this blog at first to publicly announce my intentions in order to provide some motivation to go though with it. And I admit that I like public attention and like to brag every now and then. I saw this cancer thing and running Grandma’s marathon as Chemo-Man as an opportunity to get some fame and bragging rights. But quickly I realized that this could be an opportunity to do something good, to turn the cancer thing into something positive and constructive and help others who may be going through something similar. The fame really didn’t come, I guess running a marathon in a tutu is a better way to get on the nightly news and in the paper, but I got something much better. Being able to make a positive difference in the lives of others, even though it’s just a few, is worth all the effort.
We all have dark days in our lives. Some people have much darker days than others; I can think of much worse things than getting cancer. The biggest difference though is how one reacts. There are basically two ways people approach dark days. Some cower into a corner and wallow in their grief, blame others for their problems and only see darkness. But some look into the dark and see light. They refuse to accept defeat, take responsibility for their life, and make something good happen.
If I was given a chance to do it all over again, I would never decide to have cancer. I think I would have done just fine without it. Life would have thrown me plenty of opportunities to grow. Furthermore, I am far from being out of the woods. Statistically, there is about a 20% chance I won’t be around four years from now. I don’t need that. However, this is what life has giving me and I plan to turn it into something good. What kind of person are you when the days turn dark? Do you only drop to your knees and let darkness swallow you up, or do you stand up and try to shine? The wonderful thing is that you have a choice.
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