Still fighting...

It's been 6 months of ups and downs and I'm still in the middle of this, but now that I'm home more the dream-like state I've been living in is starting to become more of a reality.  There's really too much to tell about what's happened since the accident.  I've been avoiding even logging into blogger, because I don't even know what to say or where to start, but today I did for the first time since the last post in February. 

So, I'll start by where we're at now.  I just brought my husband home from the nursing home/rehab facility he has been in since May.  Before that he was in a different, more intensive therapy place that insurance gave us the boot from.  It was time to bring him home because the house was finally ready (we had to make some major modifications to accommodate his wheel chair and his walker, as well as simply get him in the house, the ramp is huge and takes up the whole garage).  Also, I go back to work the first week of September (there was no summer rest for this teacher) and I needed to get used to having him here and get things set up for his care while I return.  He can walk with assistance, but can not get himself out of bed or dressed or fed or bathed.  He has next to no use of his arms or hands.  Hopefully some day he will have enough core strength that he will be able to be mobile with out help, even without hands or arms, but that's far in the future.

Things have not been easy.  This past week, they have been downright awful.  I'm faced with the reality of having to be mother and nurse and wife all at the same time, and then in a few weeks I am a teacher again too.  I don't know when I will have time to be Jess in the middle of all this, but hopefully writing about it will help.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm grateful every day that he is still here.  He really shouldn't be.  The accident was absolutely that bad. 

I spend so much of the day taking care of everyone else, and I know that I need to take care of myself too, so by coming back here, I'm hoping I will do just that.

What once seemed important, is not.

Two weeks ago, i woke up to my mother in law in my bedroom.  my phone was dead, and the house phone wasn't on due to all the annoying school delay/cancellation phone calls awful weather brings.  i can see quite clearly on the news when we are delayed or cancelled, and i don't like the phone waking up the kids if they can get some extra snooze time.

so, the police had been trying to contact me.  luckily, one of the officers knew my family and knew to contact my in laws.  so i awoke to my mother in law in my bedroom, telling me there had been an accident and my husband was being taken to the ER .  i don't know what i expected, but as i drove (i don't recall very much of that 3 a.m. drive) i recall thinking i had better clean off the passenger seat so there would be room for him to ride home.  unfortunately, as soon knowas i arrived i was net by a very grave doctor to inform me that my husband had suffered multiple cervical and thoracic fractures hen he hit a downed tree in the snowmobile trail. my husband is paralyzed.  I've hardly been home

e in the past 2 weeks.  we have been in ICU, and now are in a rehab facility about 2 hours from home.  today was supposed to be our first race together and he can't even stand up.  amidst all this, i have hope that we will toe the line together next year.  i am determined to find time to run, as i know i need it now more than ever.  I'm not sure about all the races i signed up for.  I'm not even sure how/when i will be ready to return to work myself.  this is going to be one hell of a battle.

Slowly but surely, it's comeback time!

I hit the treadmill a few times this week, and painful (mentally...no injuries here!) as it was, I felt better when I was done.

I did try to crazy-bright up my treadmill outfits...crazy as it seems, it did seem to work in boosting my mood and enthusiasm for the work out!

  I also ran outside Saturday, using my yaktrax for the first time.  I had a great time playing in the snow and catching some vitamin D.  I also had a good reason to get out there: this weekend was the 2nd annual Run For Sherry.  I spent almost the whole run thinking of her story.  Every time I felt like stopping (running in yaktrax should count double.  It's a bit right running with bricks on your feet in the sand.) I would be filled with an amazing sense of gratitude that I can run, that I am running that there are others who can not, or who were taken too soon.   

The shamrock run is in 3 weeks.  I probably won't beat my time from last year, nor will I beat my newly-returned-to-running-after-a-10-year-hiatus-hubby but I'm ok with that.  My happy runs are returning along with longer days and that's the best thing ever!

Nemo's got nothing on me!

Snow tire print-totally an excuse for a walk break

 

Snow Tires!

I have no idea what is going on with my picture formatting!  Oh well!

I went out again on Sunday and should have run the hill in front of my house at the end because my out and back ended up being 4.8 miles...so close to 5! (It was a little easier...no wind to run into, and no bricks on my feet as the roads were much clearer)  It's amazing how much better I feel when I am outside and the sun is shining.  My January total was a measly 22.5 miles, so anything to improve that is a good thing. I'm terrified about running the Mountain Goat in May, but not as terrified as I was when I was thinking about it last week.

It's been a while...

Wow. I've had quite the month.I wrote a couple of posts but they simply were not for sharing, so I stayed away.  I am still not ready to share what was going on, but it all resulted in a bout of depression that I just couldn't seem to drag myself from.  I think I had been heading that way, winter is usually a struggle for me, but our family had some problems shortly after Christmas that just seemed huge and insurmountable and it was all I could do to get myself showered and to work each morning.  I'm sad to say that almost every day that I didn't run (Up until this week, my grand total for January was 6.7 miles.) I would think about how it would make me feel better, even just for a bit, but it was as though I didn't want to feel better.  I wanted to soak in the depression, hide under my covers, sleep the days away.  I literally would get up in the morning and think, "Okay. I have 12 hours until I can reasonably climb back in bed." And throughout the day, I would count down the hours. And then I would get home from work around 4:00 and climb in bed for a nap and get up at 6, throw something together for dinner and go right back to bed.  My children played a lot of video games and watched a lot of tv this month.  I'm not proud of it. My husband tried to be supportive, but he really didn't understand how it was so bad for me.  I didn't understand.  I still don't.  Looking back, it really wasn't that bad, and now that I'm dealing with what is happening, it turns out everything was for the best.

So enough of that!  Despite my hibernation, lots has been happening around here that I am excited about (now that I have given myself permission to be excited about things).  I was trying to motivate myself to get running again, and registration for the Boilermaker was happening mid-month.  I knew it would sell out quickly again, and I registered the morning it opened. 

Good thing!  It closed out in less than 3 days.  Part of that is that they allow bib transfers now, so I think a lot of people who thought "Well, maybe.  But if not I can sell it to someone" and just signed right up.  Last year it sold out in March.  Next year I think I will set my alarm for midnight and get up in the middle of the night to register!  I can't imagine NOT running the Boilermaker!  If it was not for this race 4 years ago, I never would have progressed beyond a 5K.  I know it.  I had no interest in running further than 3 miles.  Anyway, the news:  The husband said, "Hey!  Maybe I'll run it too."  Whaaaa?  The husband hasn't run in almost 10 years.  That's another story completely...but please note that we have been married for almost 10 years, and he has been out of the Army for almost 10 years.  He put up a good argument for why he would be able to do it, so I registered him.  With my own money.  And I paid for a ridiculously expensive training shirt (it's pretty cool actually...kind of wish I got one for me...but I got myself one last year for the 35th anniversary, since I would be 35.  Milestones and all.)

and he also registered for the 4 mile shamrock run I did last year with his best friend (he and the bf's girlfriend went bar hopping while the two of us ran the race.  Incidentally, that's the first race of mine he ever came to. Mostly because the best friend ran.  And there was beer.  Green beer.)  I insisted in buying him real running shoes and dragged him to my favorite sneaker store so he could be properly fitted for shoes.  (He thought he could throw on the pair that have been gathering spiders in the bottom of the shoe closet since his last run a decade ago.)

I'm so proud of him, he's been hitting the treadmill with an actual training plan (one of his own making...but it's a plan!)  He's also been encouraging me to get on there and get moving as well, which coupled with things straightening themselves out around here has been instrumental in lifting the cloud I started the new year with.

The kids have even been begging to get in on the treadmill.  They each ran a mile earlier this week.  Like, all at once.  My younger son prefers to run in his socks (maybe someone told him about Born to Run?) and wanted the incline at 15!  He did the whole thing like that.  No breaks.  Unbelievable.  He smiled like that the whole time!  My older son wore his basketball sneakers, and refused to be outdone by his brother.  He also set the incline up at 15.  What gives?  Apparently hills are fun to run for my kids!

So the last 3 days of the month I logged just under 8 miles.  Considering this doubled my total for the month, and all runs were done in my disgusting dreary basement, it's progress. 

Goal 2013 #2: Keep track of your freaking efforts!

So I'm procrastinating from bill paying this morning...and it dawns on my that not only do I have no idea of my mileage count for 2012 (Which is making it difficult for me to come up with a mileage goal for 2013...I think I'm going to go that way for my running goal) I totally didn't keep track of my races this year.  I have a piece of paper somewhere in a pile that listed all my 'possible races' for the year, but I haven't seen that since June.

It's been easy enough the past couple of years to track my races/times...since I've only been doing around 3 a year since I started running.  This year my goal was at least 1 event a month (officially organized/timed and/or paid for.  Group club runs didn't count, although paid-a whopping 25 cents- and organized...I decided that was not enough) and I tried to come up with a list of events just now, and I can't remember them all!

I do know I didn't do a run in January, because I didn't come up with the goal until the end of the month after it dawned on me that I had registered for a half marathon and a 15K and hadn't even gotten my husband to get the treadmill set up in the basement.  I pestered him until he did it, and my first official run was in February, in memory of Sherry Arnold.  I had planned on my first one being in March with the America's Greatest Heart Run/Walk, but I was shaken when I read Sherry's story, realizing that that could have been anyone I know.  I knew I had to do it.  I don't remember my time, and I can't find my picture of me wearing the race bib.  But I remember that run on the treadmill, and the time I spent thinking about a woman and her family that I didn't know at all, but felt so connected to at that moment.

I plan on rounding out my year with a free but official run at a park next weekend evening.  I hope the weather cooperates (for the drive to the park, which is an hour away, not the run...I actually hope there's some snow for it).  It looks really great, a run through Lights On the Lake, which is an amazing holiday display of lights you normally drive through.  We went when I was a kid, but I haven't been back since.

 

It's a 2 mile display of animated lights, and the run takes place right before they turn them off for the season.  I think I've talked my mother in law into running it with me.  I'm going to try and recruit a few other friends from work as well.

I'm kind of sad I can't remember what races I did all year.  I came up with a list that gets most of them, and I KNOW I did one each month...I just can't find any evidence of it.  I don't keep most of my race bibs, and don't really keep track of times (thank goodness for google!  I was able to look up my 5k PR!)

So my second goal for 2013 is to keep track of my mileage and my races.  Simple, and totally doable...or it should be!  I have a completely unused and empty Runners World training log.  And I always forget to turn on Run Keeper before I go anywhere.  And I don't have a Garmin (I'm a bia holdout!.  I could use an idea of how to easily keep track of things.  Especially since many of my runs happen after work before I head home in the precious 30 minute pocket of time that exists between when I am released from work and my kids get off the bus.  I speed-change at work, run my bags to my car and start running, return to my car roughly 25 minutes later, and jet home to get the kids.  


How much do YOU keep track of your running efforts?  Any simple systems or programs?