The Next Chapter

It has been exactly two weeks since I ran the marathon. It has also been exactly two weeks since I have done any form of exercise. The first week after the race was about recovery and making sure I didn’t get sick. Got through that then went on vacation to Turks and Caicos for a week. So you can’t blame me for not exercising, I had to relax on a beach and go snorkeling. There was one day that I played tennis so I wasn’t completely lazy.

Today I broke my lazy streak and went for a run in Central Park. It was a beautiful 65 degrees, the leaves are all bursting with color and the park was filled with people enjoying the last gasp of warm air before the arctic freeze. The leaves weren’t the only thing bursting with color, the mucus from my lungs was also very colorful. Started out light green for the first .80 then ended up dark red for the last 1.20. With the difficulty of this run today I have no idea how I ran a marathon. I started out feeling great for the first twenty strides then immediately wanted to stop. I pushed through that mental block and felt OK until I started coughing the blood. Blood was the last thing I thought I would be seeing today. It was a blow to my psyche. I’m kind of over this up and down crap. One minute feeling good the next your coughing blood. It really sucks. Anyway, I fought with myself to keep going. The first deal I made with myself was that I would push it to 1 mile then stop. When I made it to mile 1 I then talked myself into going another mile. Despite coughing the entire second mile and leaving a trail of blood like Hansel and Gretel I finished.

I feel like I am back to square one with my running but I won’t let it stop me. I am going to start looking for races to run. Something to give me a goal. It is amazing what one can accomplish when one has a goal and commits to it one hundred percent.

The reach of my story has kept on growing. Brandeis University has asked me to come and speak to their Genetic Counseling graduate students about my experiences. The program emphasizes the importance of learning about life with a chronic illness. The talk will focus on dispelling stereotypes. Hopefully my story will help a family or child learning of a CF diagnosis.  So now begins the next chapter of this blog.

Thanks for reading.

CF Sucks!