Shuffling Along

Before cancer, I considered myself an athlete. I was not elite-level by any means, but I ran with an amazing team of very fast women and a great coach. I ran my first marathon right before my son turned one (not fast, mind you, but I still ran it). I broke 20 minutes in a 5k race the summer he turned two, and that same year I won a trail race for the first time. I never ran track in high school or university, so when I joined the racing team, interval and track workouts were entirely new to me. I loved it. I loved the lung-heaving, muscle-burning feel of a tough workout. I loved chatting with the girls on really long runs. I especially loved tackling tough uphills and technical downhills in the trails.

But getting cancer put a major kink in my running plans. Suddenly I was in the land of the sick and sedentary, and I was in major endorphin withdrawal.

Among many other things, this summer was supposed to be my comeback year after pregnancy (in my own head, that is. I’m quite sure no one else was counting the days until my “comeback”). In any case, this was my year to get back into awesome shape, run some really fast 5ks, and tackle some fun trail races before heading to South America. Now, I’m happy when I can complete a 40-minute walk, and I never stray far from home. But I’ve been feeling pretty good lately, and I’ve been itching to run. I am acutely aware that I have a few precious weeks of feeling good before they hit me with industrial strength chemo. I know, however, that low platelets and pounding the pavement do not make good bedfellows. So I walk.

After two rounds of chemo, I’m now waiting for my bone marrow transplant, which is scheduled to happen in a few weeks. At my last doctor’s appointment, after an hour discussing clinical trials and radiation and other Very Serious Things, he asked me if I had any more questions. So I said: “Yes. Can I run between now and the transplant?”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room. There was an absolute stillness as the two nurses and the doctor stared at me like I was a total nut. After a very long pause, the doctor said: “Well… no one’s ever asked me that before.”

The final consensus was that yes, I was allowed to run, though I could tell they thought I was crazy. Maybe I am. But I am not about to lie around like a lump, crying and waiting to die.

So during my first “run” last week, which was more of a power walk with a few breathless shuffles in between, I imagined what racing with cancer would look like. I could get electrolytes pumped straight into my chest catheter (no water stations required!). I would schedule races right after blood transfusions so I had extra energy (legal blood doping!). I would run fundraising races for cancer and collect the proceeds at the end (thank you very much!). It would be awesome.

And then I stopped after only a few minutes, chest heaving, muscles burning, humbled and overwhelmed at my lack of fitness. Maybe racing will have to wait until after cancer. I do have some sense, after all.

But I won’t quit. So if you see me, skinny, bald and panting, shuffling along the local paths, please don’t call an ambulance. I don't need medical attention. I'm just “running.”