Starting at ground level is better than starting below ground level.

Oh my. There's that saying about when you fall, you fall hard or something like that. It's a mental trip thinking I am one thing and then being proven to be another. My body and mind and capabilites are no longer in sync. Everything I was and knew is different.

Before my DVT knocked me down, I was in the best shape and health of my life, I was running miles in preparation for my marathon, was working out hard, gaining real strength and muscle tone. My high blood pressure was being managed by my healthy diet and lifestyle... I was on top of my game and literally flying. Tim McGraw's 'Live Like You Were Dying' met my iPod when I was preparing for my skydive, but now it has even deeper meaning!!

GOOD HEALTH AND FITNESS SHOULD NEVER BE TAKEN FOR GRANTED... it can change on a dime... as I have found out.

So... here we go...

After a week of negotiations, I swallowed my losses and joined my new/old gym yesterday. I have had enough of playing games and just needed to get back IN the game. For the last month I have spent most of my time in bed with my leg elevated - either in the hospital or at home. I've listening to my docs and everyone else to 'take it easy', 'don't overdo it', and watching my leg swell and shrink, turn purple and pink, seeing veins pop up as the blood finds it's new path, feeling strange sensations in different places. The only constant has been pain. Somewhere there has always been pain since April 20, 2009. Sometimes it's a dull ache, other times it wakes me and makes me scream, but always pain.

My former life of all natural eating and healing has been invaded by narcotics, Lovenox, Coumadin, and Xanax. Rat poison. I can't wait to lose them all.

I have been brought to tears by the blessings and friendship of loved ones, ridden the roller coaster of extreme anxiety and depression and uncertainty, and experienced very defining moments of faith and joy that I would not have ever known without this turn in the road for me. God is good all the time. I am trusting him through this.

So... today I did something easy and familiar and again GIDDY... I have my gym home back even if under a different name, I went to the gym. I was going to be ME again.

I probably haven't mentioned that stairs and I haven't quite met our peace with each other. The 'new' gym is being completely remodeled. The elevator was out of service. Just the walk to find that out was humiliating. Facing the stairs and slowly mastering each one (with the memory of sprinting up and down them only barely more than a couple of months ago under the direction of my trainer) was VERY VERY humbling, but I made it to the top. Small victory.

Everything upstairs was different... other than a few familiar nods from former / newly placed gym members.. they don't know where I've been or why, their looks were all about seeing a familiar face after a major gym shake-up, a 'feeling your pain, isn't this baloney' (if only they had ANY idea lol) in a different sort of way but still, it was a little bit of home...

I looked around for all the familiar upper body workout machines... nothing was where it belonged, NOTHING where I had left it! All the machines were different. (and REALLY...now that I can't use them to the level I did, NOW they have cool tv's on the treadmills???? WHERE were those when I was gasping for my last breath on the last miles of my long runs?)

Finally I decided to start on the recumbent bike... the one I intended to visit last week. Slow and easy. After a few false starts I found my groove. I was jamming to my iPod and watching the distance and time and felt my left foot go numb, I couldn't feel my toes. DANG. I could feel my compression stocking that is now my constant companion when not elevating getting tighter and tighter... my leg swelling, pain from calf to my in my upper thigh, groin as it rebelled against the blood flow. My inner ME wanted to push through it, but I heard the voice of my doctor... LISTEN to your body, let it tell you your limits. I had ridden only 1 MILE when I limped off of it and found an upper body machine and did a few sets. That was even odd and unfamiliar and I was nowhere near the resistance that I had left it. I did my cool down on a few walks around the track... trying to find perspective, trying to memorize the placement of the new machines until I limped downstairs and out.

Before leaving my gym, I made an appt. w/ my new trainer (since my old one got fired in the takeover) for Tuesday morning. I will have her show me how to use some of the new equipment and some upper body / ab workouts to work on as I gain my strength back. I will have her help me figure out something to do.

Due to the take over of the new gym, the pools are being redone and are not open yet. There are currently no current pool programs on the schedule. I am needing someone to show me proper form and technique in the water as I basically just know how to stay alive, NOT work out or swim properly or effectively. One perk of the new bigger gym is there are 8 locations in the valley and I can work out at any of them. Instead of going home, I drove the 4.5 miles down the road to the next location. Their pool was open and they have a water aerobics class on M/W/F mornings and T/TH evenings. I gimped in, made friends with the manager there, and he gave me a tour of the gym and the pool. I needed something to look forward to, a goal. I will join the old ladies on Monday morning for water aerobics at that location. The new manager, Ryan, said he can show me technique, he is a lifeguard. He gave me verbal tips and if it is applicable I will swallow my pride and take him up on his offer to teach me to swim correctly. I am grateful for the resource.

Even if it's one mile, or one lap at a time, I am going to get my strength back. The hardest part is patience... endurance and determination can't win this one on their own like I am used to. I need patience to let my body dissolve the clots.

My mind on who I think I am / expect to be and my reality are 2 completely separate things right now. I am not in tune w/ myself, I don't know this leg or this body... who are they and where did I go?

So I went from being in the best shape of my life to literally ground level. Fine. Not going to cry anymore about it, afterall, the only place I can go from here is UP!

I might be competing w/ old ladies in the pool right now, but my biggest competitor is always myself and I am just SO GRATEFUL AND BLESSED to have lived through this and be allowed back in the game.

New Blog title, new twist on life, becoming a NEW ME one step at a time...

Whoa... I don't even know where to start. I have thought about blogging my latest detour in my life this past month, but it wasn't until today that I realized that I need to document even the tiniest things, that that the little blessings in life are HUGE steps.

I NEED to look back on this and see progress, and I intend to see just that.

This blog used to be titled "RUNNING on the raw edge."... I changed the first word as I have learned that it isn't about running, it is about LIVING. I AM a runner, an athlete, but am also becoming a me I don't know yet. Right now I am not running at all... they tell me I will no longer be a runner - we'll see. In the meantime though...

A brief timeline since I got too busy 'running' and abandoned this blog...

• March 13, 2009 - minor surgery that put me on 'light duty' at the gym for 6 weeks. Recovery from that went well... I took some down time and traveled with some amazing friends and went SKYDIVING in San Marcos, TX which remains to this day probably the most thrilling activity I have ever done - and I look forward to the opportunity to do it again! I still stayed as active as I could and worked out regularly to the limits I was allowed. I am so grateful that I was able to experience that and some quality time w/ amazing friends before all this!
• April 20, 2009 - more traveling, came home from a 7 hour drive and injured my back bringing things in. Symptoms the next day resembled sciatica. That week was trips to the chiropractor and symptoms continued to get more concerning. Doc put me on bedrest and told me to go straight to ER with ANY changes. I was unable to walk from that day on for over 3 weeks.
• April 25, 2009. That's the day my life really changed. Ironically (and frustrating) it was the EXACT DAY I was allowed off 'light duty' at the gym and had planned on getting back to my hard core training schedule for my marathon. Prior to my surgery in March I was at the gym daily barring extreme circumstances either running or doing weight training with a trainer. Instead of going back to the gym, I was being admitted to the hospital with an acute case of DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis). My entire left leg was full of blood clots from pelvis to ankle. I spent 5 days in the hospital in a whirlwind of IV's and pain meds and returned home w/ Lovenox injections and a plan of regular visits to the Coumadin clinic for the next 6 months where I get my blood taken and Coumadin levels adjusted to the 'theraputic' range.
• May 4, 2009. I received my handicap hanger for my car from the DMV complete w/ a registration with MY name on it. My doc had sent in a form. Looking at it I got angry and frustrated and cried... it felt like the state of Idaho was 'rubbing it in'... it has an expiration of Oct. 29, 2009. I don't intend to need to renew it.
• May 11, 2009. After being on bedrest the majority of the time and many setbacks I had been contacted by a surgeon the Friday prior. On Mon, May 11, I had a surgery that removed most of the clots from my knee to pelvis. They found my iliac vein in my pelvis was being crushed by an artery and they put a stent in, the surgery was to help prevent the long term damage of PTS (Post Thrombotic Syndrome) and help salvage the long term function of my leg. It was an outpatient surgery that I was AWAKE for ... watch the animation - yes, the wire tickled... and it HURT when they were working on my pelvis and inflating the balloons and putting the stent in.
• May 12, 2009. I WALKED into an event planning meeting. The personal victory was worth getting snarked at by my clients and colleages! ;) That day was the first day I had walked in over 3 weeks! Ok... it was more of a gimp than a walk, but I was crutch free!!!
• May 14, 2009. GIDDY... had decided to go back to the gym and just sit in the recumbent bike and try to move a little... I HAD LIVED through this, I wanted to feel alive and find me again... except when I got to the gym I found it had closed overnight and had been taken over by a different gym... enter a week of hardball and negotiations trying to recoup money lost... and some discouraging symptoms and setbacks w/ my leg. (extreme pain/swelling etc.)
• May 18, 2009. A chat w/ my surgeon was very discouraging. He told me I was crazy to try to work out and return to work so soon, but not harming myself as long as I kept it low impact and avoiding trauma. He told me to let my body tell me my limits but to lose the athelete's attitude of working through the pain, instead to listen to the pain/swelling on when to stop and slow down. He said there is nothing more they can do for me medically but to wait on the Coumadin therapy and hope my body dissolves the rest of the clots (I still have them knee to ankle). We will ultrasound again in another 5 months from now and see my status. He told me that due to permanent damage that I have a different body now, that I might never fully recover from the clots and not to even TRY to run for at least 6 months and not to count on my expectations of running my marathon, that I am no longer a runner. He was the 4th medical person in a week to tell me that. I am holding out on GOD to prove that one to me and then and only then will I accept it. In the meantime, I am shifting gears and taking up swimming for rehab, w/ my doctors blessing. He said that is a great and safe full body workout for me, and that I can also do upper body workouts as I feel able at the gym. PRAISE GOD I have options!!!