The Final Chapter Begins

Two heads with pieces missing

Four years. It doesn't seem real, somehow. Four years ago today, the doctor and Mrs P and I sat in a room and decided that my life was in imminent danger from a fast growing mass that threatened to cut off the flow of blood to my brain, and crush my larynx. Basically, my body was strangling itself.

Two days later, the diagnosis came. The Amazing Cancer Boy was born.

I'm not going to tell the whole damn story again. If you're interested, the links to the right will take you through the entire adventure. It's a story that has taken over my life, defined every waking moment since that morning, for good and for ill.

"How do you feel?" a friend asked today. "You should feel great."

On the phone, Mum agreed. "I think you should, too."

Yeah. I should.

Somebody said to me once, maybe only half-joking, "You know, you were a lot more fun before you became a national treasure."

It was a joke. I know. But life is certainly different.

The Amazing Cancer Boy

Better in a lot of ways. I got to experience an outpouring of love that most people don't get until they are dead. I know what resurrection really means. I've experienced it. Several times. I have a purpose for my life, and a place to fulfill it, thanks to LIVESTRONG at the YMCA. I'm not sure I've ever had that feeling before... knowing that I'm doing something that is making a measurably positive difference in people's lives every day. I have done things physically, athletically even, that I never even dreamed of doing before I was sick. And maybe best of all, I have had the chance to know and love my mother in a way that might never have happened if we had not spent all those hours together laughing, crying, working crosswords, and pumping protein drinks into me through a rubber hose.

But in a lot of ways... well, it's hard to put into words. Resurrection has its price. My teeth are gone. And yeah, I miss them every day. My thyroid is dying, cooked by hours and hours of radiation. I have to take pills by the fist-full, and still I get so tired, so easily now. And so very sad sometimes. It's hard for me to remember things, especially when I try to memorize lines for a play.

Mrs P and Me in "happier"days

And there are other costs. Much more painful ones. I have loved and lost so many brave cancer fighters in the last four years. Been to way too many funerals. I've lost my family. Half of it, anyway. My dogs. My home. My best friend and the love of my life. The woman who fed me and cleaned me and mopped up my puke and kissed away my tears. Who gave me a reason to keep fighting for life. Can I blame cancer for all that? I don't know. Maybe not. But maybe without it, things might have been different. I know that at some point I went over a very important edge. I stepped into a place where even the woman who loved me most could not follow. And I know that cancer had a lot to do with my going there.

So yeah, I guess I'm glad to be alive. Being alive means I have a chance to... what? Make a difference? Heal? Find love again? Be whole, whatever that means? I don't know. All I know is that it's getting to be time to turn the page.

Five years. They throw a pile of numbers at you when you have cancer, but one of the biggest is five years. When we met the radiation oncologist, Mrs P and Mum and I, one of us asked my prognosis. "50%" the doctor answered. "50% of the people with your kind of cancer will live for 5 years." I remember seeing my mother cry at that. Five years. And no reason to think I'm not going to be one of the lucky ones. "Heads. You live." So that's how long he has left. One more year. One more chapter left in the tale of The Amazing Cancer Boy... the real-life boy who didn't die. In twelve months, I can close the book, put him to rest, and get on with whatever the rest of my life is going to be.

I've already registered for a marathon in May to celebrate my new life. I'm going to keep running. Don't really have any plans beyond that. I'm going to keep acting. I'm going to keep writing. .I'd like to be able to make a living again, so I'm not at the mercy of the docs and the shrinks and the Social Security Administration for my income. Maybe I can write and star in one-man shows about running.

I'd like to get on with all that. And in a way, I am. But in another sense... it's hard to explain... it's like I have one more year left to serve... my term?... my sentence?... maybe both. All I know is that I'm not going to really feel free until April 16, 2015.

Of course, there's a downside too. Without cancer, there'll be nobody left to blame but myself. I'll have lost the greatest excuse in the world. I'll be on my own.

And in some ways, that's even scarier that a tumor.

As for Cancer Boy? Well, there are some advantages to being a Minor Local Celebrity... It can be very good for the ego. But to be perfectly honest... I'm getting kind of sick of the son of a bitch.

New Years: Goodbye 13, Hello 14

I apologize for the length of this post... I really did intend to break it up, but it all just sort of poured out at once, a little like pulling off a band-aid. Anyway, if you choose to ride along to the end of the track, I hope it's worth the trip.
Pennsy

Lessons learned are like bridges burned
You only need to cross them but once
Is the knowledge gained worth the price of the pain?
Are the spoils worth the cost of the hunt?
Lessons Learned ~ Dan Fogelberg

Some pretty important bridges burned for me in 2013. And to be honest, I've stared at the places where they used to be for just about long enough. It's time to turn my eyes away from the shadows and back toward the light. But first, one last long look. There are a few pearls I don't want to leave lying in the mud.

January - New Year, new goals.
Get that personal trainer certification. Run a thousand miles this year. Raise $6000 for LIVESTRONG at the YMCA. Grow the program into new locations. Take Martha on a real vacation. Get faster and stronger. Finish my second marathon. 

I learned the joy of knowing where you want to go, and sticking to your plans to get there. 

February - Goodbye old man
Brady, the majestic old Golden Retriever who greeted us when we first moved into our new house, who started staying with us one rainy day when his dad had to work and wasn't home to let him inside, who had been growing a little more stiff and tired with each passing winter day, turned and snapped as me one night as I tried to comfort his aching hips with a gentle massage. He was in so much pain that he couldn't stand. I lifted him in my arms, and carried him across the yard to his dad and we wept together for this old friend who had so touched both of our hearts. Brady was never "my dog," but he took a piece of my heart, and left a bit of himself in its place. 

God bless you, old man. You taught me dignity and friendship, even in suffering. I was going to need those lessons sooner than I could have known.

March - Living Strong
After training hard with Coach Carrie for months to build core strength and increase my speed, I launched my Fundraiser and my spring racing season with a bang. Lowered my time in the Shamrock Shuffle 3K by a ridiculous 3:40. Finished the month with another PR in the Run The Bluegrass Half Marathon in the best shape of my life. Accepted a new position as head trainer of the first LIVESTRONG at the YMCA program in Scott County. 

I learned how perseverance and commitment could make me better than I ever imagined I could be.

April - It all goes to shit
I notice my Blood pressure readings are steadily increasing. The doc sees me right away and orders me to stop running until we can learn if the new meds will stabilize me. I'm running a marathon in three weeks. 

At a YMCA workshop I overhear a conversation that was not meant for my ears, and learn that my friend, mentor, and beloved Coach Melissa is leaving for a new job. In two weeks. I go home, tell Martha the news, and begin crying, almost without interruption for the next month. I increase my therapist visits from once a month to twice a week.

Once the doc gives the go ahead, I'm back on the road. piling up miles, my pre-race training schedule shot to hell. 

There are tearful meetings at the Y. Attempts at business as usual. Attempts to say goodbye. Attempts to teach a new class. All dissolve into tears. I ask for, and am granted an indefinite leave of absence from the best job of my life, afraid I will never be able to return. 

At their annual banquet, the YMCA of Central Kentucky gives me an award for service. I am so ashamed.
Coach leaves. 

The marathon is a blur. I cry as I run in the rain, feeling as lonely as I ever have in my life. Mrs P is trapped in traffic, and doesn't get to see me finish. I wander the streets of Cincinnati, feeling as if even God has forgotten where I am. 

The next day, Martha tells me the family suspects I must be having an affair because I'm so upset over Coach leaving. She hasn't felt me caring about her that much in years. She's had enough, and says we need to separate. It's been a long time coming. 

I don't learn a god damned thing in April.

May - Numb
The crying jags get a little farther apart. I desperately want to return to the Y, but the boss and the shrink both think I need more time to recover. 

Packing. Drinking. Weeping. Begging. Posting painful, inappropriate, damaging blogs.... Taking them back down. 

A few tearful phone calls. Tell Mum. Tell my sister. Tell my best friend. Tell Coach. Our last real conversation. 

Apartment hunting, praying for one that will let me have a dog. 

Coach Carrie calls to tell me she's taking another job and leaving the Y. She didn't want me to find out from someone else. I am so grateful to her for her kindness, that I weep: this time for joy. I contact the boss. So ashamed of failing the program. Without Carrie, they are going to need me back. I need them more than air. He suggests I try to work my way back into things slowly, starting with the LIVESTRONG session that has already started. For the second time that week, the tears are for joy and gratitude. I swear to myself that I will not let the Y down again.

I learn that the people I work with - with their gentle,loving, forgiving spirits -  are among the greatest gifts God has ever given to me.

June - Bachelorhood
So, this is my apartment. Nice view of North Broadway. Nice neighbors. A little loud, but kind and welcoming. So close to the Y, I can walk there. No pets allowed. Haven't slept without a cat in years. Keep seeing Jake in the corner of my eye. 

Less crying. Less drinking. 

A chance to teach SilverSneakers, an aerobics class for seniors comes my way. I leap at it, studying the choreography furiously. I will not fail my coaches this time. 

Martha and I settle into an amicable separation. We talk. We visit. We consider the possibilities. I lie in the bed we shared for so many years. staring at the empty walls. What just happened? What comes next? I thought I would die without my wife. 

I learn that I won't.

July - Funerals
It has been a season of death for the LIVESTRONG at the YMCA family. More funerals in the a few months than the first two years combined. Some I never met. Some I loved like sisters. The dark suit is in and out of the closet every couple of weeks, it seems.Coach Marian and I are asked to say a few words for our friend Becky. A joyful warrior. She survived her first encounter, but not her second. She loved her friends, her family, and the Y. The paper says she "lost her battle with cancer." I am furious. I tell her loved ones, "don't you believe it." Cancer took her life, but never touched her spirit. I saw her without energy, without strength, without connection to the reality around her... but I never saw her without her joy. I never saw her without love. Cancer killed my friend. But it never won. 

I learned that no challenge, no matter how relentless and cruel, can take away our heart if we refuse to let go of it.

August - Reality sinking in
The fifth would have been our 24th anniversary. The papers haven't been drawn up, but already, it's starting to feel like the chances of going back are fading. 

Mum makes her annual summer visit. She has her poodle, Cujo with her, so she can't stay with me. She is at what I've already started thinking of as "Martha's house," and I go over for uncomfortable visits. It's difficult for all of us. Mum is confused. Wants to help. But there's nothing for her to do except to love us both. It's what she does best. The morning of her return to Pennsylvania, she and Cujo visit my apartment. We both cry a little, and she hugs me for a long time. 

Late in the month, I get a letter from Social Security telling me that my Disability Benefits will end in October. I try to kill myself, but chicken out at the last moment, thinking about how someone would have to call my mother and tell her. 

It took me too damn long to figure it out, but my Mom is the most faithful friend I've ever had. 

September - Lights on the horizon
At lunch with Eric from Actors' Guild, he tells me he wants to produce King Lear, and he wants me to play the king. Looks like a November opening. At the Y, a job is opening up for a water fitness instructor. I speak to the Aquatics Director, and send him my resume. 

Therapy is going well. We've stepped down to meeting every two weeks. 

I run what will be my last race of the year with my friend LaDonna and an infuriatingly pokey kid from the Y's Run This Town program who seems to have chosen this morning to decide that she doesn't want to run, hates running, and will never run again. I am even more stubborn than she is. I refuse to leave her behind, and we finish the 8K with her sprinting angrily ahead, and me trotting in as the very last finisher of the race. I skip the awards ceremony because I have to rush off to a rehearsal, and a few weeks later, I receive a medal in the mail. I finished third in my age group. 

October - An Actor's life
Two mornings a week I teach in the pool and in the Aerobics studio. Two nights a week, I coach LIVESTRONG.... And the rest of my waking hours are all about King Lear. 

There are so many lines. More than I've had to learn in years. More than ever, maybe. I work through the play twice, sometimes three times a day, trying to get them to stick in my brain. The cast is young. So very young. I barely know any of them. A couple of old friends, and the rest of them are young and beautiful and talented and I feel like a visitor from another planet among them. They know music I've never heard of. Speak in language I don't recognize. They smell like youth and life and sex and joy. And they work their asses off. Once, when I was touring with the National Shakespeare Company, for just a few months, we found an ensemble, an organic company that fit together so tightly that i wanted to act together with them for the rest of my life. That's what this company is starting to feel like to me. I can't wait to get to rehearsals with them. I rush to be early, just so I can sit back sagely and enjoy their laughter and stories. 

Holy shit. Out of nowhere. I'm an actor again. 

And somehow, in spite of all the changes, I learn that I always will be.

November - Riding the bi-polar roller-coaster
A long interview in the paper about the play. The writer was very generous and kind. Just a brief mention of our separation and nothing about my recent nervous breakdown. 

As opening night approaches, I am exhausted, and a nervous wreck. 

I'm going to suck. I'm going to let the kids down. A dear friend tells me she won't be attending the play because she saw a great production of it once, and doesn't want to ruin the memory.

Mum is coming. Martha is coming. People from my classes and my running group and my LIVESTRONG family and God knows who else - class mates from grad school who I haven't seen since 1985, for God's sake - and I am playing the role of a life time and I have absolutely no business doing it. 

I become irritable. Mumbling under my breath. Bitchy in the dressing room. I'm an asshole during notes after rehearsals. 

And all around me, these beautiful young actors, for whom I have tried to set such a good example.... they remain positive and focused and supportive. The believe in the show. They believe in me. Their courage gives me courage. We open and run for two impossibly short weeks. 

After strike, I'm inconsolable. I feel as if I've lost my family again. Deep, deep depression this time. A bad one. But I will not give in. I say my prayers. I sleep. And I teach at the Y. I will not fail my people again. I have promises to keep.And I keep them. 

Thanksgiving alone passes without the pain I feared, and I learn that I'm stronger, more loved, and more blessed than I knew.

December - Advent and redemption
So then, here we are. I've called 2013 the worst year of my life, and I'm sticking to it. If you'd told me what was coming, and given me the choice between that and a relapse of my cancer, I would have taken cancer. Absolutely. But here I stand. The devil missed me again. 

In December some pretty wonderful things happened. I made some new friends, and reconnected with some old ones, both online and in real life. 

The people in my classes offered me much kindness and love for Christmas. And I enjoy them with an affection that is both devoted and professional.

I've heard a lot of words about myself over the years, but this month, for the first time I heard these two: "Mentor" and "Father figure." I was shocked and humbled to imagine that people saw me in such a light. It just never occurred to me. But to be considered someone who is safe to talk to, who can be trusted, whose life has given them something like insight or wisdom... It really rattled my cage. I'm still sorting it out, but I think it's going to be the catalyst for some positive changes in the way I look at the world, and myself. 

Therapy is helping a lot. I'm starting to make more and more sense to me. My shrink needn't worry about his cash flow, though. I have a feeling we're gonna be together for a long, long time. 

My physical conditioning is shot to hell. My first line of defense against depression is always food, and I have loaded on the pounds this year. It's going to be a long way back, but I'm gonna do it. I know I can. I've done it before. 

Christmas alone wasn't easy. I'm not going to lie to you. Several people invited me to join them and their families, and I gratefully declined. I chose to go it alone this year. I figured if I could get through this, I could get through anything. And I got through it. Not as gracefully as I would have liked, but not nearly has badly as I feared. Santa didn't come to my house this year. But Jesus did, and we spent the day together. We had a long, serious conversation. Both of us had a lot to get off our chests.

There are good days and bad days. That's just life in the Bipolar Nation. Today is a good day, and the future looks full of hope for me. I've started gettingt back into racing shape. I'm finally reading Great Expectations. I'm using more tools in the kitchen than the freezer and the microwave. And someday, when I'm ready, and the time is right, I'd like to be in love again. But in the meantime. I've got work to do. some wise person posted on Facebook one day and I'm paraphrasing: 

"Don't worry about finding the right woman. Work on becoming the right man." 

God has saved my life again, from yet another fatal disease: depression. He keeps doing that.I figure he must have something in mind. Whatever it is, I want to be ready when it comes. Whether that's love, work, a marathon, or just being at the right corner at the right time... I want to be ready. And for all the grief it's caused me, this year will have made me more ready than I was before.

I don't think I'll ever look back at 2013 and laugh. But today, with just one day left of this annus horribilis, I can still look to heaven and say "Thank you." 

It's good to be alive.

Peace, and Happy New Year!
Pennsy.

#444: Why Would Anyone Want to Run a Marathon?

After finishing the
2011 Iron Horse Half...

Why on earth would anybody want to run a marathon? 

... and then in 2012.
What a difference a year makes.

It takes forever to train. It screws up your system. It makes you cry and puke. Sometimes you pee yourself. Sometimes you fall down and bleed into your $15 socks (socks!) And what do you get when you're done? A tee shirt. A goofy medal to hang on the wall. The knowledge that you finished in 26,493rd place in a race that was finished before you were a third of the way done. Nobody in their right mind would do this.

Ahhhh... we're getting warmer.

So what's the problem? What's wrong with a person's mind that prompts them to lace up a pair of shoes that cost more than a prom dress and run 26 miles, 385 yards?

Marathoners aren't satisfied. Getting by isn't enough for us. We want to go farther. The places we've already been just don't fulfill us. We want to to go where we've never been before. No matter what we've achieved or praise we've received, there's still something missing. Marathoners don't want things handed to them. We recognize that life is full of blessings and gifts. The sun and the rain. Feet that can carry us. Friends who support us. But there is something in them that can only feel fulfilled by something they had to go out and earn.

The face of triumph?

Yes, we run because there's something missing inside of us. But we also run because there's something in there that just has to come out. You know that feeling you get when your favorite song comes on and your feet start moving in spite of themselves? Or when you were a little kid and you finally managed to make it to the top of the ladder for your turn to slide down the big slide? Now multiply that by a couple of hundred times, and you'll have an idea of what the starting line of a marathon feels like. When I was waiting at the back of a pack of 37,000 runners to start the Pittsburgh Marathon last year, Mrs P could see my my bib number flipping up and down. It was my heart pounding. I know what stage fright feels like. This wasn't that. I wasn't nervous, I was ready to explode. Poets write because the words and pictures are too strong to keep trapped  inside their hearts. Runners run for the same reason. Every one is different, but every runner has something to say that only a marathon can express.

Where am I? What's my name?
Why can't I feel my legs?

So why does the Fat Man run?

Remember the story of Saul of Tarsus? The guy who came to write over half of the Christian Scriptures and is called St. Paul? Paul was struck blind on the road to Damascus where Jesus gave him his vocation: his calling. Paul became the Apostle to the Gentiles... the witness who testified to the world outside of Israel about the loving power of Christ. I have always identified very strongly with Paul. I am also a witness. I am God's Apostle to the Nation of Survivors. I have been called to serve Christ's gospel of love and endurance and life to the people who know resurrection from the inside out. The suicidal. The addicted. The chronically ill.

I have been called to preach, and the Marathon is my sermon.

Post-race prayers for the Five

Paul's testimony was that nothing could separate us from the love of God. Mine is that nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of the life that is God's gift to us. I run the Marathon because I want the world to know that nothing... not sickness, not sadness, not disease, not disorder, not shame nor embarrassment nor poverty nor injustice can separate us from living the life God gave us. From serving. From enduring. From achieving. From LIFE.

Life: The gift of God for the
People of God

Cancer can't do it.

Mental illness can't do it.

Losing your job, your savings, your house;

Nothing can keep us from living unless we allow it.

What does it mean to live strong? Not that you always win. Not that you never fail. Not that you are better than other people, or worthy of praise. I know myself better than you do, and I'm less worthy than anyone. But living strong means never ever ever giving up. Living strong means fighting for your life until the very end.

It means living as if there is something more important than comfort and and safety.

Pennsy, Coach Chelsea, and Darlene:
cancer Warriors.

It means living as if "surviving" just isn't enough.

The Marathon is my sermon, and it's message is this. You can achieve your dream. You can be more than the world tells you you can be - more than you can even believe yourself. You are stronger and braver and more inspiring than you have ever imagined and if a suicidal, bipolar, cancer ridden, blood clot filled, failed salesman, small-time actor, big time egotist, 400 pound Fat Man can run a damn Marathon, then you can do the amazing things that you were created to do, too.

Never, ever, ever give up.

That's why the Fat Man runs. Not so people will be inspired to say nice things about him. But so you will be inspired to find the marathoner inside yourself. The one who wants to run. To write, To start a business. To ask for a date. Your marathoner may not ever pin on a bib or grab a paper cup full of lukewarm Gatorade on the run, but you have your own race, and it scares the hell out of you. Let the Fat Man remind you that you can run it. Nothing can stop you from loving. Nothing can stop you from living.

The ones who give up? They all die.

Cancer can kill us, but it can never defeat us... nothing can... if we live strong.

Peace,
Pennsy

#352: Living STRONG at the Y

On Monday, I started "LIVESTRONG at the Y" a pilot program at the Northside Y sponsored by a grant from LIVESTRONG. The program is designed to give survivors a chance to move, try different kinds of exercise, and learn the ways that physical activity can help them to beat cancer.This video is a very touching introduction to the work we're doing. There are a team of trainers who work with us. We are 8 cancer fighters in various stages of our battle. Some have been cancer free for longer than I. One woman had a radiation treatment this morning, before she came to the gym. The thing these folks all have in common is that they are all funny, courageous, and unsentimental about the disease. Fighting cancer, and living life are serious business for us, and we are eager to do both with more vigor and joy. We meet twice a week, and I have a feeling you'll be hearing a lot more about the group in the weeks to come.

Today, we did some gentle physical assessments. How long can you balance on one foot? How far can you reach your arm? What are your measurements? How much does a quick 6 minute walk affect your heart rate? Simple stuff. Once we were finished, I had to wait about an hour-an-a-half for Mrs P to pick me up, (we're down to one vehicle right now, due to a non-injury fender bender.) So, I went to the weight room.

What a nice facility! They had some machines that I've only seen on YouTube, and a couple that I hadn't even seen there.

Of course, my favorite station was the power cage. I flew to it like a bug to a zapper. It had been so long since I felt a real barbell resting across my shoulders as I dipped down into a squat. How long since I slipped 45 lb plates onto a bar and felt their heft as I lifted them off the hooks? I watched my eyes in the mirror as I squatted up and down, up and down, chest up, eyes up, squat down, press the heels into the floor, the rhythm of the movement leading me on as I breathed in to go down, then hissed the air out to go up. Three sets of 10 at 135. Not impressive by any standard, but it felt so good to be back under iron.

Then the dead lift. My favorite movement in the weight room. Load up the bar. Catch it in an alternating grip, one overhand, one underhand, to keep the weight from rolling out of your fingers. Dip your knees and feel the weight up your arms and across your shoulders. Eyes up, chest up. The a light hiss of breath as you push down into the ground and pull the weight up your legs to your hips You stand like a derrick with the bar across your front. It hangs there for a moment. Your hands are hooks at the end of taught cables. Then you slide your butt back, keep your chest up, and lower the weight straight down your legs. Bend your knees as the bar passes them. Wear long pants, or your shins will be sorry! The bar slides easily toward the ground as nearly every muscle in your body works together to control its decent. The edges of the 45 lb plates tap lightly on the mats of the gym floor, then the big muscles in your legs and butt and back "reverse engines" to push your body up, pulling the bar with you. 3 sets of 10 @ 135 lbs. I've lifted more, but it's never felt better.

I did some work with the dumbells, and did some woodchoppers at the cable machine. Then it was time for a cool down walk on the treadmill, and some time in a comfy chair working on lines and watching folks swimming laps. That really looked good. I don't think I'll be going to the Y without my swimming trunks again.

I haven't been going to the gym because I really wanted to run, and I didn't want to spend all my time working out. Today reminded me how much I love the feel of the bars, the clang of the plates, and the smell of steel and rubber and sweat that just seems like home to me. I had never set foot in this gym before, but I was welcome and accepted at once, when they saw that I was a member of the fraternity. I knew the secret handshake. I wiped off the bench when I was finished. Some kids came in from the basketball court to do bench presses. They wandered carelessly between lifters and mirrors. They joked. They jostled. They leaned on machines they weren't using. They pushed out some lifts, then ambled away again, leaving a wake of youth and testosterone. We lifters acknowledged one another silently. "Posers," we seemed to be saying with our nods and eye rolls. Real lifters are respected in the weight room, no matter how little iron they can move. We know one another without having to say a word. We share machines. We offer to spot. We leave things the way we found them. I didn't learn any names, and barely shared any words, but I made a handful of new friends today. We met in the weight room. We're going to be working out together for a while.

And it feels great.

But man, are my glutes gonna be sore in the morning!

Peace,

Pennsy

#349: A Special Opportunity for Bluegrass Cancer Fighters

I met today with Melissa Bellew, a personal trainer at the Lexington Northside Y on Louden Ave. They have a grant from LIVESTRONG to develop a program to help cancer survivors get back on their feet after treatment. I am participating. It's a chance to help build something that might be of value to cancer fighters like us for many years to come. Here's the text of her email, explaining the program... Pennsy

I have a unique privilege to frame the start-up or pilot program at the North Lexington Family
YMCA called "LIVESTRONG at the YMCA." This grant-funded program
provides a 12 week, FREE, exercise & personal care program for cancer
survivors, including a Y membership for the survivor's family during the
training & discounted rates thereafter. The program covers exercise,
holistic health, nutrition, group exercise classes, weights, yoga, pilates,
zumba, & other disciplines. This program's goal is to help survivors
regain health, thus increasing survival odds, and bridge the gap from
post-treatment to daily living.

The pilot program looms with a start date of July 11, with the possibility of a
week postponement to attain ten survivors for the pilot. After the pilot
& its subsequent tweaks, the 12 week program will remain on the Y's
programming schedule.

We have four participants to date & need more. If you know anyone who
might qualify for this program & would help us in the pilot by
participating & offering feedback, please send them my way. The class
will meet on Mondays & Wednesdays from 2pm - 3:30p. You can use my
email (mdbellew@hotmail.com) or call me at the Y at 859-258-9622.
Also, any callers could ask for Chris Andrews, North's Wellness Director, at
that same number. Please ask the caller to say that they are calling
about the "LIVESTRONG at the YMCA" program. I would need to
organize an intake interview & assist the person in getting some release
forms signed by doctors.

If you know a cancer survivor in the Lexington area, let them know about this program. If you live somewhere else, give your local Y a call. They may have a similar program in the works.

Peace,
Pennsy

Last workout before Saturday's 5K

Last night I ran a simulated 5K on the treadmill after my Yoga class. I wanted to squeeze it in so I could have two days of rest before Saturday night's race. Of course after all that yoga I was plenty warmed up, but I still did a quarter mile of easy walk/jogging before starting the 5K Trainer program. I ran the simulation in around 46 minutes (I forgot to record the actual time) which is just slightly slower than my peresonal "best" which tore my legs up for months afterwards. There were probably five walk breaks in there of one to two minutes each.

Rather than shower at the gym, I jumped in the car, stopped to pick up a Gatorade and a bag of ice, came home, filled the tub with cold water, dumped in the ice, and sat down in the cold bath for about 15 minutes, dreaming I was actually in a chilly mountain stream in the Catskills.

This ice bath trick is something I read about in a couple different places. I also checked in with my marathoner friend whose eyes rolled back in her head in extacy at the very thought of plunging into a freezing tub. I did it Wednesday morning with a little ice, and Thursday night with a whole bag. I could probably have used another bag, to be honest, but my goal is therapy not machismo so I'm working my way up to the hard stuff. I leave my compression shorts on, not so much to conserve body heat as to protect a bit of manly pride when Mrs P walks in on her fat old husband whose - um - "Wee Fellow" has shrunken to the size of a cashew in the icy tub.

While soaking, I ceremonially presented my bride with a yellow "LIVESTRONG" bracelet. I picked up one for each of us at Dick's Sporting Goods (a fine Pennsyltucky corporation, by the way). Unlike many of the online merchants for whom Satan is preparing a special chamber in Hell, Dick's sells them for $1 each - same as livestrong.org.

The totem is appropriate for us in several ways. Mrs P is a social worker who has spent plenty of time counseling cancer patients in hospice care. Like every other family, we each have a long list of loved ones who have fought the disease over the years. And like everyone else, we are always struggling to find a little more strength to do the work God has given us to do in this world. Knowing that this little yellow rubber band links me to my bride, and to thousands of people who have fought to stay alive -- it inspires me.

Tonight I'll get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow we'll do some household chores, and then in the evening I'll make my way downtown to the starting line. My goal is to finish the race without getting hurt so I can continue training for a 10K run at the end of the month. In spite of the fact that I'll be wearing a timing chip, I'm just going to let that take as long as it takes. (though it would be nice to finish before a few of the walkers, anyway.

I'll probably spend some time looking over this post. One of the best things about a blog like this is that it helps me remember and learn hard earned lessons.

And no chasing coeds this time!!!

Peace,
Pennsy