Rebuilding after Chemo

When I finished chemo, I needed something to refocus on while my body recovered.  I had been off work since June 12th and working on strengthening my body per Dr Dougherty's orders. The first week of my work leave I started a couch to 5K running program.  Never in my entire life was I able to run more than a few hundred feet... not even when I was at my prime in 2005 weighing 130 at 5'7".  All my friends run 5K's for fun and I either don't go or I end up staying behind to grill and drink beer (not that this is a bad thing) but I want to be able to partake too!  And let's face it... when the zombie apocalypse comes, I was going to be the first one eaten.  Learning to run a decent distance is definitely something that was on my bucket list, so why not start now while I have time to do it and I am rebuilding my body anyway.  If I am already going to feel like hell, why not feel a little more like hell and do this thing!

 

So the program that I was using to learn to run a 5K was an app for my iPhone called 5K Runner. I

was supposed to run 3 times a week for 8 weeks.  I would listen to music on my iphone and the app would speak over the music and tell me to run for a minute then walk for 3 minutes, gradually increasing the run time and decreasing walk time over 8 weeks. 

At the time I finished chemo I should have been in my 4th week of the program, but I was actually only done running 6 times which was 2 weeks in.  I would run on the Monday and Wednesday before chemo (with Cosmo on the street) and then get chemo on Thursday and be in too much pain to run the whole next week. So you can say I was doing an 8 week program but at my own pace which looked like it was going to be more like 16 weeks.  Now that chemo was done, I had committed to hitting this program hard core and finishing it before my next reconstructive surgery. It was starting to get really hot outside too so I brought my 5K program to the treadmill at the gym.  Since I was going to be there already anyway, I would stay after each run to do a resistance workout. I needed to start rebuilding my pectoral muscles since a lot of them were stripped away in my March surgery and build up my arms again. 

 

This program gave me a goal to wake up and work towards again because up to this point, living through chemotherapy was my only goal.  The first 8 weeks of chemo were so hard, I told my husband on many occasions that I wanted to refuse further treatments. The nausea and stomach cramping were so bad, I would rock on my hands and knees at night trying to fall asleep through the pain so I wasn't a zombie at work the next day.  Then the second 8 weeks of Taxol were so much easier because I was able to sleep, but the bone pain was ridiculous. There were times I would go to eat and it hurt too bad to open my jaw to get the food in (Don't let me fool you, I still found a way!) 

 

The strange feeling when you are done with chemotherapy of "um, now what do I do?" is very unique in that I don't think anyone who didn't experience it could understand it. When that is your entire goal for a few months and you are so focused on it you can't see anything else around you and then you are done, it takes some time to readjust and find new goals.  I thought I would be elated to be done and have a nice party... instead, I ran a little and quietly moved on to the next big thing....