Impossible is a typoRunning my pants off and loving myself along the way

Transforming a cancer diagnosis

Sometimes, something comes into your life and you don’t get how big it is. My friend, Michelle Malavet, had this big idea. What if you could take a cancer diagnosis and move through to the other side of it where you might still have cancer, but cancer doesn’t have you? What if you could have a rich fulfilling life AND be sick?

That was a really ground breaking idea for me. I’ve never dealt with a major health issue, so I couldn’t wrap my little red head around the idea. Then I looked at my life and realized that I’m constantly limited by the circumstances of my life. For a long time, being fat was defining factor in my life. Because I was fat, I couldn’t do and be things. So if it was possible to get to the other side of being sick, what would my life look like to get to the other side of being fat, where I wasn’t fat, I just wasn’t at a healthy weight yet?

So Michele asked if I would get in the game and make this book something that could fundamentally shift people’s lives. I of course said yes. I mean really, how do you say no to that?? I am profoundly honored to be a part of Cancerland and the Other Side of Sick.

If you’re dealing with cancer, get this book. It’s not what you expect. If you know someone dealing with cancer, get them this book. It’s not what you expect either.

I remember the very first time I had a juice box. It’s one of those memories that I’m not even sure really happened, but the way it makes me feel matters more than the ‘truth’.

My family did a trip around the world when I was 3, maybe 4. My dad had a bunch of international assignments, so we all packed up and went. Being so young, I don’t remember tons of it save for very vivid snippets. I remember remember seeing the queen in London. I remember swimming in a pool in a rain storm in Puerto Rico. I remember bright dresses in Hawaii. I remember impossibly thick French toast in Hong Kong.

And I remember juice boxes from Hong kong. We would go to this park that had twisty corkscrew slides, candy colored and slick and shiny from countless butts sliding down them. My brother and I would race across the park, kicking up gravel (the park had gravel? That’s weird.) To get juices boxes from the juice box man. They were these little jewel boxes with fruit I didn’t recognize printed on the and then you know I didn’t read Chinese so I could only choose by the color of the box. I remember pinks and reds. It was such a novelty to pierce this little box with a pointy plastic straw and sip some strange concoction. I remember feeling wild and adventurous, like the first person in the entire world to ever drink from a box. I remember feeling very grown up when I didn’t need help punching thru the little foil disk with the straw. It wouldn’t be till years later that I could show off my mad juice box skills to my friends when juice boxes finally arrived in the states.

I love fishes cause they're more delicious!

Yeah, I know, I’m an 8-year old. I’m totally excited for my veggie burger for lunch because it’s on a sandwich thin shaped like a goldfish.

Gold Fish sandwich thins?? Are you kidding me? They are the most awesome supermarket discovery I’ve made in like months. AND only 3 Weight Watcher points!

They are even more delicious if you make them swim around and dance in between bites and please be sure to eat the smile last!

And how are you spending your Ouchie Thursday? Me? In the fetal position, crying like a little girl of course. What? You don’t know what Ouchie Thursday is? Well, it’s the Thursday following a Wednesday when you apparently think it’s a good idea to do a 3 mile interval run, followed by kettlebells and ab work, topped off by a grueling hot yoga session. Thus, you are left with Ouchie Thursday.

I think I’ll recover with a nice 3 mile fun run.

I decided that I wanted to start a 5K training program. I can run 3 miles with no problem but I’d like to work on my time. I’ve been treadmill running all winter and now that I can occasionally get outside to run, I feel slow and sluggish. So I found a structured program designed to work on speed. Today was day 1. Psyched that the weather was actually nice, albeit a tad cold, I thought I’d run some errands. Literally RUN errands, stopping at the bank and post office along the way.

Well, that was a foolish choice. The roads I had to run on were heavy on the traffic. Now, that isn’t usually a big deal, but there’s so much debris in the roads that you have to run 5-8 feet from the curb.

“Debris? What Debris? What are you in Italy or something?” You see, my town uses salt and sand in the winter to de-slick the roads. Economically and environmentally good. Bad for runners however as there’s grit and sand bars covering the road. SAND BARS. Piles of sand everywhere.

Post-Snow Sand Bars

So not only do you kick up sand and pebbles, passing cars toss them out you. So I hit the sidewalks for safety and enjoyed a nice walk for the middle portion of my run.

Yeah, today is my birthday and I’m celebrating with Bacon Waffles (Yes, bacon baked IN the waffles) and a 3 mile run. I’ve been sick so I wasn’t sure how I’d handle the run so I went easy 1/4 mile walk, 3/4 mile run. Felt good. Here’s to another year!