Back on the Road Again...

I know I promised I would be back out on the road on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, at 9:30pm on Wednesday, it was still a horrific 32 degrees celcius outside. There was no way I was going to start my first mini-run in a month in that sort of hellish temperature.

So I postponed to yesterday which luckily was much much cooler.

The plan was to run a full mile along the same teeny tiny beginner's course I started out on back in early July.

I figured, at the very least, I could do three-quarters of it running with some appropriately teeny tiny walk breaks here and there.

I did not count on complications from ragweed - the cursed plant of late summer. My head was pounding all evening no matter how much water I consumed (normally, the best way to get rid of my headaches). A quick look at the pollen report for Toronto showed a nasty high reading for ragweed which confirmed that I am now going to be embarking on my annual two-three weeks of cursing mother nature.

Another result of the ragweed headache (and the water I drank all evening), was that my stomach was a little off for most of the quick jog and that, for the first time, I felt really and truly nauseous while exercising. Not a nice feeling.

OA, OAelder and OAjunior come home on Sunday from their three week vacation out west. Then things will get back on a normal schedule.

I'm hoping for the next two weeks to run three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays... distance will be determined largely by how soon I can complete my mini-course in the same way I could pre-gallbladder removal.

DAY 28 REPORT

start time: 8:15 pm
1 mile

Total Ran (approx): 0.5 mile (don't mock me... it was my first time out in a month... and my head hurt!)
Total Walked (approx): 0.5 mile

Legs - fine
Feet - fine
Lungs - my throat hurt and I wheezed like I have never wheezed before
Stomach - painful and included some nausea
Sweat level - low to medium

Recovery and Recovery and Recovery...

It's been a while since my last post, but I thought I would fill you all in on my recovery from gallbladder removal surgery.

Saturday night was the two weeks post-op mark and, quite frankly, I'm feeling pretty darn good. No pain except for the very rare twinge when I stretch out my right abdomen while raising my right arm above my head. Excellent.

So... really I should be getting back on the jogging routine shortly. I'm half looking forward to returning to my routine and feeling better, yet I'm also partially concerned about the inevitable decline in my skills these three weeks off will have resulted in.

Also - my slightly OCD mum keeps phoning me from Montreal and insists I "not rush into things" which is giving me a bit of pause. Damn mothers are even good at adding to your own doubt from afar.

So here is the new plan of action. I go home to Montreal on Saturday, the 25th and will return on Tuesday the 28th. Wednesday the 29th is a vacation day. I will start my running program anew that night.

Huzzah. Hoo and Ray.

In the meantime, the birthday 100 mile goal will need to be look at and recalibrated. A month off is definitely going to affect the mileage... I will almost certainly bring it down to the 70-80 mile mark.

Thank you well wishers

So today marks my return to blogging 10 days after having my very unhappy gallbladder removed.

Unfortunately, despite this being my running blog, there has been no running to report. What there if to report is anywhere from 8 to 12 hours/day of watching tennis' Rogers Cup (aka the Canadian Open) since last Monday. On the same television. Perched on the same couch. Drinking the same ginger tea. This is the first time I can actually say I have watched an entire tennis tournament. Every single match. It is quite the couch potato feat - even for an expert like myself.

It was surprisingly exhausting yet the perfect way to recover from surgery.

Now for all of you who want to hear the nitty gritty story of my week of July 30-August 4... here goes.

It all begins back on Thursday, July 27 when I ate a burger. A simple yummy fatty as all get out burger from a neighbourhood bistro.

Indigestion followed. And continued. And continued.

I would wake up each morning feeling fine. Then I would eat... anything... and be doubled over for at least 4 hours at a time.

This went on until Tuesday when at work a colleague said she suspected I might have a gallstone problem and told me to go see a doctor. This was after having eaten two bites of veggie sandwich and being in pain.

Knowing that I needed to get on a plane on Wednesday for Edmonton, and being without a family physician, I figured the easiest thing would be to go to a walk-in clinic to ensure that I wasn't dying.

The first walk-in clinic google maps pointed me towards was a naturopath's office. No thank you.

The second was closed for the entirety of the month of August. Crap.

By this time, I had convinced myself that all this pain was in my head and that it would eventually go away if I fasted for a bit and took things more easily. A hot water bottle helped enormously on Tuesday evening. Especially coupled with the fact that I hadn't eaten anything since the two bites of sandwich earlier that day.

Wednesday, I got to Edmonton fine. Again, I ate nothing.

By Thursday morning, I was starving so I bought some rice cakes and apple juice to sip on. This was followed by agonizing pain.

By 5pm that evening, I knew I would not be able to make it until Sunday (my anticipated return flight) and was obsessed with getting out of Edmonton and home. So I booked a very expensive flight to Toronto which left Edmonton at 1am mountain time and arrived in Toronto at 6:45 in the morning.

From arriving at the airport at 10:30pm to touch-down in Toronto I was literally counting the elapsed time in quarters of hours. It was what I imagine a marathon to feel like.

By the time I arrived home and collapsed on my living room couch, OA was primed and ready to get me to her preferred emergency centre at Womens College Hospital downtown.

I was immediately admitted (accolades for the wonderful people at WCH please!) and shot up with enough painkillers to down a horse.

6 hours and an ultrasound later, my gallstones were confirmed (one big one "bouncing around" inside the gallbladder and another smaller one stuck in the bile duct causing pressure to build up and my enormous pain). I was transferred to Sunnybrook Hospital and on Saturday night had the offending gallbladder removed laprascopically.

The surgery itself was extremely cool - three tiny little mosquito-bite sized incision on my abdomen and a larger one just above my bellybutton. None of my doctors were McGill grads (darn - I couldn't get a single donation to the Alma Mater Fund and claim I was working!) but they managed to do an adequate job considering their lowly education :)

I returned home on Monday.

My parents left Montreal at 4am (!!!) on Saturday morning and didn't leave Toronto until Wednesday. My mother literally BLEACHED my room clean. I don't think she approved of my housekeeping skills.

So that was my week and am feeling great. I'm back at work today and am hoping to be able to start running again in two weeks or so.

Thank you everyone for the good vibes you sent me - they appear to have worked. :)

Gallbladder Out, Percoset In

So surgery on Saturday night for to remove my gallbladder.

Returned home this morning. Painkillers are my new best friend.

My 100 mile plan is in serious jeopardy.

Send good vibes my way.