How I Feel

I lost weight. A lot of weight. 165 pounds. An entire person. I ran a 1/2 marathon and then another one. I completed a sprint triathlon and then an olympic one. I did ALL OF THAT!

Then...I changed jobs and didn't have to be the girl that lost weight and did races. I gained some weight.

THEN...my son was diagnosed with leukemia. Healthy eating and fitness went totally out the window at that point. They were replaced with cafeteria meals and sleeping on a fold out couch at the hospital. Thankfully, my son is in remission. He had a bone marrow transplant that consumed all of our lives from April to September.

I don't know what I weigh, but I know how I feel. Sluggish. Achy. Tired. I miss that joy that I found in pursuing my health and fitness goals. I don't like how I feel.

I informed the husband that I was going to start recording again tomorrow. Again. The thing is, I know that I can do it again. It is going to take work, but I know what my body can do when I feed it healthy foods and exercise. This isn't a "New Year, New Me" post. It's a "Getting back to Me" post.

The exciting part for me is that I am going into this next phase of my fitness life with so much more knowledge than I had the first time. I know that I don't want to be the girl that eats 1200 calories a day and exercises 6 day a week. I know that I don't want to be the girl that weighs herself every single day (sometimes more than once a day). I know that I don't want my life to revolve around losing weight.

What I do know is that I don't like how I feel and I know that I can feel amazing in my own skin once again.

I'll be starting oh-so-slow. Tomorrow morning I will weigh in so that I know about how many calories I need to get back to my 2ish pounds a week weight loss. Then, I'm meeting a friend at the Y for a weigh lifting session.

My goals for the next 4-weeks:
- Record daily (as best as possible) and meet my calorie goal 4 out of 7 days each week
- 3 workouts per week that last at least 30 minutes
- Weigh in once a week. That's it. No more. I refuse to allow the scale to control my life. Again. I've walked that road. It's not pretty.
- Blog weekly with a check-in on how I'm doing with my goals. I debated returning to blogging, but I know that it is a great tool for me to process and hold myself accountable.


Here we go again,
Kari

Leukemia

It's been 7 months since my last post. Oy!


Here's my July-December summary: Grad school. Principal internship. Continued to workout 5-6 days a week. Ate whatever was in front of me and already prepared.


December 1, 2015: My son had been acting weird. Odd fevers. Leg pain. Lethargic. No explanation. We took him to the doctor and asked him to run labs. 


12:10 PM- My phone rings. It's a doctor that I've never met.

Doctor: "He has leukemia. We need you to check in by 1:00 PM. We will admit tonight and start treatment tomorrow morning."


I left work. Went home and got my son and husband. Drove to the hospital.


In the next 3 hours I would learn:
- 1 in 30,000 children develop leukemia
- My son has the less common type (AML) that only affects 15% of leukemia cases. It is significantly harder to cure.
- We would spend the next 20 days (it ended up being 24 days) in the hospital.


Round 1 of leukemia failed to put him into remission. Devastated.


We do another round.


Round 2, which just finished yesterday, finally put my Bug into remission.  We are no where near done. He will do one more round of chemo and then go to a different hospital to get a bone marrow transplant.


My health, of course, took a back seat to my family's needs.
Why am I writing today? Today, for the first time in 2 months, I work up early and got on the treadmill before work. Both of my kids are home and we have a week long reprieve before going back into the hospital.


Today, I am breathing.


~Kari