The Green Mile

1. The mile was really brown, not green.
2. The mile involved much burning, inside and out.
3. It really wasn't a mile.
4. It was more like 1/3rd of a mile.
5. I never want to do it again.
6. I did it the next day...*sigh*

First off, apologies up front for this post being an hour read. I would have posted this sooner, but two days after my very first run, I noticed a lavender colored thing in my 3 month old son's ear. Our best friend is an ENT, so I took Wyatt over to his house that night so he could check it out. At first he thought it was a hematoma because I had stuck my finger in Wyatt's ear to get out some ear wax. So after taking a bunch of pictures with his phone, he went and got his syringe and all the stuff you'd need to drain a hematoma and went to work. It wasn't a hematoma. It started spurting out blood, a lot of blood. It went through 3 cotton balls before it stopped. The Doc suggested taking him to a pediatric ENT (the closest one is 2 hours away), but to start with my pediatrician so that there is documentation (he didn't have any records, obviously, because it was in his house on his couch). So I made an appointment for the next day and my pediatrician sent me to an ENT in Tulsa that works on children. So a week and a half later, I saw him. In the meantime our friend had conferred with his associates and come to the conclusion that it is a stage I AVM (arteriovenous malformation). Now this is a big deal. A potentially fatal condition.

It's that purplish thing above his giant earlobe (he has his daddy's ears)

Now I have come to the conclusion that when I am faced with challenges involving my children, my coping mechanism is to immediately work on the challenge, and do EVERYTHING I can to help fix it (my middle son has "moderately severe" cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and a few other conditions, so this isn't my first rodeo). That week and a half wait for the "2nd opinion" was torture, because there was nothing I could do but look at the dang thing and read up on AVMs. Torture, I tell you! Anyway, I'm making this a much longer story than it needs to be since we're supposed to be talking about a mile run. So long story short, the other ENT thinks it's a hemangioma. My ENT guy vehemently disagrees (as do I, since it looks nothing like a hemagioma)! Therefore, I'm going to make the trip out to OKC and get a 3rd opinion. Because if it is an AVM, it needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

Anyway...

So I bought that awesome corset so I could try running. Girls, that thing WORKS!! Absolutely NO bouncing, just jiggling. And unfortunately, when I didn't have the bouncing to be aware of, I found that the jiggling was not confined to my bosom. It showed up in places I didn't even know existed. Oh, there was the usual, behind, boobs (obviously), my stretched out pregnancy tummy, upper thighs. But this time, I noticed it in my arms, calves, (possibly my face) and...(and this is depressing for me) back fat. Apparently my corset of a bra just displaced my back fat. UGH. Oh well, it'll go away eventually.

So, I donned my mammoth of a sports bra and, feeling INCREDIBLY intimidated and scared to death of my "coach" (my best friend, ENT's wife, runs 5 miles a day, and has been running since middle school...yeah) started out. Now she is typically the pacesetter and so I just fell into step with her. And that lasted...oh...ten steps. Okay, that was an exaggeration, it was more like 5. At least I'm sure that's what it felt like to her. In reality it was probably a 1/4-1/3 of a mile. But to me, it felt like 5 miles. I made it though, and perhaps I didn't run an entire mile, I ran at least half of it (maybe not all at once, but still) and speed-walked the rest (and she ran the whole time, I didn't know that you could run slower than someone could walk, but she did it for me). It was a 10 minute mile. By the time I made it back to her house (she just lives a few blocks from me), my face was BURNING! My lungs were burning, my thighs were burning, somehow my arms were burning, and my feet were burning. It was horrible. I hated it and never wanted to ever put on sneakers (or whatever you runners call them) again. My face felt like I had a severe sunburn (which is normal for me, I don't really sweat much and my face gets red as a fire engine). But, I went ahead and ran the next day, running just as little further than I did the previous day (then I walked, then ran, etc.). It felt good (not physically, just mentally).



I've decided that I'm going to work up to running a full mile (with no walking). Then 2, 3, 4, and 5. I can do it. And I'm gonna hate every minute of it. BUT, I'll also feel good. And I know that if it wasn't for my scary, intimidating friend, I wouldn't have continued, even when she couldn't run with me. So there you go, I hated it, and loved it at the same time.