C25k: Day 1, Week 1

Yesterday I started the Couch to 5k (C25k) running program as detailed on coolrunning.com. I downloaded a podcast from Running Into Shape to help me keep track of when to walk and when to run. I recommend to anyone who wants to do this program to either download or make your own, it made things a lot easier to be told what to do when and for how long.

I am just coming down with a head cold so I didn't really expect to be perfect at this. I will probably end up doing the 1st week schedule for two or even three weeks before moving on. Between my head feeling like an overfilled water balloon I also have to be mindful of my back. I don't want to re injure it. As far as trips to the gym go I will NOT touch a weight machine until I meet with a trainer and get some advice (I have a meeting scheduled for 4/8) from my chiropractor. Hell the exercise will probably help my back get stronger so hopefully I can stop going so much.

Back to the C25K program. This week after a warm-up you jog for 60 seconds then walk for 90 ending with a cool down walk. All told you are exercising for roughly 20 minutes.

Yesterday was my first day on this program. The treadmills were full so I opted to try the elliptical. Probably not recommended but it was what was open. In the end I probably got more of a workout then week 1 is intended to give you but it felt great and, in my opinion, worked fine.

I made it about 3/4 of the way through before just walking the rest of the program. My back held up rather well but between being on the elliptical and having the head cold I didn't want to push myself to far. I could feel myself getting light headed and called it over about halfway through the actual cool down walk. Since I started a little early and walked through the last running portion I wasn't to worried about not getting a good cool down in.

Exercise

Part of needing to wait three months to recheck my thyroid levels is to make sure that they weren't out of whack from something environmental. The doc suggested I actually eat and to try to make it healthy (before I went in I was down to one meal a day, if I was lucky. I just was never hungry. Still am not but I try to eat at least a little something anyway.) and that I also start exercising.

So I am trying to eat more and healthier and I will also be going to the gym and starting the Couch to 5k running program. I plan on trying to keep track of how well it is going here. Since I am not doing this for weight loss I am not planning on tracking that however that may change. Any weight that I drop will just be an added bonus, at this point I am doing this for health and energy levels.

Basically, I just am tired of feeling like crap every day.

Because nothing can ever be simple...

Went to the doctor for my followup. He was happy with how the meds were helping me. The blood work however showed that my thyroid numbers were low, which means my thyroid is overactive. He said that the numbers weren't low enough that it should cause me to have such severe anxiety issues, so he is sticking with the GAD diagnosis, but it could make it more difficult for me to handle it without the meds helping. He wanted to check the levels in 6 months and continue with the anxiety meds. If it turned out that my Thyroid is still not behaving then I would go on meds for that and hopefully be able to go back to dealing with my anxiety with exercise and calming breathing techniques.

Then I told him about Mom.

Now I go back in 3 months to check on the levels.

I'm scared.

I got a message from my father. My mom had my younger sister, who is severely autistic, and they were meeting him for lunch at the mall. When she got there she got confused. She didn't know where she was or why she was there. They wandered the mall until my dad got worried and left the restaurant to find them. He said when she saw him she remembered what was going on and broke down.

He said there had been some minor memory loss before this, getting confused and very tired. They are going to the doctor today to see if it has to do with the thyroid meds but this episode was serious. There is a small history of Alzheimer's in the family, my great grandfather on her side being the only one that we know of. If there is no indication of her thyroid meds being off they are checking into it further.

This scares me. Very much.

Good news.

Part of the family drama that I have been dealing with is that my mother was diagnosed with cancer in late December, just days before Christmas. She had a lump on her thyroid and had to have the entire thing removed to be biopsied. It came back positive for cancer.

I forget the name of the cancer. They told us that the kind she had rarely jumped cell types but that it could get into her blood stream and attach itself to her other organs. In other words a rogue thyroid cell could attach itself to her liver and grow a tumor. It wouldn't be liver cancer, still thyroid, it would just be located in the wrong spot.

For treatment they gave her some pills that made her radio active for a week. These pills were supposed to find any and all thyroid cells, kill them, and highlight them so that after a few days they would show up on a body scan. Then the doctors would be able to see if they needed to take further action against the cancer.

My parents just called me with the good news. The body scan showed that not only were the thyroid cells located ONLY in her throat but that it also appeared to have killed them all off.

She will need to go through this once more in about 6 months, just to be safe, but the doctors were confident to call her cancer free.

Maybe there is hope for 2010 yet.

I will not run. I will not run.

Why is it that running away always seems like the best option? Don't get me wrong, it by no means is, but that doesn't stop the desire to run the other way when shit goes pear shaped.

I don't know what happened to me. When faced with a challenge I used to excel. I might not have been great at whatever it was I tried to do but the thing was I tried and gave it my all. Anymore it seems like I just shy away and hide. I guess my fight or flight wires got crossed somewhere.

Either way I just have to try and not to run. Running will not solve anything. Running will only make things harder in the long run, the ever present and dreamed about big picture. I will not run is my new mantra, along with today WILL be a good day, although I managed to fail on that on not 3 hours after I adopted it.

Not every day will be a good one. Not every fight needs to be fought. But not every day will be bad either and I can't hide from every obstacle. Balance is what I need. Balance in my mind, in my work and in my home.

So I guess all I can do is take a few deep breaths, a 5 minute break to meditate and calm my self down, and then try and get back to work.

But damn is Florida looking like a nice place to hide for a while.

Things are looking up.

So, it's been a week on the meds and I can tell the difference. Granted it's not a big one and I still expect some pretty big roller coaster rides of emotions until it really gets into my system, but I will take any positive difference at this point.

I am happy. Truly happy and playful. I wasn't not happy before but I didn't feel this...carefree either. The fears and everyday worries that plagued me constantly have drastically declined. I do still have them, they do still pop in my head, but mentally smacking myself upside the skull to stop thinking like that is much easier. I have been realizing my worries earlier as well so they don't careen out of control, snowballing into huge issues. I can tell that my everyday outlook is changing as well. The negative thoughts are making way for much more positive and optimistic ones.

I still have issues and probably always will but I can look back on the last year and see just how bad I have let myself become. This has been going down long before I thought it was. It was so gradual of a change, so slight day to day differences, that I just didn't notice the cliff at the end. Thankfully I was able to grab a hold of the edge before falling and got help before to many fingers began to slip. It was close though.

Lets try this again.

Alright, so this whole blogging thing has been a major fail. No updates in months and really only because I knew if I posted it would be some self-hating dribble and I didn't really want to admit that I was having real issues. Having to type out and then read the shit that would have come out would have forced me to realize my issues and, well, anyone well versed in the world of denial will tell you that that just isn't good.

The reality is however that I have been suffering from anxiety attacks and just general issues for months, since summer really, and it all pretty much came to a head last week. I have realized that I, in fact, can't do everything on my own, I need to actually talk to people besides my husband, and I can't keep shit bottled up.

Truth of it is this is the worst that my anxiety has ever been. I can't remember the last real meal I had and I'm pretty sure that going days without eating anything isn't normal, especially when you don't realize that it's been days because you never actually got hungry. On top of the incessant worrying about little, really stupid, stuff (such as the fact that I managed to convince myself that my husband hated me because I dropped a damn pencil on the floor), the insomnia, and the feeling of a handful bricks resting right where my lungs are supposed to be, I finally admitted to myself that I might just need some help to get through this.

Thankfully I was able to get into my doc. He gave me some meds that I just started taking on Tuesday and already I can feel a difference. Its not big, I had major issues sleeping and woke up not being able to breathe still but when I got news that would have sent me into a tail spin (a whole other set of issues that I am dealing with right now) I didn't. I'm not sure if it was the actual meds or if it was just the fact that my mind knew I started taking them and is doing its own thing but either way I'm not going to fight it. I am still thinking that I might see a counselor or someone who is trained to help someone with GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder, what a freaking catch all name that is, lol) but that won't happen for a while. Right now I am just going to let the drugs help get me back on freaking track.

Basically I am going to try to actually start using this thing again, instead of just looking at the link on my bookmarks and thinking about maybe posting something. I am also going to keep trying to write the story I am working on, it has gotten mostly positive reviews so someone out there likes it. I have been surprised just how rewarding it's been to write like that. Nothing meaningful or deep, but just a story. Maybe one day I will think of something original that I can actually put my real name on it and not just an internet SN.

So it's about two months late but here's hoping that 2010 brings brighter days! or at least more days where I don't have issues breathing then not.

:)