An eerie sort of calm settled in over me yesterday. Whatever anxiety fit I was having just sort of mysteriously vanished and I've felt pretty good since then. I made myself walk on the treadmill a bit which I think helped. I'd been ignoring that option as I prefer to run and am stupidly guilty of wanting to sit on my fanny and pout if I can't do that. I also got a nice walk in outdoors with the boys and my husband to go eat a little dinner. The weather was beautiful and I think that also helped my mood tremendously.
This is a weird thought and I wasn't sure I was going to share it, but I decided to go for it anyway. (You will learn, if you hang around long enough, that I am more apt to say more than I should than to lean in the other direction!) At any rate, I've been contemplating how weird it's going to be to not poop for awhile. I mean really, think about it. If you are blessed with a healthy digestive system, pooping is still part of your daily (give or take) routine. How odd do you think it would be to not poop for at least six months or so? Strange, right? Now...pretend you've been sick for four years with a disease that makes pooping an "issue" that can determine whether you can leave the house, socialize, play with your kids, etc. and you can start to imagine how bizarre this is going to be.
Because I'm a weirdo, I also have been applying this same thinking to the subject of farts. Yes, really...and I have a story. Tuesday was my birthday and I wanted cake. I've been having crazy blood sugar spikes due to Prednisone, so we debated whether or not we really wanted to make a cake. In the baking aisle at the store I happened upon a sugar free cake mix and frosting sweetened with Splenda. In chocolate no less! Sold! Tuesday I baked the cake, we frosted it Tuesday evening, and I used good manners and decorum and ate one reasonable piece (yay, me!) Fast forward to Wednesday. Husband was at work and Kid #1 was at school leaving just me, the baby, and the cake. The baby lacks speaking skills at this point, so there was nobody around to nark me out for eating a silly amount of cake. Oh, and a bunch of the left over frosting from the can, too. Umm, yes. As for Thursday....wash, rinse, repeat until I finally got fed up and threw the remainder of the cake out.
Note to self: when things are on an even keel, you can handle treats and use good portion control skills. When you are stressing, it is imperative you get that stuff out of the house ASAP!
An odd thing happened about half way through the day on Wednesday. I got gas. A lot of it. It was not easily ignored either. I thought it was weird, but not weird enough to really do much about it or consider where it came from. After repeating my debauchery on Thursday, things got really ugly. So much so that my husband threatened to move. It finally dawned on me that I had eaten an obscene amount of Splenda in a 48 hour period and apparently that's a bad idea. Today I was fine, minus the traumatic memory of Gasageddon 2011. I tried to convince my husband that it was just my way of making the most of my last days as a farter (for the immediate future at least). He was less than amused.
Tonight I'm a little keyed up, but about something totally unrelated. Tomorrow morning is my self-created half marathon. When I realized I wasn't going to make it my goal race in May, I decided I would run the 13.1 miles on my last Saturday workout with my training group. Well, it's here and I'm experiencing all of the night before jitters like I would for any other race. I have a pretty ambitious goal and I'm hoping I can get close to it. We went out for dinner and I had some nice spaghetti and bread to get my carbs in. I have everything all laid out and ready to go. Now I just have to figure out how to get to sleep here soon! I must admit that it is kind of nice to be worrying about something besides having major organs removed from my body.
Oh, a side note about comments: I have received some really nice comments here on the blog and I want to say thank you and that I really appreciate them. I'm not sure what the etiquette is for that sort of thing. Am I supposed to respond to you within that post? Do I have to answer all of them if I answer some? I have no idea how it's supposed to work. So I just want to say thank you and I appreciate you following my journey and leaving nice comments for me to read. I do think if someone leaves a question I should attempt to answer it, so I will try to do that if/when it happens.
I absolutely love your blog! You are so open and honest, and your posts have so much depth. I ponder so many of the same things to mention in your posts. I wish your blog would have been around when I was preparing for surgery last fall:) I am sure your posts will make a huge difference for people who are going through hard times with UC and facing surgery. I am only starting to feel comfortable talking about my UC and surgery more openly, but am beginning to recognize that by doing so, I can help other people. I post over on Healing Well too and enjoy reading your posts there as well.
ReplyDeleteI am super active too and love to run. After surgery I had some anxiety issues and started to be haunted by all the "what ifs", especially when I had a few complications. I think a lot of this stemmed from not having my usual outlet of exercise to deal with the stress. I took a mindfullness meditation class that really helped with anxiety when I couldn't be active.
Of course, most of the things I was anxious about never really happened. One of the most important lessons I have learned through all of this is to take things day by day and live more in the present.
Good luck on your run tomorrow! You have a great attitude about everything and I look forward to continuing to read your blog.
Cheers,
Heidi
You are going to rock the trail tomorrow! I'm so proud of you!
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