Go, go, go!

I ran six miles this morning with my half marathon training group. Six awesome miles. Oh, I also went with a faster pace group than I normally do and I did not die. I am running faster and stronger than I have in years. All of this amazes me to no end seeing as I had my abdomen sliced open and my colon removed less than four months ago. I still marvel at the amazing miracle of having my health restored. Yes, there are things about having this ileostomy that are a total pain in the, umm, butt I guess....but what I have gained from it so far outweighs any and all of the negative stuff. I would not go back and do it differently if given the chance, unless it meant maybe I did it a little sooner instead of getting so sick. The thing is though, I think I had to get to where I was in order to be ready. The whole thing is quite the undertaking, so being ready is of the utmost importance.

I only ended up with one little ostomy related snafu during my vacation. At one point, I had a pouch where the adhesive that holds the velcro on the closure just gave out. This meant I could roll it up and velcro it, but it wasn't going to stay closed. Not so good. Luckily, I had ducked into the bathroom for a just in case last minute emptying type thing right as we were on our way out for some shopping. Thank goodness I am in this habit of checking on things one last time before leaving the house! I simply switched out pouches since I use a two piece. It was my first time doing this, but it was super easy. All I had to do was pop off the old one, use a couple of flushable wipes to clean around the snap ring, and then pop the new pouch on. Then I was ready to roll again. I thought maybe the adhesive gave out because of too much exposure to water, but it happened a second time after I got home. That pouch had only been exposed to two showers and no running or swimming. Very odd. I had plans to change the whole appliance that evening, so this time I broke out the super glue and reattached the velcro to where it was supposed to be. That was a nice solution and everything held up perfectly until I did my change later that night. I'm wondering if there isn't a defect in this box of pouches or something? I'm not sure. The pouch I'm wearing now went on Tuesday night and it hasn't had any issues though I've run in it a few times and showered as well. Might have just been a crazy fluke. I will definitely continue to check on them before I go out though!

I am also really happy about my weight loss situation, especially considering a week of vacationing away from home. I didn't really follow all of my Weight Watcher's stuff during my trip, but I did call on some of my new habits such as controlling my portions, deciding which "bad" foods were really worth the splurge and which ones I could ignore, and keeping my exercise up. The end result was a one pound gain. I was thrilled. I completely enjoyed myself, don't feel like I missed out on anything, and the damage was minimal. Yay, me! I now have a little less than 10 pounds to lose to make Dr. L happy when I go back in September. I'm more confident than ever that I'll get the job done. Still hoping to schedule surgery #2 for right after the Columbus half in mid-October. Hopefully he agrees!