Two Steps Forward and One Step Back

That's the way I feel right now. Now I know why I haven't exercised in YEARS. I ALWAYS start out with good intentions, and then fall off the wagon. Seems something always gets in the way of exercising. Lately there have been some semi serious family obligations and so I have not been walking like I planned. I know, excuses, excuses. I think to myself I will walk tonight--and then tonight comes and I am too tired. Then I think, I will do it first thing in the morning and then the phone will ring off the hook, or I need to leave, or someone needs me to do something for them. I HAVE to commit to this or I will never be able to finish 60 miles in 3 days. And I WILL do it. So, back on track. I had been getting up to 3 mph for a little over an hour--that to me is pretty good for a beginner. But, as my friend Morgan says, after 72 hours your body "forgets" the progress.

The good news is that I have helped arrange meals to be brought in to Hollie nightly for the first week (her double mastectomy is tomorrow afternoon). She has purchased "neat" camisoles to wear post op that will hold the apparatus for the drain tubes. Guess what, you can learn all about them on UTUBE, where a brave woman demonstrated all about them. Funny, wouldn't you expect a nurse or a surgeon to explain all that? But no. I guess they zip up the front and hold falsies--not the prostheses that will come later, but enough to make her look like a woman for a while. She feels encouraged enough that she will be able to visit her students and not feel uncomfortable. And, BONUS, Nordstroms will bill her insurance. At least that is one less thing she has to worry about.
Hollie is a woman of great influence. She is a natural educator and has many friends in the community. She has been blessed with cards, visits, flowers, gift baskets from her students that brought her to tears. She has been reading her mothers treatment record and believe me, treatment has come a LONG way since her mother's journey began. She told me yesterday that in the last month, since diagnosis, her treatment is farther along than her mothers in 7 years. So thank heaven for that.

Tomorrow is her surgery in the afternoon. Please remember her in your prayers.

Signing off for now, I am going to put my shoes on and walk. Not even going to watch Oprah....just hitting the treadmill.