New Shoes!

I've been ramping up my running in a big way over the past couple of weeks in order to do the Lifetime 90 day challenge 5K on May 6 and then the Race for the Cure 5K on May 11, and to be honest, it's getting pretty challenging (all of you long distance runners out there laughing, please keep your judgements to yourselves!). I'm not going to tell you how long I'm able to run before wanting to pass out, but I'm adding minutes daily and pretty soon I'll be proud enough of my milage to talk about it. Today is a rest day, but tomorrow I'm jumping in with these new pretties I picked up this afternoon:

Hopefully they'll make me light as a feather and I won't notice I'm running anymore...

A Week By the Sea

Sorry for the lapse in writing; I have a good excuse - Jason and I have recently returned from a week-long trip to Mexico (Puerto Morelos to be exact)! We slept in, relaxed, read, drank margaritas and other exciting drinks, kayaked, soaked up sunshine, ate fish tacos, walked the beach, learned about the ancient Mayan culture, swam, and overall had an amazing time! We needed the break more than I'd expected!

Right to left, top to bottom: Our first drinks (at the airport - c'mon give us a break, it'd snowed 6" in MN while we were leaving that morning!), my first glimpse of the ocean, the first meat I'd eaten in over 2 months, a jellyfish shot.

View from the pool and the beautiful beach in front of our resort.

Ruins, and the most beautiful beach I've ever seen!

Obsessed

The sunrise on the day we left. I may have teared up a little (no judging).

Winter, go AWAY!

Like, right now. Pretty please.

Pictures!

This is completely unrelated to anything I typically write about (maybe that's a good thing, been a lot of complaining lately haha!) but get this: Getty Images now allows millions (yep you read that right) of their images to be shared (online only, for non-commercial purposes) for FREE! Meaning, I'm able to give you this beauty:

 ...without having to worry about copyright or spending big bucks first. Pretty awesome huh?

Happy Monday!

Therapy

I met with the physical therapist yesterday who agreed that it is a strained muscle in my back that's causing so much pain. She lectured me about my posture at work, and showed me a few stretches to strengthen the muscles that are out of whack. Bad news: she said our meeting yesterday starts week one and that it'll be 6-7 weeks before I'm pain free. That means I'm stuck on the stationary bike for awhile instead of the treadmill, but I'm at the point where I'd do almost anything to get rid of the pain. I'm meeting with her again next week and I'm hoping I'm able to say that I've noticed a change!

On and Up!

Not much to report. I finally had an appointment with a general practitioner last week who told me the pain in my back is caused by a strained rhomboid muscle. I was super excited that we finally had a reason for the pain, AND she offered me ways to fix it! It's typically a 6-8 week injury (lucky me, this is week 9!) but my doctor thinks it'll last a little longer (of course). She gave me a few different remedies, one being physical therapy, so I'm crossing my fingers something starts to work, and fast!

Whoops

Didn't mean for so much time to pass between updates! I feel like I'm finally back on track after spending last weekend in Chicago with some very dear friends (missing the early train Saturday night + daylight savings + early wake-up call Sunday = delirious for days); it felt like a very quick trip but it was fantastic to spend the weekend with such wonderful people!

Once we unpacked and finally got our mountains of laundry taken care of, I was a busy girl this week helping my sister with her invoices (don't worry - no math was involved), having dinner with my gal pals, attending my second Patient Advisory Committee meeting, and celebrating Jason's Uncle's birthday and St. Patrick's Day. Ooof.

The Patient Advisory Committee meeting was an interesting one - they'd sent out a copy of a brochure that we'd be reviewing. The first time I looked it over I was furious - it was addressed to those dealing with breast cancer, and the topic was unnecessary tests (which according to the brochure, included PET, CT, and bone scans). As a survivor, I've been unsuccessfully lobbying my doctors for those tests since the day of my mastectomy - you can never be sure that every cell was removed, and cancer can spread like wild fire. Of course I'd want a scan, if not for preventative steps (if there is a cell somewhere, let's find it now and get rid of it), then simply for my mental health! Peace of mind works a million times better than any drug, and so what if the tests are expensive - that's what I have health insurance for!

I went to the meeting on fire and ready for a hefty debate and was pleasantly surprised that I wasn't alone with my feelings. We had a fantastic discussion and I'm sure the content will be addressed before it goes out to anyone. I left knowing that I'd contributed, helped someone just a little bit, and it felt great!