Heavy on the Gratefulness

Today I am grateful for laughter shared with others and for a good breakfast of oatmeal and blueberries.

There is always plenty of gratitude to be found around marathon time, and there are a couple of reasons this marathon is even weightier in the gratitude department. 

The last time we registered to run the Twin Cities Marathon was in early 2008. We signed up in late winter, months before a curve ball came our way. That curve ball was my breast cancer diagnosis. I was undergoing chemotherapy and unable to run that October's event. I very much appreciated the few miles I could do between surgeries and treatments, but there would be no marathon that fall.  

Nine years later, I am healthy, able-bodied, with NED (no evidence of disease). I have run more marathons post-cancer (9) than I did before my diagnosis (5). It is still strange for me to think that I ran at least one, and likely several marathons, with cancer in my right breast. I ran the Brookings Marathon in early May of 2008, with the shadow of cancer already cast over me. I wondered if it would be my last marathon. 

Every year, over 40,000 women and men die of metastatic breast cancer. One in three of those started out with an early stage diagnosis similar to mine. Let me not forget these victims. Let me not take my own health for granted. Let me keep running for my health. Let me not take any day for granted.

More recently my husband Darcy has had some health setbacks. He had pneumonia three times over the course of a couple of years, the last time being right before last year's marathon. He wasn't able to run in Mankato and it was tough, for him and for me. But this last bout of pneumonia led to more thorough medical follow-up. A bronchoscopy revealed a tumor in his lung.

With huge relief, it turned out to be a benign tumor known as a hamartoma. He had it removed in January and returned to training. His training season has been solid. We both know now what it is like to face procedures under anesthesia and questions that could have scary answers.

We both know how much it means to be able to run at all, much less a marathon. Heavy on the gratitude. It's justified.