Discipline Update & Freewrite: July 21

Good news and bad news. Good news is, I woke up early enough to get in a decent walk. I even did some jogging again. Even better, I was able to set a pace that did not leave me gasping. I think I'll continue that for the rest of this week and add some distance on Sunday.

Bad news is that waking up that early means I got less than five hours of sleep. That is even worse than the past couple of nights. Nor have I been able to nap, either. Let me tell you, I am NOT a happy cooky about this.

More behind the cut!

I expect that I am sleeping less because I am stressed. (Have you noticed that I am using no contractions? None whatsoever. Yes, I am attempting to buff up my word count. Go me!) Waiting SUCKS. I hate waiting. I still have not had my re-excision. And after I get that done, I will probably have another week or two of waiting before I get to begin my adjuvant therapy.

To be honest, I am kind of pissed off. Is this not a priority for anyone else? Because my diagnosis was BACK IN JUNE. Then I had to wait for a path report before my next doctor visit. Then I had to wait for my MRI. Then I had to wait to talk to the general surgeon. Now I have to wait for the plastic surgeon to talk to the radiologist ALSO, before the surgery. Hello, this is why there are THINGS LIKE PHONES. Aurgh!

And this is just the waiting after the diagnosis. I first noticed this thing back in, like, February or March. I had to FIND a primary care physician (I rarely go to doctors - you know, USUALLY), and since I was a new patient, they had to find a longer time slot because they needed to do a new patient exam. Then I got the referral to the surgeon. THEN he gave me the referral to the plastic surgeon. And at THAT appointment we got the surgery (the first one) scheduled.

I realize that everyone is trying to be careful because it is incredibly important to choose the best treatment so that my long-term results are as positive as they can possibly be, since (hopefully) I have lots and lots of years ahead of me and we do NOT want to see any of this ever again! (Though there is a pretty good chance we will.)

Still. It is QUITE frustrating.

Strawberries were on sale at the grocery store. Yey! Tasty tasty.

My legs are stiff. I need to make sure that I do not sit still for too long. I want to avoid getting all cramped up. I really want to keep going with my walk/run thing. I am going to make it! It will probably only be the 5k in February... I think I can do that, even with the cancer. Then if I train through next year, I think I can do the half-marathon in 2012.

The pace requirement is actually only a sixteen-minute mile, so I think I will need to work on endurance more than time as I continue to train. Maybe starting next week I can add a lap rather than adding more run-time. For some reason I thought it was a good bit faster than that.

566. BLAH!

I really am not sure what else I want to write about. I left a voicemail for our yearbook rep yesterday. I was hoping we could get together to look over the supplement and make plans for next year. I kind of need to give her a heads-up about any treatment and maybe see if she can come by a little extra to work with the students so that I can chill a bit.

On the other hand, it is unlikely that I would know when I will feel ucky. If I even get that way, you know? Maybe my symptoms will be mild.

And in other news, I have been thinking about the placement of my research unit. I had planned on doing it fairly early, after the first writing-focused unit, so that (hopefully) what we did then would still be fresh in their minds. But what I am starting to think about is whether I can give additional practice throughout the year, using the same sort of rubric, and then put the research paper at the beginning of the fourth quarter. This would give me time to get them graded still, without too much end-of-the-year pressure.

Well, not more than usual, anyway.

771! :D