On juggling too much and spacing out

When stirring the oatmeal, she had a moment without anxiety.

Then she thought, "I'm not anxious!" And the chattering began anew.

I thought this would be a good description in a novel or short story about a character who overthinks. Or maybe a caption to a New Yorker cartoon caption mocking a character's earnestness.

What is there to be anxious about?

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I actually started this blog post about a week ago and then forgot about it.

It has been a period of forgetting and remembering and realizing that I am doing too many things at once, none of them particularly well.

I missed a couple of deadlines, not by much, just a couple of days, attributing it to the short month of February where I was thinking two stories were due at the end of the week (March 2) instead of the end of the month (Feb. 28), which could be solved by writing EVERYTHING down.

I therefore rededicate myself to writing everything down.

At both of my newspaper jobs, I can honestly say I never missed a deadline.

That desk calendar right in front of me really helped. I have a desk but I prefer writing at the kitchen table looking out at the yard, and a desk calendar would not help the feng shui of the kitchen, which is my favorite room.

I had a period of not much going on and then asked for more work and got it all at the same time.

This would also happen at the paper, but it was easier to juggle in those days. Sure, I had kids' schedules, but I was lucky to have a job where I could integrate them into my work life.

It is those trips to Boston that can sometimes throw me off.

Last week was particularly challenging.

ECP on Wednesday (the internal sunburn to tame my graft vs. host of the skin) and PDT on Thursday (photodynamic therapy to head off skin cancer by burning the top layer of skin off my face, aka face fry), and the anticipation of the combination plus the combination itself threw me off.

Plus, the face fry HURT a lot for a day or two, with oxycodone-level burning and stinging. It subsisted pretty quickly, but the thinking about it didn't.

I have it done once a year. My dermatologist said she heard it works better when you do it twice a year, so I'm scheduled to do it again in May.

Throughout the 15 years of dealing with this (crazy, isn't it?), I always do what they say.

I figure, after all, that I am at a world class hospital and they know what they're doing.

However, I emailed my dermatologist to say I would really like to avoid getting it again this spring.

You have to stay out of the sun for a few days after it, and that's when I want to be outside. I'm not supposed to be out in the sun as much as I am as it is, and this adds another layer of sensitivity.

I NEED to do the tennis and the running (OK, slow jogging) and the walking because those are as important as my big overflowing bag of pills.

In the inclement weather the past week I decided to go swimming one day. Like any kind of exercise, it's better if you do it consistently. I had gotten to where I felt OK with it, but skipped so much time (it's not my favorite), that when I got in the pool it was hard to get in the rhythm. Near the end of 24 laps (the amount that I had decided to do), I tried to take a Zen approach – counting laps with no chattering. A friend who used to run a lot says he has switched to swimming and has managed to get the same high. I'm not a true believer, but I have gotten a little bit of that in spurts. It is nothing like when in the old days of running, though.

I got about half the length of the pool in quiet swim mind mode before I started thinking again.

It's better than nothing I guess. And I have to say that when I was finished, I felt virtuous and nicely stretched out.

Any kind of exercise is good for anxiety, for sure.

Jogging for older people is not harmful

My eye was drawn to the recent Ask Well feature in The New York Times headlined Is Jogging Bad for Older People? And I was heartened by the answer that it is not.

The column starts with this question:

Is there any scientific study to substantiate the claim that older people (over 45) should limit high-impact  exercises like jogging, sprinting, etc?

The answer, according to writer Gretchen Reynolds, is: "Actually, much of the recent science about high-impact exercise by 'older people' like me – I prefer the team 'seasoned' by the way – reaches the opposite conclusion, suggesting that in many cases high-impact exercise can be beneficial for those middle-aged and beyond."

Running and other high-impact exercises improve bone density, and, contrary to popular belief, do not increase the risk of osteoarthritis of the knees and joints and might even have a protective effect against bone degeneration, according to experts quoted in the story.

I am in no way near getting back to jogging, but I am going to try a run/walk in the spring. This despite various people telling me that I'm killing my knees and might even be too old to try it again.

Tennis has been going well, and since we play on hard courts, that is high-impact enough for me right now.

Meanwhile, at the end of the day yesterday I realized that I hadn't had any pain or taken a pain pill all day. This put me in a good mood.

Time to get a grip

I wasn't going to write this one because I am embarrassed, but in the interest of being honest, here I go.

I have kept my promise to keep from jogging around the upper lake, where the roots and stones are now hidden under fallen leaves. I have actually successfully jogged around the paved lower lake, and I should just leave it at that if I feel the need to run at all. Runners know that it is very hard to give it up.

Yesterday I was walking Maddie around the upper lake, and when I saw a straight-away I just picked up the pace and jogged for less than a minute between two trees. In the second that it took for me to say to myself, "I really shouldn't do this," I fell hard. I hit my head, and my glasses went flying.

I got up and walked slowly home, feeling the bump rising on my cheekbone. I took out some ice and lay down upstairs on my bed. I think that by going up there I was hiding from Joe, who was due home soon.

It really amounts to hiding from myself. Even though I have been an amateur athlete, I am like any athlete who just can't come to grips with the limitations that come with age, and, in my case, of course, with all the things that I have been through. It also comes down to impulse control.

When Joe came home he saw the now black-and-blue area on my face and asked what happened. He could see that I was really upset and gave me a hug. We talked it through, going back over my falls and how close I have come to severe injury, notably the time I fell off my bike and came horribly close to getting run over. He said that in addition to avoiding the obvious, I have to in general pick up my feet. "You walk like your father," he said.

Notwithstanding the effects of age and illness, I have always been a little oblivious. We talked about the time when the kids were little and we were visiting my parents at Atlantic Beach. I went for a jog while they went down to the beach. Happily running along, I tripped on a loose piece of pavement in front of the house of people we knew. Dripping blood from my shoulder, I went inside and they washed me up. They offered me a ride, but I jogged back to our house, bleeding all the way. The injury left a whitish scar on my shoulder.

I seem to always fall on my left side. It is the side of the shoulder that was separated during a break from my first chemotherapy 10 years ago, when I fell during a doubles match and had to go to the ER right before going back to Boston for another round of chemotherapy.

But back to the present, I had an incredible headache last night and missed book group. We don't meet that often, and I had really wanted to go to discuss "Orange is the New Black." There will be worse outcomes if I don't finally get a grip. I think I will actually succeed this time.

Talking Turkey Race makes me want to run

I took this photo at Holyoke's Ashley Reservoir with my
cell phone while walking there with a friend a few weeks
ago. Today, runners will pack the trail.

Holyoke's 30th annual Talking Turkey 6-Mile Cross Country Race, taking place today, is expected to draw close to 1,300 runners.

I won't be there, but I will be thinking about it.

That race, which circles the beautiful Ashley Reservoir, is a must-do for many area runners, along with March's St. Patrick's Road Race, also in Holyoke.

I've run the Talking Turkey many times. It has a special resonance for me: When I ran it in 2005, it marked my comeback to racing after my chemotherapy and stem cell transplant in 2003. I wrote about the events leading to the race, and about what it meant for me, in a piece for the New York Times magazine's Lives page.

I was just talking to my friend Emily about it. She said, "Next year, right?"

That's my goal, along with one day getting back to the St. Pat's race, a hilly 10-k.

Whatever you're trying to come back to, you figure out different ways to build back up. (I admire you Pilates people. Ouch. I couldn't do it.) Tennis came back easily this past summer and fall, probably because, unlike running, it allows for frequent stopping to catch your breath, and in doubles, it has the built-in capacity for shouting "Yours!"

When coming back to running after each of my three Caesareans and my first round against leukemia, I tried two approaches. First, of course, I walked, slowly, and then aerobically, until I got to the point where I thought I could jog.

After the babies were born, I just went straight at it and ran the half-mile or mile (I can't remember exactly which). After leukemia, I took the walk/run route; quarter-mile walk, quarter-mile run, for about a mile until I could do one mile at a time. The rest followed naturally, as I built back up to my usual level of six miles or so on weekends and shorter distances during the week, mixed in with tennis, yoga, weights, biking, and, oh yes, did I mention my full-time job?

With my hematocrit currently about 28 (normal is 34.8-43.6) I actually feel fine, but I obviously don't have it in me to do more than a fast walk with maybe a few minutes or so of jogging between trees. So, I guess I need to be patient. It's not always easy, but of course we all need to remember to be thankful for what we can do rather than spending too much time fretting over what we can't do.

I wonder what approach others have taken to getting back to running or whatever activity that makes them feel like themselves.

Runners at the Talking Turkey Race usually get a really nice long-sleeved mock turtleneck. The last year I ran it, in 2006, they gave something a little different: a maroon fleece vest that I wear all the time. This year, for the 30th anniversary, they're giving out something super-special: a windbreaker. Sigh. I'd really have liked one of those. Sure, you can buy your own windbreaker, but it's not the same as earning it at a race. And as most runners know from an unwritten code, you can't wear the T-shirt or windbreaker or vest or whatever unless you finish the race. Not that I need any more T-shirts, but I do need to at least have a plan about how to get back to running.