New developments

This is not the post I wanted to write.

I'm still hanging onto my goal of running a half-marathon in a little under 6 months, but unfortunately it looks like my training won't go nearly as smoothly as I once thought.

I had it all planned out - adding 1 kilometre to my long runs every other week, I'd have lots of time to make it to 21 km.  Two weeks ago I ran 11km on a treadmill at my gym.  The week before last, I could only manage 8.  Last week I decided to get all geared up and outside, but after 1.5km I had to turn around and go home because of sharp pains that rippled through my lower abdomen with every footfall.  I didn't know what it was, exactly, but it was low and up my left side, which meant it was in my colon.  I've been told I have left-sided colitis, which means if I draw a large L on my lower abdomen I'm basically tracing where my disease manifests.

When I was first diagnosed, I thought - oh, well that's crummy, but whatever I'll take medicine and the bleeding will stop and hey back to normal!  I had no idea that 'life-long' meant 'for as long as you're alive', not in any real sense, and I didn't know it could have an effect on how I felt that wasn't centred just to my 'guts'.

Turns out that tired, sick feeling I've been walking around with hasn't been the usual attempts to side-step whatever bug-de-jour is chasing around the school halls - it's the UC.  And it turns out that high-impact exercises like running can cause a whole lot of discomfort.  Full disclosure - I'm pretty sure it was gas on the weekend that caused that pain.  But since when is gas so bad it feels like needles, and wakes you up in the middle of the night so that you can desperately take child's pose close to the toilet in case you fulfill the growing impulse to throw up?

A fair bit of crying has happened in the last couple of days.
That's the bad news.

The good news is, I'm determined.  I'm going to find other ways to get high-cardio exercises, and see if I can't get myself through this rough patch, often called a 'flare' by other UC sufferers.  They don't last forever, I'm not sure how to make it go away but it won't be this bad forever.  I'll try my very best to keep on with my goal to make the half-marathon in May, but at the very least I'm going to do my very best to be good to myself.  Some nights, like this one, it might mean that I stay home and put on my onesie and ride the waves of post-dinner nausea with my dog on one side and my partner on the other.  Others it might be getting on the treadmill (actively NOT comparing myself to the woman beside me who has been on it for 45 minutes with no walk-breaks) before I head over to the testosterone pit aka weight-lifting area of the gym.  Maybe I should just write a post about how much fun that is.

Anyway - to those of you who keep reading, thank you, and to those of you who would like to know more about ulcerative colitis, there are a myriad of great websites online - but here are a couple I've read through so far:

http://believeucan.ca/
www.ccfc.ca/

It's hard to ask for prayers or even well-wishes, though they are appreciated, because although it might be a small thing, it can feel like a lot to receive.  I am, however, going to ask for them.  I have many, many blessings in my life, but I'm a little scared.  So, in advance, thank you for any kind thoughts or good energy you have to spare.

- Kate