The Calm Before the Storm

I was still living in the normal years when I ran my first marathon, the Detroit Free Press Marathon, in 2010. Running a marathon takes a lot of time and energy, and I felt great overall. At that time my Crohn's was less of an issue than my knee. My sports medicine doctor gave me a cortisone injection the week of the race. He said it would hurt, but my running it wouldn't cause any irreparable harm. I became a marathoner on a chilly October morning in 2010. My body felt strong, and while I was living with Crohn's, I was crushing it. 

Then came the hernia. Hernias are something old people get, right? In the summer of 2011 I started having pain in my lower abdomen attached to a little knot that was super painful. It was right where the button for my jeans landed, so wearing jeans was really uncomfortable. My West Virginia Mountaineers were playing LSU at home in football, so my husband, brother and I converged on my parents' house to go to the game. We didn't have tickets but thought it would be fun to tailgate particularly given that ESPN's College GameDay, one of my favorite shows, was in town. 

With my brother for the WVU/LSU tailgate in 2012.
Yes that it a bloody mary in a soda bottle. 

The spot on my stomach was so sore that weekend that I had to regularly unbutton my jeans when we'd sit down. It's funny to look at photos from that weekend because of course I look completely healthy and happy. Nobody would've ever known.

A few weeks later I had my first surgery in a decade: an outpatient procedure to repair the hernia. I had the procedure on a Thursday, planned to be off for the weekend and back in the office on Monday. The surgery went off without a hitch, but after a few days I found I wasn't going to the bathroom like I usually did.

At the time I had a colleague whose husband was a surgeon, and he'd offered to be available if I had any questions. When I called and he asked me how many bowel movements I have daily, I answered honestly: 10-12. He said, "Holy shit." Exactly. He advised me to take Milk of Magnesia and suggested the anesthesia and narcotics had slowed things down. I did as he advised, and things moved just fine. 

I went back to work on Monday, but I was so tired and sore I took off around lunchtime. That was the first time I realized I'm really good at appearing to be well. Nobody looking at me would've ever guessed I'd just had surgery, and I just tried to power through because it's the only thing I know how to do.

I had registered for a 15k race in Chicago with a girlfriend a few weeks later, but I wasn't able to run. I went along and cheered her on, feeling left out among the throng of runners in one of my favorite cities. 

My first time spectating, November 2011

Despite my surgery I was back to running in full force just a few months later. In January 2012 I ran a snowy 10k at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. I ran the Double Bridge 15k in Pensacola, Florida in February. I began training for my second marathon in Green Bay, Wisconsin in May. I felt awesome. I was running with two colleagues, so we would often take a few hours off on Friday afternoon to do our long runs together. One Friday I took the whole day off and met a girlfriend for lunch. We had a few martinis, and then I met my running crew to knock off 15 miles on a super cold and windy day. I felt pretty invincible.

A snowy 10k in Mt. Pleasant

Pensacola Double Bridge Run

The Green Bay Marathon ended up being canceled for extreme heat, but not until I ran 15 miles of it. I still count it on my list, because those training miles count. (You can read more details about the race itself in my original blog about it.)

Post Green Bay Marathon

The summer of 2012 was fantastic. I ran the Playmakers summer race series and was running a local 5k nearly every weekend. I loved it. We went on one of our favorite ever vacations to Maine where I ran the LL Bean 10k. We ziplined in Northern Michigan. The summer was magical.

LL Bean 10k

One of the Playmakers Race Series 5ks

Zip lining upside down is the only way to do it

In September I was a few weeks out from one of my favorite half marathons, the Capital City River Run in Lansing. I was running it for the third time and feeling strong after my summer of running. One morning my husband and I were walking the dogs and I was having severe and unusual abdominal pain. Much of my pain is in my lower abdomen, but this was higher and my stomach felt distended. I called off work, and my husband took me to the ER. A CT scan showed a partial bowel obstruction that resolved before we had to do anything. I was kept overnight for observation, but I decided to bump from the half marathon to the 5k. 

Despite a couple of health hiccups I was feeling great, and life was wonderful. We'd made the decision to adopt a child and were (im)patiently waiting. As 2012 came to a close I had no idea I was about to embark on two of the most challenging years of my life.