Marathon's of Life

Monday I was talking to my friend S. She and her husband J have decided to run the PF Chang's Rock n' Roll marathon in January. I thought about it and I am going to run it too. It's only a half marathon, 13.1 miles, but still. And it happens to fall on my b-day, I couldn't' help but feel what a wonderful present it would be to myself to be in good enough shape to walk/run a half-marathon.

I've always been on the heavy side. In fact I like to joke that the only time I was small was the day I was born(6lbs 7oz), then I found my mom's boob and haven't stopped eating since. Well, not on my mom's boob anymore, that's just weird. There has always been a battle between me and food. I'm an emotional eater, sad, mad, happy, bored, angry. If you can feel it, I'll eat to it. I've even been diagnosed as a binge eater after a seriously traumatic event caused me to spiral into depression and dive head first into a nervous breakdown and still suffer from it from time to time.

I weighed 157 lbs on my wedding day. It has been years since I weighed that and was very excited about it. Of course, it's now been years since then and I am no longer close to that weight. I've put on 40 lbs since I married Mr. Sparky and it's quite disgusting. Of course I have weighed this much before, in my early twenties when all I wanted to do was drink copious amounts of liquor, smoke and eat all meals at Outback(I worked there, it was cheaper than shopping) which I do NOT recommend unless you have an amazing metabolism.

Shortly after we returned from our honeymoon I started to not feel good. And by not feel good, I mean couldn't breathe because the pain in my abdomen/pelvic area was so bad I thought I would die. I wasn't working at the time, I miss those days (of no work, not pain) and so I would spend all day on the couch, in pain and severely depressed. Oh, and this was not the kind of sick that made you not want to eat (see above emotional eating). I went to all kinds of dr's who immediately wanted to run a pregnancy test on me. After the 15th negative test, no joke, I finally said, "Enough, if you don't have anything to do to me besides a pregnancy test, don't touch me any more". I went to a new OB seeing as I had just moved to the area and knew nobody and he couldn't figure out what was wrong with me either. He did a uterine lap and decided it wasn't endo and couldn't' help me. Here's what he told me - just have a baby and that will fix it. Seriously, the joke is on him.

This started in Nov of 04 and finally in April of 06 there was a diagnosis - Interstitial Cystitis. Basically it is a condition of the bladder, but so few people know what to look for and it's symptoms mimic so many other things, it's very difficult to diagnose. The inside of a normal bladder is nice and smooth and pretty(I can only assume as I have never personally seen one) and mine looks like hamburger. Literally millions of little paper cut like incisions all over the inside of my bladder. And do you all know what goes through the bladder? Everything that is toxic to the body. So this toxicness, and not the good ole' Brittney Spears kind, is actually getting inside the inside of my bladder. And it hurts like hell. So I've been a little sedentary since the wedding. Oh, did I mention it makes sex the most unbearable thing in the world? Anyone care to venture how well this bodes for the whole makin' a baby business? No? Nobody?

With it being me, par for the course, there is no cure for this pesky little condition. Only a "management program". Seriously, it sound like my bladder will be climbing the corporate ladder a whole lot quicker than me. 1 pill, three times a day, and 2 pills twice a day, for the REST OF MY LIFE! People, I was 26 and this was not looking good. Plus I don't really like to take a lot of medication and I wanted to see if I could work with diet and all that. Didn't really work so well so a year later I decided to take the medications. And they started working, and I ever so smartly decided to go off of them. Ohhhh, I forgot to mention the series of nine!! injections to my bladder, through catheter. I have been catheterized more in one month than most people in their entire life! Enough. Mmmmmmm, it's lunch time and I'm hungry, I'll be back.

Ok, I'm back and I've returned ashamed. After talking about making changes for my body I go and eat at Arby's for lunch. I have a salad in the fridge and yet, I make POOR choices. Ah well, such is life. Where was I? Oh yes, the sickness, as it's called at my home. Yeah, so I started five weeks ago a new diet. It's not technically a diet for weight loss, it's an immune system reset diet. No wheat, no dairy(which I can't do anyway, but love ice cream and cheese), caffeine(which has not entirely gone away) or alcohol(not THAT big of a deal since I might drink once in a blue moon). Since being on this diet I feel better than I have in years! And I've lost 7 lbs to boot. The past two weeks have not been good since my family was up Labor Day and and you know how that goes, it's been tricky getting back into the flow of things. Well, that's really it. I started working out again last night and am determined to be able to run at least 5 miles of the 13.1 by Jan 13. Did I mention that is my birthday? I might a few more times as I am a birthday whore. When I was younger I could make my birthday last for at least a month, sometimes longer.

I'm supposed to be getting a visit from the red headed monster Saturday, I'll update later about my day three results.