Eat the Damn Cake

 

I think that my Daddy and I blowing out candles is just a prelude to eating the cake

Back in February, which now seems like lifetimes ago, after I was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma and had suffered the arterial blood clot in my leg, I was sitting with my family and someone (I'm pretty sure it was my brother) told me that given everything I was going through, I should be sure to just "eat the damn cake."  Seems like an odd thing to say, I suppose...but I knew just what he meant. 

And in reflection, it means so many things. To me it means, do what you want to do, live your best life, enjoy the "now."  Eating the cake is a particularly evocative image for me, as someone who struggled a lifetime with weight and has been a type 2 diabetic for 25 years.  From time to time that made me someone who may have avoided the literal cake...but I've always tried to enjoy the figurative cake. 

Enjoying the figurative cake for me means making sure I make time to play and that my sense of humor is intact.  Of course the stuff I'm going through is serious.  All the more reason to embrace play. I learned young that play is important.  I had fun with my family, with my "posse" and even with myself. 

My father's career was in education, but he was also a musician...a member of the musician's union until the day he died.  And he had at one time played a comic hillbilly character called "Uncle Zeke," complete with the corniest jokes you ever heard.  My brother, the accountant,  is also a musician, and plays in a rock cover band...and I spent a lot of my youth as my father's straight man, feeding him just the right line to get him into a string of corny jokes (much to my mother's dismay). And I ended up with a B.A. in theatre.

Dad played stand up bass

and he liked to clown around

So music was big in our house...

So was clowning.

As I grew up, our house was the one that let all the kids hang out.  So part of my best life in those years was hanging out with all my neighborhood friends or my high school posse doing all manner of fun things...we may have even studied a bit from time to time. 😏

Shenanigans!

I have always invented myself through what I wore, playing with identity, if you will (I think I ended up with my costuming interest because of this).  Fortunately my mother was a talented seamstress and willing to humor me...so I had ample opportunity.

Mini-me in a softball uniform

I was big on bright colors and felt like a million bucks in these pants and Ike style jacket

For many years I chose long gowns (sometimes period-related) at Christmas....tres elegant!

How am I eating the cake now?

So there is clearly cake-eating history.  There is also some history, as I alluded to before, of denying myself the literal cake and spending a lot of time with things that put off the figurative cake until tomorrow.  Well it is now tomorrow, but fortunately it is not too late. 

Several years ago, while doing our first Disney race, Glenda and I discovered the joy of running in costume.  It was a clear and wonderful extension of my love of trying on different personae and moods with my clothes, of my background in theater and costuming, and of our love of running.  One of the joys of the athletic life for me became creating runnable costumes for many of our races...and I'll be honest, after my blood clot, I thought at first that this outlet, this piece of figurative cake, was gone forever.  I thought that I wouldn't be participating any more and Glenda might not want to run in costume any more either.  Happily, not the case.  She toted my sewing machine up to the dining room table, helped me get started at cutting some things out, and generally encouraged me.  We have walked several training walks and  and virtual races around our neighborhood.  We get some bemused looks from those we meet...and I'm sure the neighbors whisper about those crazy ladies (and that's half the fun!). Maybe they'll see our joy and eat the cake too. 

Tin man's heart race...done in the driveway

 

Woody and Jesse went further afield...all the way to the neighborhood park for their jaunt

 Since I was diagnosed with cancer due to a lingering "side stitch" that would not go away, and only a few weeks later I suffered the blood clot, it is not surprising that I worried I would not be able to continue with my active lifestyle.  I still determined that I would get PT and do what I could.  I was very fortunate in the PT assigned to me...and he fully supported my getting back to what I liked to do.  So when I found that first 1 miler, I knew I would keep going.  And the support I got was tremendous.  My current goal is to be able to walk a 5k again by July...and my coach and PT think it is possible.  I am now walking, both on land and in water (especially warm water), doing stairs and strength and PT exercises.  I have been out on my e-bike and am now able to get on my bike trainer.  And I haunt the websites for shorter family walks and such, so I have events to lead up the next 5k. I've even broken a couple of virtual 5ks into 2 to 3 or 4 workouts.  Of course, I particularly lean toward events that raise money for particular causes...especially those that effect me or my family.

Upcoming:  Virtual (for me) 5k officially on May 14 (and broken into parts) Quack out Cholangio, which raises money for the cholangiocarcinoma foundation. 

Zachariah's Acres 1 mile family walk on May 21 which raises money for Zachariah's acres, an accessible outdoor space for disabled folks (I do this one in honor of my daughter, who lives with paraplegia.

The Carbone Race for Reseach 1 mile option. on June 4.  The Carbone Center is the Comprehensive Cancer center where I am being treated.  I formed a team for this race...it has in person and virtual  options  and I have formed a team called, oddly enough, Eat the Damn Cake. The team is open and anyone can join. 

And then, I'm hopping up to 2 miles with a local Father's Day 5k and family 2 miler which raises money for local programs in that community.

I completed the first official mile on April 9, 2022

Traveling is something we've missed for a while now, with the pandemic. We were just ready to start again when all of this happened.  But recently, given how well my treatment is going, we made a decision to work some travel back into our lives.  Travel has been one of our great joys...one of the ways we take a bite out of that figurative cake...for as long as we've been together.  So we are daring to go back to it in at least a small way. It helps that my doctor is on board and encouraging...a short trip to Arizona this month will be a trial run for our 25th anniversary trip in July. 

One of our last trips before everything blew up...Key West

I'm also finding the time to do things that I love to do, but rarely had time for when I was working.  I've read more books for pleasure in the last 3 months than in the previous 3 years, I think.  And while I used to craft for our costumes and my Etsy shop, I am now doing more of it and just for fun and to share with family and friends. The costumes WILL continue though! 

One of this year's favorite projects...a baby afghan for a friend

And the absolutely most important thing I have learned about eating the damn cake on this journey so far is that cake is ten times better if it is shared. How to share it would be a whole other blog post and I will save that for another day.  I will say this though, don't wait...eat the damn cake and find someone to share it with. 

The mile is my marathon

 

Glenda and I at the finish of my first and only marathon

Just short of 13 years ago, on May 17, 2009 I ran my first and only marathon.  It was an accomplishment of which I am possibly even unduly proud...and I always intended to repeat it.  Unfortunately I was injured the next year while training for my second.  Over the years with one thing and another it never did happen again, but I did many more half marathons and shorter distances as well as triathlons and duathlons. In fact, at last count, I had participated in 300+ races over the years since my very first 5k in 2006.

I didn't start out to be active and you can read about some of that in earlier blog posts.  I mean, I was an active enough kid....absolutely loved my Schwinn Hollywood with the pink streamers gifted to me by my paternal grandmother on my 7th or maybe 8th birthday.  And I played tag and mother may I and horses and all manner of running games with the neighborhood kids in elementary school and into Jr. High.  I had swim lessons (which I liked) and dance lessons (at which I was a miserable failure)...and even ice skated in the winter.

Me on the prized Schwin...the start of my triathlon career?

Coolest ice skater on the block in the zebra parka

But as I got older, I got less active, more a spectator (I was crazy for the local semi-pro ice hockey team in my town...the Waterloo Blackhawks) than a participant. In fact by high school a friend and I competed to see how slowly we could walk the mile test that we did in gym class twice a year.

For years I was the world's greatest indoors woman. In fact it wasn't until I was nearly 50 and working on my dissertation that I began to exercise in earnest again.  I did it to clear my head...but I got hooked.  Nearing my doctorate, I realized that a big part of my life was soon to be over...and there would be lots of empty time.  I decided to run a marathon.  I had only been running for about 4 years and had only run one half marathon.  But I made up my mind, talked to my coach and started training.  I had originally signed up for a different marathon, but ended up settling on the Green Bay Cellcom Marathon. It was close enough for my Madison family to drive up and see me finish.  Glenda was running it with me.  My plan was just to finish before the 7 hour cutoff.

I did accomplish my goal 6:43:48.  But what was really important was the experience...the scenery, the signs, the group that had an inflatable wall at mile 20, the run down the tunnel and into Lambeau Field and then back out to the finish, even the smart Alec that yelled at 24 "only 5 miles to go" (idiot) are all vivid memories.

On the run in Lambeau Field

But even more was the support of those at a distance. At the time that I did the marathon, I had a group I ran with when I was in Rhode Island, where I taught during the academic year at URI, called The Naragansett Running Association. I also had a group I ran with when I was in Austin with Glenda, called Riff Raff.  People from both of those groups, as well as other friends and family,  were tracking me. Glenda was also sending out social media messages along the way, and people were commenting.  As I hit the wall (closer to 15 miles in than 20, though thankfully I rallied to finish) she read me their encouraging comments, and knowing that they were there, not only following me, but supporting me, was everything in that moment.

In fact at one point to keep me going, Glenda asked for jokes to tell me.  I still remember one of them. And here it is: 

A pan of muffins were in the oven.  One muffin turned to its neighbor and asked, "Is it getting hot in here?"  The neighbor replied with a scream, "Oh my god, a talking muffin!"  

Now that is cute and kind of funny....but at mile 22 it was flippin' hysterical. 

Fast forward to now...things have changed considerably since the start of 2022.  In January, I was diagnosed with cancer, in February I had emergency surgery for an arterial blood clot in my left leg, I have also been treated for anemia and a small duodenal ulcer.  There are no classic marathons in my future.  However, as I have been seeing PT and getting back on track with healing my leg, I saw that the local Parkinson's 5k and half also included a 1 mile family walk.  I talked to my PT about it and said I wanted to do it (at that point I was struggling with a quarter mile) and he encouraged me to train for it, just as I would train for any race.  I told my coach this, and though I had put her on hiatus, she said she wanted to write me a plan.  So, I've had a Training Peaks plan with things like "walk .33 miles" in my workouts...and mostly I've executed it. 

In training...

Mentally coming back from this and training to walk a mile has been the hardest. Physically it has been a challenge, but mentally it is a marathon.  Thus #themileismymarathon. 

And now that marathon mile is coming up.  April 9 at 8:30 am central, I will toe the line...and just like the marathon so many years ago, I feel like I could use support.  I hope to complete the mile in under 40 minutes (which doesn't sound like much...but will be an accomplishment for me at this point in my journey.  Since this is much shorter than the 6:43 it took to do a full marathon, Glenda probably won't post during the walk...but I'm sure there will be posts before and after.  

So, if you so choose, here are some ways you can support me.  

Post in social media and tag me:

My twitter handle is @suellenphd2b

My instagram is @suellenadams1956

And if you are reading this where I post it you know how to find me on FaceBook

On twitter and insta, I am using the hashtags #themileismymarathon and #onesteponebreathonemile

If you want to do more:

Do a walk or a run with me virtually and post a picture...or dedicate a mile of your workout on April 9. 

Or if you are local it is not too late to sign up for the mile and walk it in support...you don't have to do it as slow as me...or just hang out and cheer for all the participants (not just me in the half, the 5k and the miles).

Thanks!