Small Victories

Care to be inspired? I thought you would be!

You might have seen that Nike commercial during the Olympics this summer. There were mixed reactions to it, but I think it is absolutely amazing!! It is one thing to witness carefully honed human bodies doing incredible, almost superhuman, feats in an Olympic event. Really, I loved watching the gymnastics and diving events as much as the next person. I also loved watching the USA basketball team achieve gold.

Love my OKC Thunder!!

It is another thing to witness ordinary human bodies accomplishing feats that are incredible for them and their circumstance. This 12 year old, 200 lb. boy, Nathan, is jogging at a slow pace, by himself, on an empty highway. There are no crowds cheering him on; no people are wearing his name on the back of a jersey; no one is clamoring for his autograph. He is simply jogging for himself at a comfortable pace because he knows that he only gets one body to live in; he wants to remodel his soul’s home. He is working hard toward his goal even with all the challenges that go along with trying to lose (and keep off) weight. Have you ever tried losing weight? In terms of difficulty, it is right up there with quitting smoking or any other major lifestyle change. (See my friend, Sabrina’s blog for an incredible success story, by the way! http://beautybloomswithstrength.blogspot.com/) 

Nathan is absolutely achieving greatness, one step at a time, slowly but surely. To many onlookers, his running a mile or two would seem like a small victory. It is big for him, though. And yes, as he keeps making progress, he will keep redefining success for himself and achieving new victories all the time. 

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, right? I took my first single step in 2008, inspired by my sister-in-law. She had just run a marathon and assured our crazy-awesome family that we could all do it, too. I was excited to get started, both to lose some weight and to take part in something our whole family was working on. It was - and still is - quite the range of incredible people. We have a young, athletic sister who took to running easily, though she would probably rather be playing water polo with her friends. We have another sister, a kick-ass cancer survivor, who runs with the sweeper van behind her - slow and steady - laughing and talking with other walk/runners and volunteers along the way. Her goal? Have as much fun as can possibly be had along the race course and smile for every photo! We have a middle-of-the-pack cousin who has crossed the finish line and had time to stretch and shower before we even finish. We also have another amazing man who I’m proud to call my husband. He used to be at the back of the pack but is getting faster all the time. I can’t wait to see all that he accomplishes! 

Then there’s me. 

I felt like an impostor in the beginning. I grew up with JRA and the mention of running for fun would have me laughing in your face. I had never found any balance as far as physical fitness. Just getting a combination of medications that worked was challenging enough. Trying to exercise in a way that could be helpful and not harmful (or painful) to my joints was like balancing an egg on a toothpick: you end up with a mess that’s hard to clean up no matter what you do.

As a result, I just stopped trying. I quit dance class, I stopped swimming regularly, and I didn’t participate in any school sports. It was just easier. Who was I kidding? My real strength was in academics and that’s where I intended to make my mark. My parents didn’t really argue with me on that. C’mon, a Jewish family is almost always going to value the honor roll more than the track team, anyway. 

Unfortunately, my eating habits were impacted by my lack of exercise. They do go together, for better or worse. When one suffers, so does the other, and I was no exception. I remember sitting all day in high school and then coming home only to sit at my desk and do mountains of homework. Go to sleep, repeat cycle. In the course of the day, I would eat way more than I needed to and indulge my sweet tooth, too. My afternoon habit for a couple of years was to watch General Hospital with my mom while drinking a Coke (regular, not diet) and eating a whole grapefruit with sugar sprinkled on top...yes, it was a my Daily Carb Fest. 

College did not help either. No one was around to tell me I shouldn’t be eating this or that and more studying meant more ordering out. Besides, I didn’t know how to cook at all. Now, I’ve made a lot of progress in that these past few years thanks to the Food Network and my awesome chef of a husband encouraging me to try new foods.

Anyway, when I first started running in 2008, the odds were not in my favor. I had experienced 21 years of fitness failure and though I was very optimistic, I did not expect much of a difference. Gratefully, I could not have been more wrong. 

I am now a runner. I don’t look like one, but then neither does Nathan. Or my husband. Or many of my sisters. We are still battling with weight loss, but running has already had a huge impact on our lives. We have the knowledge that we can run a really long distance when needed. For instance, I know I can run a half marathon (13.1 miles) in three and a half hours or less - I have done it seven times since 2008. We have the knowledge that we can endure harsh elements of all kinds: bitter cold and wind, sweltering heat and humidity, rain, sleet, snow; then there are elements beyond the weather - animals chasing us, cars nearly hitting us, potholes jumping up out of nowhere, cramps sidelining us, bowel troubles, wardrobe malfunctions, you name it, we’ve found it on the run. 

Mid run during my 2nd half marathon!
I was feeling phenomenal. You would be too
if you were running through Disney World! 

A year later, half marathon #5 for me, same race course as in the previous photo. Absolutely frigid temperatures! I'm smiling but have never felt colder.

I am a runner because I run. Since I took that first single step in 2008 in old sneakers on a track, I have run more than one thousand miles on various roads, treadmills, and tracks. I hit the 1,000 mile mark this summer on an ordinary training run. Like Nathan, it was a big victory made up of lots of small victories all added together. Lots of hard work. Lots of days when, honestly, I did not feel like running or I did not want to make the time for it. I pushed through and have never regretted a workout. Yes, it feels amazing to see the tally in my running log, currently sitting at around 1,061 miles or so. All the more amazing because it was never a given that I would be where I am now! 

I truly love this sport and am grateful for all it has given me. Now is when I reassess, redefine what success looks like for me in the running world. I have hit 1,000 miles and I cannot wait to see what the next 1,000 miles holds in store. 

At some point I want to...

1. Run a marathon
2. Do a triathlon event
3. Run a race in all 50 states
4. Set a new half marathon PR
5. Plan and direct a race to benefit RA research

In the shorter term, however, success will include increasing my pace and decreasing my weight through more running and cross training. 

Greatness can be found in all of us, from Olympic athletes to rookie runners to experienced athletes looking for a fresh start. John “The Penguin” Bingham is known for saying that “the miracle isn’t that you finished, but that you had the courage to start”. So, be willing to start, no matter what stage you are at in your life and then just go from there. Compare yourself only to yourself. Find your greatness.  

Yes, I Still Have Some Fingernails Left...

I’ve bitten my fingernails since I was a little kid. Who knows how these things even start? Now that I’m older it’s simply a hard habit to break, so I might go a couple months without biting them and then pick it up again, maybe as a response to stress or just something to do absent-mindedly for no reason at all. I also bite the skin around my nails, crack my knuckles, and bounce my knees and feet while sitting down. Most people find these nervous habits quite annoying, so I try to curb them when I’m not alone. Of course, now that my husband is out of town for work for a bit, no one is around to help me stop. :)

Have I mentioned I’m so glad to have a husband who loves me unconditionally? Even with all my craziness? I’m very blessed, from my incredible family to my relatively good health and everything in between.

However...and there has to be a ‘however’, because who writes a blog post to state that all is well in the world? Who does any sort of writing to say that everything’s fine? In writing, there has to be some sort of problem. Something must be considered or analyzed or mulled over. A character must encounter an obstacle in a fiction novel. Even in an excellently written nonfiction article, there must be a problem to be resolved from the outset. We take a journey with the author to find the answer. Thomas Newkirk makes this argument in his article ‘How We Really Comprehend Nonfiction’ in the March edition of Educational Leadership. (I’d put a link to the article here, but you have to be a member to view the full text on www.ascd.org). 

Anyway, the ‘however‘ in this case is that it’s mid-July and I am still unemployed. I enjoyed my brief time as a Literacy Coach here in Norman, but the funding for the position ran out. I was left to find new work, along with other Literacy Coaches at different middle schools in Norman. I knew going into the job that this was a distinct possibility, if not an inevitability; the principal was clear from the start that funding was low. This knowledge hasn’t been much of a comfort, though. The past few months have been a new lesson for this teacher in steadily rising agony, self-doubt, and obsession. My nails have been bitten down to the quick and I’m questioning every action and non-action I take: Should I call this district again about job openings or will I seem pushy? Should I email that principal again to make sure she hasn’t forgotten me, or will the email just get buried in her inbox? At the end of the summer, I would just love to teach. I would especially love to teach middle school kids and help them become skilled readers and writers. At the least, I certainly want to teach kids to look for the problem in a text, the “itch to scratch” that Newkirk describes. After all, if they can identify and comprehend the central conflict in the text they are doing pretty well. 

I guess it really started last fall, and I found it funny to read an old blog post from March 15th, in which I described the feeling of a jobless applicant running on a wheel that seems to go nowhere: “Once my student teaching wrapped up, I spent time with family and spent time job searching. To say that it was maddening would be an extreme understatement. The waiting, the wondering, the overanalyzing of every minuscule detail of the search-apply-interview process – it was driving me crazy. Then out of nowhere, another job popped up, I interviewed, and got it! Now I am a Literacy Resource Teacher at a middle school in town...” Of course in that post I was the giddy teacher who had found a job and could get off the wheel for a bit. Now I am right back on:

I’ve now been on a total of seven interviews since last fall. One was successful in getting me the short-lived job as a Literacy Coach. One was early in the morning and God only knows what I said with my without the aid of coffee - that was bad. In another one, the administrators already had a particular person in mind for the job and my interviewing was just a courtesy, really. Another went really, really well! I sounded intelligent, the administrators nodded in agreement to the things I said, and I walked away feeling very optimistic. Then I lost out on that job to someone with more experience. In another interview, the principal stepped out of the room twice to take phone calls. While he was occupied, I had to talk to the school counselor/secretary. (It’s a small school and some people wear multiple hats). She told me how much she couldn’t stand middle school kids and couldn’t believe I enjoyed it. As politely as I could, I told her I loved working with that age group and left it at that. 

I’ve been rejected via phone call, letter, and face-to-face. I’ve been rejected by simply not hearing back from people at all and seeing the listing disappear from the job board like a mirage. I feel like I have “paid my dues”, as they say. I know I don’t have much experience, but I’m dedicated to working hard and learning more about my craft everyday. I’m also a qualified applicant who went to a good university and I’m thisclose to finishing my Masters degree. By the way, when people talk about the economy and the public sector jobs being in a dismal state...I’m the sort of person they’re talking about. I’m stuck waiting by the phone and hoping I didn’t accidentally turn it off or something:

Early episode of Friends, Season 1 Episode 20, The One With the Evil Orthodontist

If my only concern was making a buck, I wouldn’t be so worried, but what’s really at stake here is much bigger: my health insurance. My husband does freelance work, so he can’t get insurance through an employer. And, once I got the Literacy Coach job in February, I got off of my parent’s health insurance and onto the best plan that was offered to me by the school district. Most of my paycheck went toward that insurance and will continue to until my contract is officially up in August. Not only is it great coverage that I want to continue, but I simply have to have something. 

I am not the kind of person who can go without insurance. My life is dependent on the infusions of Remicade that I get roughly every two months from my rheumatologist. Remicade is an enormously expensive biologic medication I take for my Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), and it’s keeping me in remission. I know this because I tried going without the Remicade in 2010, at which point my left knee became inflamed to more than three times its normal size. Things have gotten back to normal now that I’ve recovered from this flareup, but it was a necessary reminder of what can happen so easily if I let my disease go untreated. I know I can’t afford Remicade without insurance, unless I want to quickly accumulate a lot of debt. Bottom line: I’ll take a job anywhere with good health insurance if I can’t get a teaching job very, very soon. 

I went on an interview last Thursday and I think it went well. If I got it, I would be teaching at an alternative school here in Norman. It would be a great learning experience for me and quite the challenge. The administrator said she would “let me know either way” sometime early this week. Now that it’s after five o’clock on this Monday evening, I’ll hope for her call tomorrow. So, yes, I still have some hope - and some fingernails - left as I continue the job search. Please wish me luck, and send me prayers, good vibes, or whatever you like. I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for listening. :)     

Treatment to Keep Arthur Subdued

Those of us with RA sometimes like to refer to our disease as "Arthur"...get it? Arthritis sounds like Arthur? :D Okay, so it's not exactly laugh-out-loud funny, but a little sarcasm never hurt anyone. What do you expect from a group of people living with a chronic and painful disease? We need humor. If we don't laugh, we might cry. I think we can all agree that laughter beats tears anytime. So, we personify our disease and refer to it as if it's a living and breathing entity all its own. RA can certainly feel this way at times, because it's always with us. There are a lot of different treatment options, but Arthur doesn't always respond to them or may only respond for a limited time. He's always hanging around, impacting our daily lives to a greater or lesser degree, being kept at bay with medication or raging through our bodies unchecked.

Arthur is a sneaky little devil. He can be subdued for a long time, and just when you start to forget about him "he taps on your shoulder (or any other joint or organ for that matter) and says, 'Hey, I'm still here!' Let's just say it's a little annoying!" (quoted from a friend of mine). Arthur also does the majority of his damage on the inside of us, making ours an Invisible Disease. In other words, it's usually not immediately obvious from looking at us that we have RA. Unless we have massively swollen joints, you might not notice anything unusual about us. You can't see the disease eating away at our joints, or inflaming our lungs to make breathing harder, or inflaming our heart and upping our chance of a heart attack. You can't see the fatigue, the low-grade fever, the full medicine cabinet that allows us to function. It's often invisible but no less real. There is one excellent blog that focuses on this, www.butyoudontlooksick.com. Written by a woman with lupus (similar to RA in a lot of ways), the blog describes what life is like when you don't look as sick as you truly are.       

Treatment for Arthur is complicated because there are a lot of factors in play. How effective is the treatment? How costly is it? What are the potential side effects? How does the treatment help with both the short-term and long-term consequences of RA? These must all be considered, there are no easy answers, and RA patients must make decisions about treatment for themselves because it is very personal. What works for one person with RA doesn't work for another. What works at one time for one person with RA doesn't work later on, because drugs lose their effectiveness or our bodies build up a resistance to them. For some, the benefits of a drug outweigh the risks. For others, the high financial cost of a drug may make it an impossibility. Of course, there is a lesson here - when making decisions that impact our health, it's good to be a little selfish. We have to live in our bodies and we have to feel confident about the medications and treatments that we choose. Your neighbor who tells you that a mango drink twice a day will cure you? Pay her no mind. You cousin who thinks it's all in your head and can't understand why you take such expensive and dangerous medication? She doesn't have a disease attacking her body from the inside out, so it's very easy for her to roll her eyes. Even your doctors don't fully understand what you're going through. Some do more than others, of course, and they usually mean well. But don't let them pressure you into the newest drug that promises a miracle - it's your life. 

There are the day-to-day struggles to be faced; extreme fatigue and pain are chief among them. Even for those like me who live a relatively normal life with RA, the fatigue is something we constantly battle. There isn't much to do other than take it easy, get plenty of sleep at night, and rely on caffeine. I need at least 9 hours of sleep at night to really wake up feeling refreshed the next day. Some people with RA need even more rest, especially if they're having a flare (that's the term for when RA is really active - it could be a few weeks at a time, a couple months, or for the ones who really hit the jackpot it could be that they live everyday in a flare, never seeming to find treatment that works for them). 

Then there is the pain that most people with RA live with, which is usually lessened by medication. Drugs like NSAIDs (pronounced "n-sad") taken at a high dosage can really help. Naproxen is one such NSAID that many of us take; I take 500 milligram tablets once a day. You might recognize Naproxen as the main ingredient of Aleve, except that in Aleve it is only available in 200 mg tablets. Let's look at that name for a second - NSAID stands for "non-steroidal anti-inflammatory", meaning that it works differently from a steroid drug and it works to combat the inflammation the RA causes. This is significant because steroids can also be taken for pain management. Prednisone is a commonly prescribed steroid, and it's usually taken at a high dosage for a short period of time during a flare...*sigh* Ahh, prednisone. We love it and we hate it! It can make you feel like a superhero, but it also makes you eat everything in sight so that you inevitably gain 5-10 pounds. It can affect your mood drastically, so that PMS feels like a peaceful holiday in comparison. My friend, Carol, has a great blog about her experience with RA, and you might like her assessment of prednisone: www.tenn2texas.wordpress.com. 

Then there is the depression. Let's be real right now and admit to ourselves that half the country is taking anti-depressants. It isn't something to be ignored or whispered in hushed tones, it's a reality. It's even more prevalent among people with an incurable, lifelong, painful disease such as RA. Most of my friends with RA take Zoloft or some other anti-depressant medication and find that it helps them. I'm extremely fortunate to have a mild case of RA and I can lead a life closer to normal than many of them. But faced with pain every single day that ranges from  a throbbing 3 on the pain scale to a gnawing 13.5? That would likely depress me, too. During my last flare in 2010, I had a supportive family and a happy life (and still do!) - these are a huge help! Others aren't as fortunate, and I believe depression finds them quickly when their family is unsupportive and other stress factors are in place.

Equally important, there are numerous treatment options for the long term consequences of RA. Even if our day-to-day pain, fatigue, and depression can be managed, that is only the beginning. We have to do all we can to prevent further damage to our joints and organs, or we risk making our situation much worse. Thankfully, there are medications that can suppress our overactive immune system and help slow the inflammatory process. Maybe we can keep the disease from moving onto different parts of our body with these drugs and a little hoping and praying. None of these drugs comes with a guarantee, though. In fact, they come with more side effects and risks than we would like. I'll write more on this important subject later, but for now I'll bring this long post to a close. More on the pricey and dangerous treatments of RA coming up soon! For now, here's wishing everyone a happy fourth of July weekend!! :D

What's in a Title?

Hello, friends! I’m really excited that you’re reading my blog and I hope you get something out of it: a book recommendation, a nugget of insight, a teeny bit of inspiration, or just some entertainment and a few laughs. :D By the way, this smile just to the left will be the first of MANY you’ll find on here! I smile more than most people and probably my driving ambition in life is to make the people I meet smile as often as possible. It’s true. :D (See what I mean?)

My goal with this blog is to combine my love of reading, my love of running, and my ongoing battle with Rheumatoid Arthritis, along with whatever else finds its way on here. And ultimately, awareness is what I want to spread through here, one person, one reader, at a time.

Maybe I’ll make you more aware of what life is like with Rheumatoid Arthritis. Maybe I’ll make you more aware of what it’s like to run a half marathon. Or maybe I’ll make you more aware of a few new novels you should pick up at your local bookstore. No matter what you get out of this, I hope your understanding and awareness will increase. But really, of course it will; how can it not? Please know that I mean this in an entirely humble and open-minded way, because I share a view that Brazilian educator Paulo Freire has articulated: “No one is ignorant of everything. No one knows everything. We all know something. We are all ignorant of something” (Literacy, p. 83).

I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Freire. As a future public school teacher, I believe we all bring a unique viewpoint with us and we all spend our lifetimes in a constant state of learning more…how exciting!! This means that we can never stop learning and virtually assures the fact that life will never get boring. Of course, this is where “Blissful Awareness” is borne out of – to me, ignorance is not bliss, but rather awareness is bliss. The more we learn and grow as individuals, the closer we get to a state of bliss. So, enjoy your time here and know that I wish you a blissful existence! :D