Little Victories

One thing that sucked about this whole cancer thing was how helpless it made me feel. The only real chance to survive kidney cancer is for it to be removed surgically before it spreads. Basically you have the surgery. If it has/does spreads you are in deep shit. The only thing I could do was wait for the next set of scans. There was nothing that would change the outcome. Chemo and radiation don’t work. So they don’t even bother. There are some new drugs. But, they are for end stage disease and just appear to slow the process down. Another fear I have is the long term effect of losing one kidney. I need to stay in good shape to reduce the load on the surviving kidney. To feel like I was doing something to help out, I decided to try to run a half marathon. I figured if I could do that, it would be a good sign for my overall health. Last Sunday was the event.

The race was along the old tow path of the Erie Canal through the Cuyahoga Valley National park. Let me start of by saying this was Northeast Ohio at its finest. The course was stunning. It was along the Cuyahoga river. The leaves were in full color. And, the weather was great for October. A BEAUTIFUL DAY.

I got out to start the race at 8:00 am. Right before the race someone told me that they timed it with some new fangled chip you put on your shoe. I did not have it. I went back to the car to try to find it. I could not and started the race a couple of minutes late. I caught up with the rest of the race and settled into a comfortable pace. I got to the half way mark and checked my watch. It was a little after 9. The race had started a little late. So, I was half way at about an hour. I wanted to doe the race in under two hours. I told myself to put it all on the course and have nothing left when I was done. I thought to myself, try to pass as many people as I could.

I kept up that pace until the ten mile marker. Then I realized how stupid I was. Instead of focusing on my own pace, I was trying to catch other people. As a result, I was running out of gas. Another problem was with my MP3 player. Because of the Gatorade and water, I could not get the buttons to work anymore. The thing was stuck on my last choice, .38 Special. I like .38 Special. But, if I heard Hold On Loosely one more time I was going to throw the damn thing in the Cuyahoga River. The last three miles were pure hell. Everyone was passing me. My body was screaming to stop. After the 13 mile marker there was a quick loop and then the finish. I looked at the time. The clock said 1:59:37. I’ll be damned, I barely made my goal. I will have to do that again. Except next time I will also pace myself better.

There were people who ran farther and faster than me. But, that felt DAMN good. Here’s to life’s little victories. And, oh yeah, F**k You Kidney Cancer.