Wednesday, September 7

Quote of the Day:  “Nothing in life is to be feared.  It is only to be understood.”  Madame Curie

Exercise Log:  So I have been running a few days a week, mainly Tuesdays and Thursdays when I meet Cokie, Sue O. and Sue B. at the Rite Aid in Holladay and I’m amazed I can go as far as I can.  Really, I haven’t run since almost a year ago, when I had foot surgery on September 29, 2010.  I didn’t start running again until I got back from Tahiti in late January 2011 and then was out again in February with the biopsy and surgery.  But here’s my point.  Since I did run all those years, I must have built a pretty solid foundation that made it possible to get back into running without going all the way back to step one.  I was looking at a magazine ad in Runner’s World and it showed a girl running with words circling all around her like “stress, fear and anger” and I could really relate.  I think when you run, you have to put all those feelings aside and then somehow while you are running you work things out so your problems somehow seem like they can be dealt with.

Regarding radiation:  I have only 9 sessions left.  I don’t like the idea of being zapped unless it kills cancer cells but it’s a walk in the park compared to chemo.  I have really enjoyed the therapists that prepare me for radiation.  Most are so great about keeping you covered up when they are getting you even with the markings but there is one lady who just doesn’t care that you are exposed.  I just hope for the others every time.  I think I’m doing pretty good.  My plastic surgeon said that I’m a little lower than average regarding reaction to it which is good.  

Last weekend we went up to Park City for the Labor Day holiday and it was cooler than Salt Lake and so beautiful.  The colors haven’t started to change yet but the morning air has a chill to it.  There is a new trail for hiking and biking right across from our condo called the Armstrong Trail.  Alex insisted on showing it to us on Sunday night after dinner and we walked for about a mile and then it started to get darker and so we turned around.  This trail goes by the side of Thayne’s Canyon and comes out by King Con chair lift and then continues on.  As we walked along, we reflected on how much work it would be to build a trail, removing trees, rocks and boulders etc.  What I liked most about the trail is that it is wooded; pine trees and groves of Aspens leaving it rather dark and mysterious at dusk but shaded by day.  The wind was blowing through the trees and leaves.  I don’t know if it is just that everything in life has taken on a heightened state of appreciation because all I’ve gone through this year but I am loving nature.  

The next morning Joe and I headed up again on this trail just to see where it would take us and how it connected to other trails on Park City Mountain Resort.  We left thinking we would only be gone about an hour or so but we just kept walking.  We went for 4 miles and then came to a junction where you could either continue on the Mid-Mountain trail or Red Pine trail to the Canyon’s Resort or back down the way we had come. We saw so many mountain bikers that I have an itching now to take up mountain biking.  On our way back, I kept thinking of a poem Kathy English taught me by Edna St. Vincent Millay that I’m trying to memorize.  “I will be the gladdest thing under the sun, I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one.  I will look at cliffs and clouds with quiet eyes, watch the wind bow down the grass and the grass rise.  And when the lights begin to shine up from the town, I will pick which must be mine and then start down.”

Aspen Trees on the Armstrong Trail

“I will be the gladdest thing under the sun”