Portland Marathon

The Portland Marathon came and went and they had one less runner. I trained briefly for the Marathon (reported earlier in this blog, see May 2008) by giving up smoking and beginning to run 10-15 miles a week, sometimes more, increasing every week. The longest run I ever completed was 7.5 miles, and shortly thereafter I quit. It was after Jeff's surgery on May 21 that I lost all focus on myself, my health, my needs. I stopped taking care of myself. I was obsessed with Jeff's health and well-being. Jeff told me many times to not worry about him, to focus on taking care of myself, pointing out the truth that I can't take care of him or our kids if I'm not taking care of myself. At least not very well.
So the Marathon happened on October 4, 2008, and the day was bittersweet. I was envious of two people I know who were running that day. I was also happy for them. But mostly envious, jealous even. Why were they able to complete the goal and I wasn't? Of course my mind goes to a negative place: feeling like it's because I don't complete things that I start and that I'm lazy. Neither are helpful thoughts. But that's where my mind goes, unfortunately.
The latter half of 2008 has SUCKED. I often wondered how could things possibly get worse? And I don't want to go into the gritty details, but suffice it to say many unfortunate things were happening simultaneously, and sadly that has not stopped. Jeff's back continues to have troubles; he has a lot of scar tissue that has formed on his back that is now putting too much pressure on his sciatic nerve, just as the disc did before surgery. He has what is called "Failed Back Surgery". Doesn't need a lot of explaining. He now is having steroid injections to reduce the swelling and to hopefully decrease permanently the scar tissue. But there is about a 60% chance that this will work. If it doesn't work we may be looking at surgery again. Which is scary, and also brings up financial concerns. Jeff has no more sick time or vacation time, so how would we afford to live if he was out of work for an extended period of time? How would we keep this house? Short term disability, assuming he would be approved, would only cover 60% of his salary. So that is scary. But one can not control what one does not have control of. Brilliant huh? All we can do is continue plugging away, dealing with things as they come, and hope that all will be okay.