Mile Long Legs

Today marks day 11 with no solid food, lots of ice cream, no exercise, lots of bed rest, no hitting the pavement, lots of pain medication and most importantly NO TONSILS!

Over the course of the past few years I’ve been plagued by chronic throat infections so I knew the day would come when I’d have to part with my two little pals at the back of my throat. February 15th was the day, I considered it a late Valentine from the male nurses on the surgical ward that were apparently “smitten” with me, or so said my female nurse. I should start this recap off with a big thank you to my parents who took amazing care of me through this whole process, thanks MLL mom and dad! 🙂 Okay, back to the nitty gritty.

My hospital adventure started off in the usual fashion: straight to the admitting department to get checked in. After that I was whisked off to the pre-op area where I was shown my sex kitten outfit that I’d be sporting for the remainder of the day, I seriously wish I could have gotten a picture. My nurse Sue took me into the changing area and handed me the following items: “here’s your knee high green socks they don’t match and they won’t fit” she assured me, “here’s your booties they go over top your green socks so you don’t slip on the floor”, “here’s your robe, wear it just like you would a house coat”, “here’s your gown, the opening goes in the back, but you can leave your panties on because the surgeon won’t be taking your tonsils out of there” she chuckled and walked away. Yep, I looked pretty hot in this get up!

Next stop: Pre-Op exam room. My lovely nurse Sue came in to do the usual pre-op assessment and I was given a dixie cup filled with about 7 or 8 different pills that I had to take and shortly after my IV was hooked up. A little while later my surgeon came in to have a chat with me at which time she warned me that post-op days 3-7 would be the worst and that I’d have times where I wished I hadn’t gone through with the surgery (boy was she right) Soon after the anesthesiologist came by for his visit…dun dun DUN!!!! This is when I really started getting nervous. Talk of putting me under and tubes down my throat were freaking me out! But I was in it to win it at this point, no turning back!

Enter the operating room. My OR nurse Julie took me into the cold, sterile operating room and my heart was flipping out in my chest. Yes, I realize this is a VERY minor procedure, but to someone who’s never been put under this is still a big deal. A huge part of me wanted to put my Newton’s on and run as fast as I could out of that hospital, but I had an open-back gown on and it was cold outside that day, seriously, how far did I think I was going to get.  I hop up onto the OR table and within 30 seconds to a minute I start feeling not right, my vision feels weird, I can’t focus and the room almost appears to be melting, at which point my anesthesiologist says “MLL’s is a lucky girl, I hear her boyfriend gave her nice flowers for Valentine’s Day”, and then he proceeds to tell me that I’ll begin to feel a little weird (clearly I’m already there), he puts the O2 mask on my face and then within what felt like seconds I wake up, confused, as I begin to focus I realize that I’m in a different room, with different nurses. My first thoughts “why didn’t they do my surgery, how come I didn’t get put under, am I still having my surgery today?”.

Recovery room. So what seem like those few seconds was actually about an hour and yes, I did indeed have my surgery. Being put under was such a different sensation than what I thought it would be, it honestly felt like a blink of the eye and then I was waking up. WEIRD! I laid in the recovery room for a few hours as the nurse checked my vitals, helped wake me up, checked my pain levels etc…shortly there after my parents came in to see me as soon as they were allowed to. My mom’s face had a big look of relief on it and my dads first words to me were “MLL, that was just about as hard as waiting for you to be born!”

As almost any runner or athlete will tell you, whenever we have any sort of down time, be it from a cold or flu or travel or whatever, it’s tough to not constantly think about the time that you aren’t able to train. It’s frustrating! For me this has been an incredibly difficult thing and I’m doing my best to remain positive. I have a half marathon coming up in a little over 2 months and I’d be lying if I said I’m not stressed about the lack of training that I’ve been doing. I’ve been pretty much bed ridden for the last 11 days and will be for the next 2 or 3. After that it’ll be slow and steady but super consistent so I can get back into tip top shape for my run.  Since I feel like my muscles have atrophied so much and I haven’t been able to get proper nutrition over the past 2 weeks my plan is to start off with brisk walking, I’ll do that until I can get back into running at least 4 days/week.  March and April are going to be hardcore, no skimping, busting my ass training months. I’m super excited to lace up my runners, put on my headphones and get back to running the rainy streets of Vancouver!

My question to you all: If you’ve had to take an unwanted time out from running/training how did you get back into it and do you have any tips to share?  I’ll be sure to keep you all posted with my progress and I’ll probably even blog about the first solid food that I get to eat!

xoxo, MLL