Belly Bumps and ESPN’s Body Issue

This past Friday, I procrastinated a bit before I finished up my workweek. And as I was uncharacteristically and irresponsibly putzing around the Internet, I came across two interesting and not-unrelated discoveries. The first was that ESPN apparently has a magazine and that each year it publishes a “Body Issue” devoted to capturing images of athletes’ bodies unclothed but not indecently exposed. The second was that a staggering number of people and media outlets apparently gave Kate Middleton a great deal of criticism for not hiding her post-birth baby bump when introducing her newborn to the world.

Now, I have been thinking unkind thoughts about my own body recently due to serious weight gain and hair loss resulting from my medication and illness. Normally, I have a petite, fairly athletic frame with a dancer/yogi build. Currently, I look like I enjoy several boxes of Twinkies a day. (I do not.) But partially because I understand what it takes to have an athlete’s body (and what it means to struggle with temporarily losing an athlete’s body) I was particularly inspired by the concept of the ESPN body issue.

How fantastic that a magazine devotes one issue a year to celebrating the form and function of athletes’ bodies. These pictures do not reflect the bodies of individuals who have smoked and starved themselves into some version of outward physical perfection as many fashion spreads do. Each ESPN Body Issue portrait reflects the rigors and commitment of training, healthy living and the self-respect necessary to succeed in competitive athletics.

In addition, some pictures I stumbled across told profoundly inspirational stories. For example, Alicia Sacramone posed for each of her stunning portraits on the balance beam. She fell on this apparatus in the Beijing Olympics and many credited her fall with causing the U.S. women’s gymnastics team to win silver instead of gold. Rather than give up, Sacramone kept training and at the age of 24, earned a bronze medal on beam at the National Championships (among numerous other wins between 2008-2012). By posing naked (but not indecently) on the balance beam in particular, Sacramone displayed extraordinary self-confidence, vulnerability and strength. I was incredibly inspired by this act and began to contemplate how to take more pride in my own vulnerable physical state.

But then, I stumbled upon the media criticism of Kate Middleton daring to appear in public only hours after the birth of her son without hiding her post-birth belly bump. I was astounded at how outrageous this criticism was and what it says about our expectations of the female body. I personally thought Kate was very brave to appear in public so soon after giving birth. After I had my daughter, I had absolutely no interest in having any pictures taken. In the one I have from three days after she was born, I look extremely pale, physically drained and I am far, far puffier in my midsection than Kate is.

Giving birth is extremely hard work. The female body is not meant to look svelte and toned right after a baby is born. Insisting that Kate hide her completely normal and appropriate belly bump is a call for women generally to behave falsely and in an ashamed manner immediately following one of life’s greatest physical accomplishments. Sympathy for Kate and outrage at the ridiculous and illogical expectations of the media have inspired me to treat my body more kindly. Just as post-partum bodies cannot be expected to conform to irrational shapes, I cannot expect my still actively ill body to look like a healthy one.

In honor of the ESPN Body Issue and in protest of the media’s treatment of post-partum Kate, I will be giving my own uncharacteristically jiggly frame a loving hug as soon as I’m done posting this blog. I encourage anyone struggling with a body issue currently or loving their healthy, athletic self to do the same.

Waterslides, (Gummy) War and a Little Wisdom: Part II

Yesterday I began writing about my vacation experience and how my best friend initiating a gummy army men war helped me put the struggles of the past few weeks into perspective. I gained a little more wisdom later in the trip and came to a few important decisions about my training and autoimmune healing as a result.

My daughter Samantha is perhaps the most genuinely energetic person I have ever had the pleasure to meet. When she wasn’t running up and down waterslide towers this weekend, she was dancing in line or hauling the other four of us around in rafts in the wave pool. I would not be surprised to learn that my girl secretly drinks sunshine behind my back in order to stay so energized.

I, on the other hand, struggled physically this weekend for two reasons. First, because even though I write frequently about having lupus, I’ve been in denial about it deep down. Second, my heart and feet just did not want to cooperate with the pace that my little sunshine drinker wanted to set.

I first noticed that my body was behind the other girls’ pace when after 20 or so minutes of continually climbing up the waterslide stairs, my heart was hammering so hard that I was genuinely worried. Due to the Prednisone, my resting heart rate has regularly been above 100 for about a month. For those of you familiar with heart health, you undoubtedly understand that this is NOT good. Running around this weekend made my heart feel like it was working so hard it was going to quit on me.

On top of the heart rate mess, general fatigue, hip pain, kidney pain that kept me awake both nights and leg pain, I had some serious issues with my feet. It turns out that my Raynaud’s Disease does NOT like the sun. I felt like I had bugs crawling all over my feet and ankles for most of the trip to a far greater extent than usual. In addition, I felt a pop in my left foot at one point and looked down to discover that a huge vein had bulged out of my foot. I was in significant pain after that with every step.

What is the point of all this complaining about heart trouble, being in denial about my lupus and my feet issues? I am finally ready to admit that I cannot run the marathon in October. My training has slowed down primarily to pool running alone over the last 6 weeks, my heart and kidneys are in no shape to run 26.2 miles right now, nor are my feet nor is any other part of me, really. I have been avoiding this determination for weeks against doctor’s advice. But I’m ready now to say that I have to readjust my expectations.

I have too long been treating this temporary defeat as a sign of weakness. I am sincerely hoping that embracing an adjusted training schedule, training goal and perspective will prove to be a sign of strength. I am also ready to admit that I am sick enough to need the help of a community resource called Pathways, which I will be blogging about in the future.

New marathon goal??? Minneapolis Marathon in June of 2014. This goal is currently doctor-approved (provided I stick to temporary training restrictions) and is both more realistic and more considerate of what my body needs in light of recent developments. So, faithful blog readers, it looks like you are ‘stuck’ with me for a few months longer than originally anticipated. Now that I have admitted my body’s weaknesses, I will no longer be so embarrassed to write about my slow-going training. I plan to be purposeful and to write much more about my actual training in an effort to be more honest about what I can and cannot handle, my triumphs and my temporary setbacks.

In the end, it was a good thing that I couldn’t quite keep up with my crazy energetic daughter and my enthusiastic and engaged best friends and sister. I was instead able to enjoy their company greatly while simultaneously (and finally) coming to terms with my own limitations.

Waterslides, (Gummy) War and a Little Wisdom: Part I

This past week, I took my first real vacation since 2008. In honor of my daughter Samantha’s transition from tween to teen (coming this December!) I rented hotel rooms in Wisconsin Dells and spent a few days running around theme parks with my spirited girl, my loveable 16-year-old sister Hannah and my best friends Sarah and Amanda. I am not sure that I had any idea how much I needed this experience until I was in the middle of it.

Sarah and Hannah were driving in from Neenah, Wisconsin as Amanda, Samantha and I headed to the Dells from Minneapolis. Halfway to the Dells, I realized that I had forgotten my bathing suit. Given that I was hosting a waterpark trip, this was obviously a problem. Amanda intelligently suggested that we just pop over to Kohl’s once we got into town so that I could pick up another suit.

The Dells is a vacation destination, so I should not have been surprised at how picked over the Kohl’s selection of swimwear was. The remaining suits were all either somewhat or completely hideous. However, there was no way I was going to be bothered by being essentially forced to wear a hideous swimsuit during my highly-anticipated girls weekend. That was, until I hit the dressing room… when the ugliness of the suits ceased to be the problem.

As you all know by now, the medication I’ve been on has been giving my body quite a hard time. I’ve been gaining a ton of weight, losing my hair on the sides, etc. etc. Before that trip to Kohl’s, I had never purchased any item of clothing larger than a size four, save for a pair of size six jeans completely by accident. The only swimsuits I fit in were sizes 10 and 12. I even had to have Samantha crawl under the door to help me out of a size eight swim top I. Had. Gotten. Stuck. In. (I don’t believe I have to explain why this experience was frustrating to say the least.)

Combine this experience with a disconcerting call from a loved one, getting my shoes stolen at the first indoor waterpark we ventured into, heart rate issues and some serious hip pain and I was a little distracted by the end of our first day. I was tired of being sick, tired of being stuck inside a body that feels foreign and tired of being sad. So, when we came home from dinner at Cracker Barrel, I was ready to sleep and attempt to forget that I had become a grumpy, frustrated, sick, overly inflated version of myself on the first day of a trip I had so been looking forward to.

But then, I noticed that heat lightening was streaking across the sky outside of our lovely hotel room. I walked out onto the porch overlooking the Chula Vista golf course and watched it roll and spark and dance over and underneath cloud cover. Soon enough, Samantha and Hannah joined me. And then Amanda came out. But rather than focus on the lightning, Amanda began engaging in a battle with the gummy army men she had purchased on our trip to Goody Goody Gum Drop. She soon had me laughing so hard I was crying. Sarah came to join the four of us laughing uncontrollably on the porch and added her unique humor to the situation.

Those moments on the porch came to define the trip for me. I was still sick and overly inflated and deeply sad for some personal reasons I don’t care to discuss right now. But I was also loved and laughing so hard I was crying while witnessing celestial beauty and was surrounded by my favorite women. And despite all the other realities, I was extremely optimistic, letting joy in and looking forward to every last moment I would get to spend in the company of the women I love best.

Since I last blogged, I have struggled through a 2 a.m. visit to the emergency room for uncontrollable pain, have received challenging medical news and have navigated some uniquely taxing family issues. Life hasn’t been easy. But I am not asking for easy. I want to live a full, engaging, inspiring and dynamic life with strength and grace. I was a bit beaten down by the course of things before those moments on the porch, but all it took was love, laughter and Amanda’s weird gummy war to remind me of why I fight and what I am ultimately fighting for. It is a lovely thing to be reminded of one’s capacity to become the heroine in one’s own story again. And I have my girls trip to thank for the reminder.

(Tomorrow I will publish part two of my vacation-related blog, wherein I will discuss the injury that is inspiring a dramatic change in my training goals and the fabulous time that I had for the rest of the trip.)

A Blogging Vacation

Hello all! I have some pressing family issues that require my attention at the moment. In addition, I will be heading out on vacation with my daughter, my little sister Hannah and my best friends Sarah and Amanda from Monday 7/22 to Wednesday 7/24. Look for my next post on 7/25. Until I resurface, I wish you health and happiness! See you soon!

Day Eighty: Why Certain Journeys Make One a Badass

I belong to several writing-related listserves and mailing lists, including one distributed by Writer’s Digest. Some days, these emails only serve to remind me that writers write… and this “writer” is putting down her fiction until Samantha goes back to school. These emails sometimes make me deeply sad because even though I actively want to make my daughter my top priority for every moment she is home, the manuscripts cooking in my brain are eager to make their way onto the page. However, there are other days when these emails inspire and drive me, even though I’ve consciously decided to put my pen down for the time being.

My recent favorite Writer’s Digest email is entitled “Why Writing a Book Makes You a Badass.” As someone who has written a full first draft of a novel (one of the three projects I’ll be tackling this fall is editing this beast), I have enough firsthand experience to agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment. And in reading the seven reasons why Writer’s Digest online editor Brian A. Klems believes that book writing makes you a badass, I realized that the same logic applies to the badassedness of marathon training and actively attempting to heal a chronic condition. Brian, I will now be borrowing your logic to explain why this is so. Athletes, individuals trying to heal, book writers and other highly intentioned/focused persons, this is why I believe that you are badasses.

1. “Writing a book is hard.” So is healing and so is training. In many ways, both healing and training are some of the most logistically challenging feats imaginable under ordinary life circumstances. Both training and actively healing are choices that must be made over and over again. Every single day that you wake with an intention to train or heal, you must follow through with that intention or risk throwing away all the hard work that you have put in and the goals that you have set for yourself. Healing and training frequently impact every bodily choice one makes from how long to sleep to when to eat. Writing, healing and training are definitely hard.

2. “Editing is painful.” Yep. I could probably write a book about how painful editing can be. Other painful things include training and healing. By its very nature, the process of healing is inspired by some broken, ill or otherwise impaired bodily function. Healing is most directly focused on reducing whatever painful or dangerous symptoms one has developed. And to anyone who has ever trained for an endurance event or who has danced until their feet bled, I don’t have to explain that training is painful.

3. “Knowing when you are ‘finished’ is impossible.” Just as a writer could endlessly change his or her work, those seeking healing can always add more to their lives in an effort to heal. Between diet changes, yoga, body brushing, aromatherapy, etc. (I could go on for a few pages) there are seemingly endless variations of healing that one could take. At some point, a writer has to put down the pen and say “enough,” and at some point those seeking healing must trust that in any given day they have given “enough” to their process. Similarly, even though an athlete may have a specific goal in mind, one can endlessly change up training approaches, adding and adding to the training calendar. An athlete must also trust that a given day’s work is “enough” on some meaningful level.

4. “Cold-querying agents is scary.” Healing and training can be incredibly empowering, but they are also often quite scary processes. “Failing” at one’s training hurts the ego. “Failing” at healing could impact one’s quality of life and lifespan. Fear is a constant struggle throughout each of these processes for many who embrace them… myself included.

5. “Rejection is everywhere (and yet you carry on).” At least in my experience, healing and training have led to some pretty unexpected forms of rejection both in the wider world and within my own mind. Not every person and every approach continues to fit within a life when such dramatic goals are being pursued and the forms of rejection that follow can be quite surprising.

6. “Getting paid for your work is harder than ever.” Healing and training are SPENDY. ENDLESSLY EXPENSIVE. I cannot really stress this enough. The financial sacrifices of each process (especially healing) can take your breath away.

7. “Accomplishing a dream is rare and awesome.” I have not yet healed, nor have I reached my training goal. But I trust completely that this statement is true. Healing and training are hard and victories are almost assuredly sweet as a direct result.

To anyone writing a book, training, healing or navigating some similarly massive and intricate process, I believe that you are a badass. I salute you as I am doing my best to become one too.

Day Seventy-Eight: Kassie Lyn’s Day Off

As Ferris Bueller once wisely mused, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.” Now, Monday is always my rest day in terms of training. But Monday is not a rest day from the other areas of my life. In fact, I tend to frontload my workweek on Mondays so that if and when a flare lands me on my back later in the week that I have some breathing room to rest. So truly, I don’t really take breaks from training, work and life in general.

However, this past Saturday I felt that it was important to have a day with my daughter that did not include any trips to the gym, any work and any chores. I wanted to give her free reign to design the day in the way she chose and to have my attention 100 percent of the time if she wanted it.

We started the day at Bruegger’s, so that she could nab her favorite rosemary olive oil bagel with enough cream cheese on it to fill a small bathtub. We then headed to Maple Grove for the earliest showing of “White House Down,” which she flipped over. Other than “Man of Steel,” I have never taken her to a real action movie before and I was apprehensive about her movie choice. But she thought the movie was awesome. She loves suspense and I think she appreciated that I let her watch something that wasn’t created primarily for kids.

She then chose California Pizza Kitchen for lunch. While waiting for our food, we took “quizzes” and did other tween-ager type things. Then, we headed over to Color Me Mine to paint mugs, because I’d never done it before and she loves going there with my best friend Amanda. I made a teacup with a purple autoimmune awareness ribbon at the bottom of it… because sometimes I need reminding as to why I have to fill myself to bursting with tea.

We then went to Barnes and Noble so that she could browse for her library book list and I could read more of “Divergent,” which I am thoroughly enjoying. (Anyone who has read and liked “Hunger Games,” pick this book up.) We then popped over to Big Bowl for happy hour priced potstickers for dinner and then headed home to watch the Twins game and knit.

As readers of this blog understand by now, I am absolutely terrible at relaxing, sitting still and otherwise avoiding productive activity. But I have to admit that my day off was one of the more enjoyable experiences I have had in a very long time. It was an uncharacteristically expensive day, but it was worth every penny. Not only did I get to enjoy the company of the world’s most awesome 12-year-old uninterrupted, I also got to experience a day in which I wasn’t constantly thinking, “Okay, what do I need to do next?”

To any marathoners in training, parents, autoimmune patients and chronic busy people reading this post, I highly encourage you to take a sincere day off. Like milk (except for vegan lupus patients), it does a body good.

Day Seventy-Four: Oh, the Joys of Tea!

I first remember enjoying coffee when I was roughly Samantha’s age. My best friends and I would regularly stop into Dana Point’s Ocean Ranch coffee establishment (it started with a “C” and its name is slipping my mind) for iced mochas before heading off to the movies. Given that we were movie addicts, we also became adolescent coffee addicts fairly quickly.

However, it was not until law school that I truly became a coffee junkie. I was operating on such an inadequate amount of sleep that the daily Starbucks run that my classmates and I would take to the sketchy Starbucks near Market and McAllister (why didn’t we go to the nicer one half-way down the block, you guys???) was often the highlight of my day. When I was studying for the bar exam, I ingested far more coffee than I am willing to admit. The post-exam withdrawals were… (cough)… fun.

When you become a rheumatology patient, you quickly learn that you should not be drinking coffee. Though coffee has benefits for the rest of the population, coffee is inflammatory and should be avoided by though of us whose immune systems are consistently in attack mode. Instead of coffee, autoimmune patients are advised to drink copious amounts of green tea.

I miss my coffee. When I am not being a cheater-cheater-pumpkin-eater and drinking coffee despite my good sense, I really, really miss my coffee. Coffee is comforting and stimulating and social in a way that tea just isn’t in America. However, learning about the benefits of tea and finding excellent tea shops has helped me to get truly excited about being a bonafide tea drinker. As a result, I am drinking tea regularly and am very slowly learning how to move past grieving my coffee consumption.

Green tea is one of those seemingly magical substances that actually helps to halt the progression of inflammatory havoc and can actually aid in reversing certain internal damage and external symptoms. Without getting too technical, a few cups of green tea makes epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) abundantly available in the bloodstream. The EGCG then settles on cell surfaces and blocks receptors which ordinarily allow for tissue invasion by foreign cells. In essence, the uniquely abundant presence of EGCG in the bloodstream after two or three cups of green tea helps to halt inflammation throughout the body. Given that my disorder allows for the inflammation of every conceivable tissue and organ system, I am a big fan of any substance that plays defense on my behalf throughout my entire body.

In my opinion, tea is an acquired taste, but once you have acquired it, it becomes something you can truly enjoy and even crave. I have reached the point where I actively seek out new teas and tea shops and have even developed enough knowledge to know whether or not I will like a certain loose leaf tea simply by looking at it and giving it a quick sniff. I now belong to three tea lovers mailing lists and am eagerly seeking out new tea knowledge. I am also more than a little enamored by tea-related gadgets. Tomorrow, Samantha and I are headed to “Color Me Mine” so that I can paint my very own teacup and I am irrationally excited about this plan.

It can be easy to get bogged down in a sense of what I must let go of as an autoimmune patient. However, diving headfirst into embracing what I can continue to enjoy helps immensely to keep my outlook positive and my teacup half full. (Even if I do manage to spill boiling water on myself an average of once a week…)

Day Seventy-One: The (Runner’s) Serenity Prayer

When I was very little, I had underpants with ruffles on the rear. I referred to them (of course) as my ruffle-butts. And perhaps because they reminded me of tutus and other girly things, I couldn’t wait to show them off. After all, as Calvin of “Calvin and Hobbes” wisely asks the universe, “What’s the point of wearing your favorite rocketship underpants if no one ever asks to see them?”

My favorite day therefore became Sunday. Because Sunday meant church. And church meant shiny shoes and showing off my ruffle-butts at church. I am not sure if it occurred to my mother not to put me in a dress… but it certainly did not occur to me that showing off my ruffle-butts was at all inappropriate, because they were awesome and who wouldn’t want to share in something awesome?

I suppose that I’ve been thinking about me at that age so often lately because it is the last time I can remember being someone who didn’t over-think absolutely everything. I know that by the time I hit kindergarten that I had become an over-thinker. But there was a time when my thoughts didn’t run so fast and wild and didn’t multiply at staggering rates. There was a time when I just thought, “Hey! Rufflebutt underwear? Cool! Wanna see?”

I haven’t been able to write these past few days because my head has just been too full to compose any sort of structured piece. I had a rheumatology appointment Friday and I’ve just been mentally spinning ever since. I am finally at a place where I can begin to process the news I received, so let’s dig in, shall we?

Essentially, I am down to 15mgs of Prednisone on my latest taper and the other medication we are trying (Hydroxychloroquine, commonly known as Plaquenil) is not yet working. I have only been on it for a month, but my doctor was hoping it would be kicking in by now and so was I. She is hoping that it will do something by month two, though it is not considered a “failure” in my particular case unless it does nothing to improve my symptoms by month six.

Why does this matter? There are a few reasons:

1. The Prednisone seems to be affecting my heart. My doctor feels okay about letting me finish the taper so that I don’t have even nastier withdrawal symptoms than usual, but I need to get off the Prednisone and I will not be going back on it. There has been mention of steroid shots… sigh.

2. The Prednisone is currently the only medication doing anything to help my symptoms at all. And at 15 mgs, I am back to constant pain in several parts of my body (including my damn left arm… no, not having a heart attack, but I have not been able to have any relief from this particular spot for two straight days, which is weird because my pain tends to flash and move around at least somewhat) and fatigue issues extreme enough to impact my ability to get through my day, let alone train.

3. The last time I was without working medication, the pain was bad enough to induce vomiting regularly and required me to spend a very decent amount of my time in bed.

So, if in three weeks the new medication has yet to kick in, I will be once again working through the world of lupus sans effective medication. And the thought scares the bejeezus out of me. I have a wonderful kid who I want to enjoy fully, a job I want to do well, a marathon to run and books to write. I have a life to lead. And I don’t want to go back to being the sick girl who can’t handle everyday tasks, let alone the extraordinary ones I’d really like to tackle.

The pain is bad enough lately and the fatigue is significant enough lately that most of my energy is going into hanging with my Samantha girl. Training is slowing way down. And if things don’t improve soon, I am going to have to embrace the heart of the runner’s serenity prayer (God, grant me the serenity to accept when I cannot run; the courage to run when I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.) But at the moment, my mind is doing laps around that sentiment trying desperately to hang onto the idea that I can get through this all and continue my training despite the fact that my immune system is maddeningly uncooperative.

The other news I received concerns the progression of lupus and what my body is currently dealing with. But that is another post for another day.