Living For Garrett: The Ugly Truth About 13.1

I've been in pain every single day since I was eighteen. I noticed it for the first time when I was in a step aerobics class and felt a burning kind of electrical pain in one of my feet. It felt like it feels when you put a 9-volt battery to the tip of your tongue.

Twelve years later, I finally found the right doctor who discovered I had tumors covering the nerves in my feet. In both feet. I'd been living with tumors in my feet for twelve years and in August 2011, I had both feet cut open and ligaments severed and nerves stripped. A few of the nerves were removed completely, but everything grew back. Since then, I've had more operations on my feet for the exact same thing but just like that first time, the problem comes right back. The other day one of the kids asked if I was okay and I made the comment that my feet hurt, and it surprised her because apparently, I rarely talk about the horrible neurological condition that I live with every day.

I'm a runner. I run long races and last year I ran an Olympic triathlon only eleven weeks after foot surgery. Five weeks after that, I ran a half marathon. This is the story of my life. I run, I hurt, I have surgery, I recover, and I run again. Often times, I run with tumors inside my feet.

On top of it, I have severe asthma. It's great fun.

I've spent the last twenty-four hours in and out of tears. A LOT of tears. I ran what is probably my last long race yesterday and the realization that it is my last hurts almost as much as my feet hurt every day. And while I've been feeling sorry for myself and wanting to write it all out, it's a good thing that I didn't spew out the venom via my keyboard yesterday when I was engulfed in the deepest pit of hell. I've been in a very dark and lonely place and yesterday was really bad, but today I'm able to step back a bit and view things through a more objective lens, so here goes.

A month ago, the doctor put me on a different controller medication for my asthma and after a week, I was instructed to go for a HARD run to test the effectiveness of the med. The fun thing about these meds is that it's really a game of trial and error to see what works with my body. So two weeks ago, I pushed myself to the absolute max (probably too hard) and ended up with a massive attack right there at the gym. I've rarely experienced them so badly, but luckily it was in a controlled environment and I had my rescue inhaler close by.

Alright, I guess I can't run that hard and that fast. No biggie, I'll cut back a little.

And so after a lot of trial and error, I found my threshold and while it was much slower than I wanted and left me feeling kind of depressed, I spent a couple of days chewing on it and came to terms that I couldn't run as fast as I'd been pushing myself to run. My lungs simply could not tolerate anything past that threshold, so that was it. Okay. Fine.

So race day came. I was ready. I'd broken in my new Brookes trainers. My bags were packed. My muscles were loaded to the brim with glycogen that was just waiting to get used. I was prepared and I was excited to put another 13.1 miles in the books and hang another medal on my wall. The same race the previous year had been great, and I was going to beat my PR by at least five minutes.

Audrey came by to pick me up at 4:45 that morning. The last bus up the mountain was leaving at 5:30, and we had it neatly planned out. This was not our first rodeo and we knew what we were doing. The drive to the race base was twenty-five minutes from the house and right before our arrival, I realized that the pack with my rescue inhaler and my epi pen was still sitting on the kitchen counter. I started panicking and the thing is, my lungs can't tolerate even the slightest bit of excitement anymore, so I have to be very careful. Audrey calmed me down and said that if I called Cody, maybe he could run me my supplies before the last bus left. Luckily, he woke up and answered his phone but the clock was ticking and every second mattered.

I told Audrey and Brittany to go ahead to the buses without me and that if Cody got there in time and I got my meds in time, that I would meet them there. Well, Cody pulled in right at 5:32. All the roads were closed around the race base, but I met him in the dark at an intersection that was four blocks away from the buses. It was the best he could do, so I grabbed my supplies and started sprinting to the buses.

That was a huge mistake. I sprinted hard and I sprinted fast. The last buses were pulling away and I was still a hundred feet away, so I ran harder. And harder. My lungs were already constricting, but I didn't stop. One of the volunteers in a reflective vest saw me and shouted "Are you needing the bus?"

I couldn't shout back because I had no air, but he stopped the bus and the driver opened the door and I hopped into the one and only remaining seat.

(Had I been in my right mind and not gasping for air, I would have shouted back that I'd just robbed the 7-11 and could use a ride.)

But I. Had. No. Air.

I riffled through and found my rescue inhaler and couldn't even get it inside my lungs because to do so, I had to inhale and they were spasming so wildly that I couldn't open them long enough. But finally I did, and I took three huge puffs. Half a minute but what felt like an eternity later, I was breathing again. But as always happens with that terrible medication, I was full of jitters and nausea. But...at least I could breathe. I tried to swallow pieces of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and banana (my traditional hour-before-the-race-starts meal) on the long ride, but I was so nauseous that I could barely get any of it inside of me. I was dizzy, sick, and poorly oxygenated. This was a terrible start and on top of it, I had no idea where the rest of my party was.

Ten miles up the mountain, the bus dropped our load off at the regular spot. It was a sea of port-a-potties and mylar blankets wrapped around runners to keep warm. I looked for Audrey and Brittany for about ten minutes, but then gave up and spent the next half hour sitting on the ground with my head between my knees as I tried to regain homeostasis.

Sitting on the ground, trying to oxygenate my blood.

The race began. My headphones were in. I was okay.

I was doing fine for the first five miles. My breathing was regular (enough) and I wasn't hurting too much. People who don't run downhill assume it's easy, and that's a crazy myth. Downhill running is terrible and painful because you're body contorts in a very unnatural way and doing that for ten miles is just plain torture. And for someone with foot problems, it's even worse because the ball of the foot takes an even GREATER pounding than normal. It was at mile eight that I finally had to stop and let a medic work on my foot. I came upon an aide station and I had no choice but to stop, knowing it was going to hurt my time. But my right foot was on fire and because of the way I was having to adjust my stride to accommodate the pain, it was now hurting the entire right side of my body from my shoulder to my ankle. I was in bad shape, but not bad enough shape. So I got my foot iced and slathered in Bengay and taped and I was back on the road twelve minutes later.

This is why I put myself through it. The view is unbelievable.

The downhill portion ended just before mile ten, with the remaining three-ish miles going partially uphill and then flat. It was at mile nine that I felt it in my lungs. All at once, they started closing up. I stopped and took one puff on my inhaler, but I knew that wasn't cutting it. The spasming got worse and worse, but I kept willing it away. I ran through the pain. I started doing all of my mental tricks to keep going. But at the bottom of the mountain, the world started spinning and going fuzzy and I knew I was becoming severely oxygen deprived.

I stumbled my way over to the side and tried to adjust my pack to my front so I could find my epinephrine. And like always happens when I can't breathe, I started panicking. And then there was a hand on my shoulder and a voice asking if I was okay, and I looked up through blurry vision to see a police officer. Next to him was a volunteer in a reflective vest, and somehow I managed to get the words out that I needed my epi pen. The volunteer turned out to be a retired paramedic and he asked if I was having an allergic reaction and I mouthed the word "ASTHMA" and he took the pen and immediately shot me hard and fast right in the middle of my right quadricep.

And like always happens, it burned. Like hell. Only this time it was going into severely inflamed muscle tissue that had just run ten miles downhill, which is already worse on the muscle than running flat. Holy Jesus. It burned.

He took my inhaler and put it in my mouth an after three large puffs, I was breathing again. The fun thing about epinephrine is that when it works, it works ALL at once. Suddenly, everything opened up and air was flowing into my lungs. I sat there and the cop was on his radio asking for an ambulance and I jumped up (too fast) and shouted NOOO!!! We argued for a minute. He said I needed oxygen, and the paramedic was counting my pulse and saying it was way too high. But my capillary refill was good, and the cop said by law he could not FORCE me to get treatment. We argued some more. By this time one of the race sweepers was over talking to us, and they all tried to convince me that the race for me was over.

It had been twenty minutes already. Twenty minutes?! I said thanks but no thanks, and took off. The paramedic was on my tail and convinced me to make a compromise. He asked if he could walk with me for a mile, and I agreed. As we walked, he noticed my stride was really off and he asked me about it. I told him about my tumors and that the one in my right foot was horrible and that each step was agony. Again, he tried to get me to stop for the day, but I thanked him for his help and took off running again. It was a very slow run, but it was a run none-the-less. The whole time we were walking, racers were flying by and it was making me mental. There's nothing worse in a race than getting passed repeatedly (well, dying is probably worse) and I was going out of my mind.

I had two miles to go. It was mile eleven, and like with all races, this was the hardest part. Especially after having two asthma attacks in three hours and having a foot that felt like a metal blade was being shoved into it with each step. I came upon another aide station and knew that if I didn't stop again, I wasn't going to make it to the end. So I stopped, I worked on my foot (and my other foot this time) all by myself, and was back on the road.

But this time, the ice and ointment didn't help. Or maybe it was the burning in my right quad that was making me fall apart, but I was done. I couldn't finish. It was too hard, and I stopped right in the middle and started shaking. And then I thought of Garrett, like I'd done all morning, and asked him for help. My eyes filled with tears and I said, "Baby, I don't think I can do this. I need your help. I need you with me."

And so I started running again. But not even ten seconds later, a song came on my iPod. It had been on shuffle all morning and so far every song had been a good one. But right then and there, Kenny Chesney's "Who You'd Be Today" was blasting in my ears, and the tears started falling in droves. Now even on a normal day with normal lungs and no pain, it's hard to run and cry at the same time. But in that moment? Sweet God.

Sunny days seem to hurt the most. I wear the pain like a heavy coat. I see you everywhere I go. I see your smile I see your face. I hear you laughing in the rain. I still can't believe you're gone. It ain't fair you died too young. Like a story that had just begun. But death tore the pages all away. God knows that I miss you. All the hell that I've been through. Just knowing no one could take your place. Sometimes I wonder who you'd be today. Would you see the world? Would you chase your dreams? Settle down with a family? I wonder what would you name your babies? Some days the sky's so blue. I feel like I can talk to you. And I know it might sound crazy.

The first time I ran this particular race was exactly two months after Garrett died. I don't know how I did it, but each time I've done it since, it fills me with the same guttural sense of grief and despair that I felt on that day. And as I ran down Fort Union Boulevard, nothing in the world could have assuaged the hurt inside of me. And in a strange way, I was grateful for it because it served as a distractor from the pain in my feet and thigh and lungs. But the distraction was short-lived when the next few songs came on, which perfectly followed suit to the one that made me break down.

As I limped along and the tears fell, I looked around at my fellow racers and was overcome with anger and bitterness. I wondered who in my company had been dealt such a hand. I know we each have our trials, but I looked at them and thought how easy their lives must be. I couldn't fathom that anyone else on that course was suffering like I was. And my physical pain was the easiest part. My heart is broken, and that kind of pain is the worst of all pains. I felt utterly alone and beside myself with sadness.

The finish line was two blocks away and I had the good mind to stop and just walk away. To leave it all. But I looked it head-on and audibly whispered to Garrett, "Come on, kid. Let's finish this thing."

I came upon the crowd of spectators and looked for Cody and the kids. I saw no one that I knew. No one. The solitude that surrounded me was thick, in spite of the thousands of faces. I stepped over the finish line and they said my name over the speaker and I grabbed my medal and a cold rag and draped them both around my neck and stumbled to a stopping place. And then I heard my name being called above the crowd and looked around and spotted my husband. And with that, I could not control my emotions. I reached over the barricade and grabbed him and cried in great big heaves. I cried so hard I thought my lungs would burst. He just held me and after a minute, I reached down and grabbed Lauren and Devin and held them. Ethan and Hailey were at a theatre rehearsal, but I'd never been so grateful to see at least part of my family.

Once I stopped running and when I went to walk again, my right leg hardly worked at all. I looked at the injection site and it was bright red and rock hard through the whole muscle. A high dose of adrenaline like that on rested tissue already disturbs it enough, but on very inflamed and torn tissue like my leg, it did a real number. We walked twenty minutes to the car and when we got inside, I just cried. I told Cody the whole story and then I got quiet and silently berated myself like I'm so good at doing. I'd never say that about anyone else that I loved. I'd never tell them they were useless. Stupid. Broken. Worthless. Ugly. A failure. A big failure. A big fat failure. And yet, I said those things to myself.

I got home and couldn't make it up the stairs without help. That right leg...it was bad. Cody helped me into our room and then I took a quick shower and cried some more and then climbed into bed and cried some more. My tears were for different reasons, and none of them were for physical pain. Even though my feet felt broken and my knees hurt and I couldn't move my right leg without injuring it worse, my tears were for the invisible pain on the inside. I laid there and again thought of the other racers who ended the day with smiles and cheers. I imagined their happy lives. I imagined their happy childhoods. I imagined their happy families. I imagined them having all of their children and not suffering ever minute of every day with the guilt of causing the death of one of their children. I imagined them keeping all of their children alive. I imagined them never seeing the inside of an OR, and me having patronized sixteen of them (seventeen if I count the one wherein my son died). I imagined their bodies that just...work. And how mine never catches a break. I thought of my sadness and I cried and I cried until I was dry.

Cody sat on the bed and tried to tell me I was wrong. He tried to tell me he was proud, and that I earned that medal more than any person who had an easy run. Who has an easy LIFE. But none of it mattered. Yesterday, I could only think of my failures and my shortcomings. Yesterday I could only focus on the fact that I had to retire my running shoes and that it was one more thing I could no longer do.

Today, I focused on school and on one of the few things I can control...for now. My intellect. My ability to learn. My ability to write. My ability to do statistics. My ability to research. My ability to make good grades. Maybe I'll run again. Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll never be able to do that Pike's Peak climb that I so badly desire. Maybe my physical capabilities have been hindered, but it's not the end of the world.