Tonight I was in the store and I had one of those moments. I went in for milk and garlic bread. Then I was wondering if I needed anything else. Because there were thousands of items on the shelves and I could afford almost any of them. Not quite like the lottery commercial where the winning guy  says. “I could totally afford all this cheese. ” I could not afford all the cheese in the store.  But if I needed one more thing, chances are, I could buy it. I couldn’t even think of anything I needed. I threw a few cans of cat food into my basket so the cats could have a treat. I realized, once again, how blessed I am. I have all that I need. I like those moments because they make me happy, which in turn, makes me live in the present.

I’ve always tried to live in the present, but it became more important to me when I got my diagnoses. I was scared at the time and although I’m not frightened about it any more, I try to hang on to the lessons I’ve learned from it. When I first found out what was wrong, I had not had symptoms for very long….just a few months. I had no idea if I was going to spiral into a life of feeling sick or dealing with side effects from treatments, or what. I wrote in my journal that I had read long term survival was 10 years and that I could be dead in two years. It’s all the information was available to me at the time, before I could see the next doctor who would help me sort things out.  Fortunately I was told not long after that I would probably be able to live a long time with this. I was relatively young and healthy and I would most likely do well for a long time.

Now it’s a year and half later and I’m doing great. I wanted to use my birthday to celebrate my good fortune.  It was quite a milestone, too. I turned 55. I was exactly half way through my 50’s. It was day 150 since my transplant. And it was exactly one and half years since my diagnoses to the day.

I ran 19.60 miles on Friday, January 16th, my actual birthday. I rode 55 miles on my bike on the next day. On the third day, I went to the pool for 55 minutes…they are only open 2 hours on the weekends so that was about the best I could do. Over the course of the weekend, I also ran and walked an additional 14 miles to end up with a total of 55 kilometers (34.1 miles) on foot.

I want to thank everyone who participated.  Kerry, Erin, Pete, Mike, Andy, Bill, Margaret, Howard, Randy, Christy, Paula, and Joanne! It was a lot of fun.

I am just so happy I could do this. That was what it was all about. I can do it. So I did. I’m so grateful for my recovery. I have more adventures coming up. I can’t wait to see how things unfold.

The biker gang at the start

The runners

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Biker gang at the end

Aid aid station by Joanne and Randy on Mt Diablo

Route markers

and last but not least…

Breaking Bad cupcakes by Paula!