For Everything There is a Season

"In order to write about life, first you must live it." ~ Ernest Hemingway

Category: joint pain

My Sjögren’s World

February 7, 2017 / / 11 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Sjögren’s blog update. That is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because it means I have been somewhat successful in putting some mental distance between me and this life altering illness, but it is also bad because I am a firm believer in connecting with other Sjögren’s patients and sharing our insights into how to live as well as possible with Sjögren’s.

Recently, I was asked by the Sjögren’s Syndrome Foundation to be part of a group of Sjögren’s patients piloting a new patient website message board. I have checked out other patient message boards, Facebook groups, etc., but I have only really found myself connected to one other particular Facebook group called Sjögren’s Sisters (if you need help finding it, send me an e-mail or message me on Facebook). So, I was really curious about this new project.

I enjoy doing volunteer type stuff for the SSF, but oftentimes I run into problems with committing physically to projects. Kind of ironic, isn’t it? You want to help the non-profit that does good for your illness, but your illness holds you back. But this project is time limited and I never have to leave my couch or bed to help with it. That’s a win for me!

The project has linked me up with eleven or so other Sjögren’s patients and we exchange information regarding living with our illness and the various challenges that come with that. It’s such a great resource. We are still in the trial phase and once we go live, I will definitely share the information on this blog, so stay tuned.

The project couldn’t have come at a better time for me. Sjögren’s has been overwhelming me lately. My body has been overwhelming me lately. And by lately, I mean for about six months. I am experiencing so many symptoms lately and I don’t even know for sure which are autoimmune related and which are not, although my guess is, most of them are related somehow, some way. Because of all the symptoms, I have had to cancel out on commitments a lot more than usual and while I can be a homebody as much as any introvert, I am spending way more time at home and in bed than I would like. Isolation can be a killer for sure.

So this is what has been going on lately in my Sjögren’s world:

Last April my rheumatologist and I decided to try a medication called Orencia. For those of you who don’t already know this, Sjögren’s syndrome does not have a cure. It doesn’t even have any treatment designed to treat it. Instead we have to depend on medications used for other autoimmune illnesses and then pray and hope that we will be lucky enough to have one of them help us.

Orencia (abatacept) is a biologic medication often used to treat RA (rheumatoid arthritis). RA and Sjögren’s have several symptoms in common. For me, the symptoms I needed the most help with at the time were joint/muscle pain and fatigue. I had to get an insurance prior authorization to do the injections at home, but then we found out that my “copay” was going to be $1500/month. $1500!! We then decided that I would drive the four hour round trip to Boston every month to receive an IV infusion of Orencia instead. Cost to me: $30 for gas, tolls, parking, and water. After the first few months of doing this, my local pulmonologist agreed to oversee the infusions at my local, community hospital so thankfully, my commute has gone from four hours round trip to one hour.

I am very medication sensitive. Right after the end of my first infusion, I did have a minor reaction but since then I have had no adverse effects. This is highly unusual for me so I was determined to give this medication a fair shot.

I did notice some improvement about three or four months after starting the infusions. However in the past few months, I have been on and off the fence about how well it works for me. When I saw my rheumatologist right after Christmas, she thought it was helping because my joint swelling was pretty much gone, but I had also just finished three weeks of prednisone so it is hard to say for sure. I do think on most days, Orencia has helped with some of my joint pain, especially in my fingers, wrists, elbows, knees, and toes.

It has not helped my fatigue though and that is where I am really struggling right now. Fatigue has always been a struggle for me with this disease, but I cannot believe how bad it has gotten recently. At the moment, I do think some of it can be attributed to a respiratory infection/cold that I am trying to recover from, but it is definitely more than that. I am not exaggerating when I say that I have to mentally talk myself through even the most basic of tasks because my body just doesn’t want to move. Showering, cooking, even getting from the bedroom to the bathroom to brush my teeth before bed. It’s not than I am necessarily tired and want to sleep all the time. It’s more like my body is stuck in quicksand or I am constantly trying to swim upstream…the entire day that I am awake. Every task and movement is me mentally rallying myself to just get up and do it; convincing myself that nothing can keep me down. But the reality is, I am down. There ARE times where I just can’t do it.

The biggest problem with this?

The less I am out in the world and the less I can do, the more I struggle with my mood. It’s a known fact that people with chronic illnesses have higher rates of depression and so while I am fighting every minute of the day to work through the fatigue, I am also fighting to keep myself upbeat and optimistic.

Muscle pain, dry eyes, dry mouth, nose sores, headaches, and peripheral neuropathy-like symptoms (foot pain) are a daily occurrence lately. The esophageal motility disorder that showed up a few years ago, and then went away, is showing signs that it might become an unmanageable problem again, but I can’t bear the thought of making yet another doctor’s appointment in Boston. So instead, I try to eat foods that are easier to swallow. This week I go to Boston to get my salivary and parotid glands expressed and a few weeks after that, ultrasound of my shoulders because for some reason, they have been getting more and more painful.

I haven’t been able to sit without being in a lot of pain since August and since December, that pain has progressed to my rectum and you can only imagine what kind of havoc that has wreaked on some of my bodily functions. Originally it was thought that it was an orthopedic issue…nope. Then a gastroenterology issue…nope. Well, at least that is what I have been told. I’m not 100% convinced of either. So now it has been brought up that maybe it IS a Sjögren’s related issue after all, specifically a sacral neuropathy. As I write this, I am awaiting a call back from a neurologist in Boston who specializes in these things. I don’t know if he is going to have any answers. Meanwhile, I keep upping my meditation practice to try and deal with the pain and the anxiety over the fact that the tailbone issues may NEVER go away. By the way, if any of you have experience with that, I would appreciate hearing about your experiences and what helped you, if anything.

So what’s a girl to do? It’s like any adverse situation: you fight or you give up. I’d like to say that giving up is not an option, but we all know it is. Luckily for me, right now, it is not. And honestly, oftentimes the only reason that it is not an option is because I know how much I am loved. And I know that I still have work to do in this world; work that is important. In terms of giving up on dealing with my illness and symptoms, that is not an option either. I know that Sjögren’s can be progressive and I am only 45…that’s a lot of years left for things to get worse. So I need to be as on top of things as I can. I will be honest, lately I have thought about what it would be like to just stop all my medications, all the painful procedures, and all the appointments, but like I said, I am loved and I have important work to do.

For my physical body, I employ as many complementary treatments as I can afford and which work. Yoga, massage, exercise, diet, and meditation are the biggies that I can think of. Even if I sometimes feel that these treatments don’t help me physically, they always help me mentally. There is always the option for me to start up yet another course of prednisone, but I am trying to avoid that as long as possible.

My answer right now is to do the best I can. I work as a substitute school nurse and when they call, I try to go into work as much as I can because at the end of the day, I am more than a patient, I am also a nurse and a pretty good one at that. Yes, it’s usually hell getting through the day and yes, I feel like death after work, oftentimes for days, but I know that for me, work is a necessary part of trying to normalize my life, even if it is only for a few hours or days a month.

I try to put myself in situations where I am helping other people. I volunteer for the American Cancer Society, the Sjögren’s Syndrome Foundation, and my church. Sometimes that means going for months without being able to do anything to help at all, but doing whatever little good we can do in this world is so much better than doing nothing at all.

I work very hard at trying to appreciate what I do have and what is going right in my life. It may not look how I envisioned it to look in some aspects, but in many other aspects, life has turned out so much better than I thought. So I am going to keep trudging along and no matter what, always keep the hope.

Whole 30 Autoimmune Protocol

January 16, 2014 / / 3 Comments

I feel like revamping my diet is a constant and ever evolving process. I don’t mean “diet” as in a weight loss program, but in terms of using proper diet to treat my Sjögren’s syndrome. About a year ago, I embarked on a Paleo eating plan, with the first month dedicated to the autoimmune protocol of the Paleo plan. The autoimmune protocol of any plan is super strict and is not even a diet. You can find an excellent explanation of the autoimmune protocol (AIP) HERE. It is a thirty day elimination period of the foods that are most thought to cause inflammation in the body. Due to a death in my family on Day 2, things did not go well. I know it is an excuse, but the amount of stress I was under was off the charts. I did however stick with the Paleo plan for the first half of the year, and I had some good results from it when I was compliant: most notably less pain and fatigue.

Things pretty much went to hell for me in the nutrition department (I like that word better than diet) when I went to Disney for my honeymoon. We came back the beginning of October 2013, the holidays came, etc. The worse I ate, the worse I felt. At first, it wasn’t noticeable because I was on a hefty dose of prednisone to quiet down some symptoms prior to my honeymoon, but as I started weaning the prednisone, it became apparent that my  food was affecting my health.

Part of the issue is not autoimmune related at all. At least I don’t think it is. Once I came back from Disney, I began to realize that some of my food issues had resurfaced. By “issues” I mean addictions to certain foods. I know being on the prednisone didn’t help with this, but things seemed to be worse. I was constantly craving processed food that were laden with carbs, sugar, and the such. This was not a new issue for me, but it seemed like now, the more I ate these foods, the worse I craved them. My weight creeped up and up and I felt like I was no longer in control. I know part of the carb cravings was related to the prednisone and that a lot of the foods I was eating are MADE to be addictive (i.e. McDonald’s), but at the end of the day, it was still my decision to eat them. They were my choices and I was making some poor ones at that.

Meanwhile, since coming back from Disney, I had started exercising on a regular basis because I was on prednisone and that afforded me the ability to be able to do more with my body. The exercise actually helps my autoimmune symptoms, but I began to wonder about how much better I could feel if I reeled in my diet again. On a blog I follow, I read about the book: It Starts With Food by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig. This book changed my life. Seriously.

It Starts With Food talks about the Whole 30 eating plan which is basically a Paleo diet with some tweaks, mostly eliminating any type of sugars (except in fruit and veggies). The premise of the whole plan is that you need to eat whole foods in order to optimize your body’s health. While Paleo talks about how our ancestors ate as a premise for the eating plan, the Whole 30 talks a lot about the effects that these processed foods have on our bodies. It is a no-nonsense approach to getting healthy. No excuses.

I decided that I was going to do a Whole 30 (meaning you do the plan for 30 days with absolutely no cheating) and I was going to step it up by adding in the autoimmune protocol of the Whole 30. My plan was to start the day after Christmas but I had my first race, a 5K, scheduled for New Year’s Day and the authors suggested not starting a Whole 30 before any big physical event, because the plan itself can take a toll on your physical body the first two weeks. As much as I HATE starting a new lifestyle change on New Year’s, that was my start date.

Today is Day 16 for me. I will be honest, most of the 16 days have been pure hell because really, this is HARD!! I have a few expletives for it, but I will try and refrain…for now. Being on a Whole 30 AIP means I can eat only certain foods for 30 days and then I can start to reintroduce some healthy foods I omitted over a period of a few months to see if my body can tolerate them. By reintroduce, I mean like eggs, nuts, and seeds….not pizza, soda, or bread.

What I can eat: meats (chicken, turkey, beef, fish); all vegetables except eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes, and all forms of peppers except black pepper; fruits; and healthy fats such as coconut oil and olive oil. Oh, and spices that are not seed or pepper based. That one gets tricky!

Yeap, that’s it.

No grains of any sort, no dairy, eggs, nuts, seeds, sugar, artificial sweeteners, sauces, additives of any type. I am sure I am forgetting some things, but you get the gist.

And this means I cook, ALL THE TIME! It is insane how much I have used my kitchen lately.I try to double up my cooking so I have something to eat for breakfast and lunch the next day, but when you are making your own salad dressings (olive oil only!) and cannot grab a protein bar when you are starving after a run, it gets tricky…and time consuming. Cheating is not allowed because even the slightest bite of an inflammatory food can have a negative effect on your gut, which is thought to be the primary source of injury in autoimmune illness. Eating out is next to impossible although I was able to twice at Red Robin. I knew they were probably cooking in forbidden oils such as canola or safflower oil, but I didn’t think that would be enough to trigger me. And, I had to protect my sanity.

The first ten days or so was a nightmare for me, physically and emotionally. I had physical withdrawal symptoms, despite having had cut out gluten and dairy after Christmas. These symptoms included dizziness, dehydration, increased fatigue, headaches, and joint pain. For several days, it felt like my blood sugar was dropping several times a day. I stopped doing all exercise for the first week until I felt that things were more stable. I became extremely moody and restless as I started to crave all the unhealthy foods I was previously dumping into my body. Honestly, I couldn’t even be in the same room as some of my trigger foods such as pizza, chocolate, even gluten-free bread!! I even went as far as asking my husband to take some Kit Kats we had gotten at Christmas to work with him. He forgot. I was home alone. I tossed them in the trash. Swear to God.

Things have gotten better though. The physical symptoms went away and despite weaning down my prednisone from 20 mg/day to 10 mg/day over the course of the past few months, my autoimmune symptoms are actually improving. The improvements have not been that drastic yet, except for my sleep. I am sleeping like a rock most nights for one of the first times in four years. I even dream now! And as anyone with an autoimmune illness knows, more sleep=less symptoms. Despite increasing my running mileage, most of my muscles and joints are pain-free on most days.My energy level has improved and despite having some mild respiratory issues around the holidays, my breathing is now 100% fine. No migraines and my mood is on an even keel. I have not noticed an improvement yet in my Raynaud’s or dryness issues and I would say that my dryness issues are even a bit worse. But it is January in New England; that is what always happens to me.

The past forty-eight hours has seen a dramatic improvement in my food cravings. This has been quite the blessing. Although temptation is still a challenge more times than I would like, I find that I am not thinking about food so much. I have also become quite a better cook over the past two weeks! It feels freeing to feel in control.

I don’t know what the next few weeks are going to bring, but I am cautiously optimistic. While I do not think that this eating plan will likely “cure” me of Sjögren’s, I am hopeful that it will help control my symptoms enough to further improve my quality of life. Because as hard as this Whole 30 AIP plan is, it’s not half as hard as living with a debilitating, chronic illness.

My Sjögren’s Update (And It’s Not About The Book!)

December 7, 2013 / / 1 Comment

I think it has been a little while since I have posted an update about how I have been doing medically. There are many reasons for that; I was away on my honeymoon, I have been tied up with the book being published, and most importantly, I have been feeling better.

I started back on Plaquenil sometime in August as it was clear that the alternative medicine treatments alone were not doing the trick. They help, a lot, but they were not enough to keep me from having more complications, such as with my bladder. I wasn’t doing terribly, but there was a lot of room for improvement, hence why I went back on Plaquenil. I never thought Plaquenil did much for me in all the years I was taking it, which is why I stopped it in February, but I may have been mistaken on that.

By the middle of September, I was still having a lot of issues with increased joint pain, especially in my shoulders, hips, and hands, swollen lymph nodes that were causing some alarm, fatigue, and this new interstitial cystitis issue with my bladder was still not under control. I had gotten a lot of relief with the bladder issues after going in for surgery to have a hydrodistension done, but my symptoms were starting to return, although not nearly as severe as in previous months. My urologist and I came up with a plan to start bladder instillations every two weeks for twelve treatments…at a hospital two hours away from me. Oh, the joy!

Since I was leaving on my honeymoon for Disney (we were married in May) at the end of September, I decided to heed my rheumatologist’s advice and go back on prednisone, hopefully for the short-term. About eleven days before we left, I started on 20mg once a day of prednisone. Within 72 hours, the change was dramatic. My joint pain was resolved, I had more energy, ALL of my bladder symptoms were completely gone, and within another week, my lymph nodes were back down to an almost normal size. We even decided to hold off on the bladder instillations.

Now, I have a long and intense history with prednisone use which you can read about if you go back to the main page of this blog and click on the prednisone tag under “labels”. It has been quite a while since I needed to be on prednisone for longer than a week and notoriously, I have a lot of side effects which make me want to get off of it as soon as possible. This run with it, initially, was much easier and it makes me wonder if my alternative medicine therapies had anything to do with that. I was getting so much accomplished; I even took up running! I did have to stop my alternative therapy, low-dose naltrexone, because I thought I had too much energy and because both medications give me insomnia, I wasn’t sleeping well. Coming off the low-dose naltrexone helped tremendously.

I was doing so well that it made me wonder if maybe the risk of staying on a higher dose of prednisone long-term was worth it. That whole quality of life over quantity thing and all. I began to realize that if I could stay on this dose, I could probably start thinking about going back to work part-time, or at least on a per-diem basis. After a few weeks, I weaned the dose to 15 mg and was still doing well, and then went to 12.5 mg and then 10mg. Within a week of being on 10 mg, I really began to struggle with my symptoms again so I went back to 15 mg, knowing that I had a rheumatologist appointment coming up soon.

Two weeks before my rheumatology appointment, things began to get tougher for me. I was still feeling good on the 15 mg, but I had put on a lot of weight, despite exercising 4-5x/week. Fifteen pounds to be exact…in less than two months. That, I could deal with. More concerning were the mood swings I was beginning to have. I was struggling (and still am) more than people knew with depressive mood swings, anxiety, and becoming easily frustrated. I tried to keep my head down, but it was wearing on me. The good thing about having been on prednisone so often is that I knew it was medication related, and I have a lot of experience at managing these symptoms. But, it was kind of putting a big damper on that whole “better quality of life” thing. I have had bad prior experiences with psychiatric medications and for me, they are not the answer, so I worked on increasing my exercise, exposure to sunlight, stress management, etc.

I did talk to my rheumatologist last week at my appointment about the side effects. My blood pressure was also elevated and the only time that happens is when I am on larger doses of prednisone. She told me it was time to come down on the prednisone. I will be honest, I was very upset. I explained to her that I tried that already and after much conversation, she made me realize that I came down on the dose too quickly. I have a bad habit of trying to do things my way and you know what? I am sick of it. Historically, I get no benefit from being on less than 15 mg of prednisone but this time, I am doing it her way. Not 50% her way, or 80% her way, but 100% her way. So we are weaning the prednisone down by 1 mg every two weeks until I get to 10 mg and then we wean it 1 mg every MONTH. The goal is to get on as low a dose as possible…or even off of it.

I don’t have any other treatment options at the moment besides my Plaquenil and alternative treatments. We had discussed the possibility of enrolling in a clinical trial for a new medication, but I was disqualified from entering into the study because of my lymphoma and radiation treatment history from seventeen years ago.

I am scared and I am discouraged. I don’t want to go back to feeling the way I did over this past summer, or even last year. The only analogy I can think of is that it is like being blind…getting your vision back for a few months…and then being told you will likely be blind again in a couple of weeks or months. Yes, I know being blind is extremely difficult, but it is the only analogy I can think of to explain the terrible feeling that comes with it. Don’t get me wrong, I am SO grateful for these past two months. I have accomplished much and literally have made the most out of every single day I have felt better. I have had a few wonderful adventures and done things I never thought possible. But at this point, I have to trust the opinion of my doctor and that being on prednisone at the dose I was on, on a long-term basis, is not in my best interest. I have to have hope that maybe I will not backslide too much.

But what is in my best interest? Struggling to get through every day? Going on and off prednisone every couple of months to quiet things down temporarily? Wondering if the back and forth on the prednisone is better or worse for me in the long run as compared to just staying on it? There are no clear answers and unfortunately, my doctor and I do not have a crystal ball to predict the future. So I am hanging on tight to my faith as I begin the slow journey of cutting back my prednisone. I will have to tighten up on my diet, self-care, and likely restart my low-dose naltrexone.

The good news is, I will likely lose some weight and my moods will definitely even out. I am sure my husband will appreciate the latter.

Faith.
Hope.
Courage.

And here we go….

Running, Sjögren’s, Races, and Disney

October 19, 2013 / / 2 Comments

As a child and teenager growing up, I was not the athletic type. One of my worse memories as a freshman in high school was having to run a hundred yard dash in gym class. And then a relay. A relay involves team members and after the hundred yard dash, I was known to be the slowest runner. Of course you know what that meant. I was the last person picked for my relay team. I was embarrassed and humiliated; which was a common occurrence for me in gym class, except for when I was playing volleyball. I was, and still am, decent at playing volleyball.

Over the past several years, I have been working on my fitness level. I have lost about sixty-five pounds and I am probably in the best cardiovascular shape of my life. My joints are often a mess but my heart does just fine. I pale in comparison to many other people who can spend hours at the gym, but I know I am doing the best I can with this lousy autoimmune illness, so I try not to compare myself to others; just to myself.

About two years ago, I decided I wanted to be a runner. My Sjögren’s related joint pain had quieted down, thanks to hefty doses of prednisone, and for some reason, I thought running would be a good idea. However I only lasted several weeks before my knees started to act up in a big way and I was afraid that I was doing more harm than good. To be honest, I also didn’t know what I was doing in terms of stretching, cooling down, and all those other important things that have to do with running. I had also started to wean down on my prednisone to a point where I came off it completely. Not only did that affect my knees, but most of my upper joints as well. At that point, I decided that as a person with an autoimmune illness, I would never be able to run again.

Things have changed since then. I have started several different alternative medicine treatments, which have enabled me to tolerate the lower doses of prednisone much better. I am carrying less weight and my fitness level has improved. So I have made two very big decisions:

I am going to run again. Or at least, I am going to try very hard to run again.

That was the first decision. I came home from my honeymoon in Disney and decided that I was going to try running again. The reasons are varied. To me, running represents pushing my body beyond its limits. And trust me, my body has a LOT of limitations, and I am tired of them. I want to be stronger and I want that endorphin rush that comes from running and from pushing my body to the limit. I want to do something that to me, and to most Sjögren’s patients, seems like the impossible. Over the past two years, I have done quite a few things that at one time, seemed impossible for me to do. The biggest example is that I am in the process of publishing my first book. Another example is the $7000+ dollars I raised in the period of one month to publish said book.

I am doing the running thing quite a bit differently this time around. I am doing my homework by researching training techniques, especially in relation to injury prevention. Thanks to yoga and Pilates, my hips and back should make it through the runs. My bigger concern is my ankle and knee joints. I have an old ankle injury from a fall in 2012 that so far, seems to be holding up pretty well thanks to yoga. Before I started taking yoga classes, I was looking at the possibility of an ankle surgery, but that is no longer an issue. After five runs, I am already starting to feel it in my inner knees, however I am not sure if this discomfort is joint related or muscle related as the pain is different than my typical knee joint pain. My body could just not be used to running. However, I have incorporated some pre and post-run stretches into my routine, as well as icing my knees after each run. This helped quite a bit after today’s run. I have also learned that I need to do better with my nutrition and on strengthening my core. Luckily, I love Pilates. I feel that Pilates and yoga will go a long way in helping me with not only my autoimmune symptoms, but with my running as well.

When I tried running two years ago, I found this awesome running store in a town about forty-five minutes away and got properly fitted for running shoes. Even though I stopped running at that time, I found that running sneakers were the best sneaker for me because I overpronate when I walk. Before we went to Disney, I went back there to be fitted for another pair of sneakers. Earlier this year, I developed plantar fasciitis and was referred to an orthotics specialist who fitted me for orthotic inserts that go in my sneakers. I think that those have been a big help with running.

So I am taking it slow, very slow. I have friends who are helping me out by providing me with knee strengthening exercises (thanks Heather!) and I continue to research and learn as much as possible. And I do not run. I do a run/walk with my goal of doing a mile in fifteen minutes three times a week. That’s it. When I can do that for several weeks, I will consider upping the distance and/or the time. I think last time I attempted running, I tried to do too much, too soon. I will be smarter this time.

I am well aware that this running thing could not work out, which is why even though I have been mentioning on my personal Facebook page that I have started to run, I haven’t been as vocal about some other plans that I have. The reason is simple: I am afraid that if I say anything publicly and then fail at running, I will look like a failure. Then I realized that just the fact that I am TRYING to run again makes me a success. The fact that I am willing to go outside of my comfort zone makes me a success. But there is something I want to do more than anything:

I want to run a race.
Specifically a half marathon at Disney World in January 2015 for Team Sjögren’s.

After spending a week at Disney and then hearing about my friend, Heidi, who has Sjögren’s, training for her first Disney marathon to take place this January, I decided that I want that experience as my goal. A goal so seemingly insurmountable that it is almost laughable to me. But I want it and I want it bad. Part of it is probably because I like the challenge of trying to accomplish something that I was told I could not do. I know that there is a strong likelihood that if and when I do a race, I will finish dead last. I am O.K. with that. I just want to finish.

So I have made some other running goals. Five months from now is the Holyoke Road Race. It’s a pretty big deal in the area where I live and it is the day before the big St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Holyoke, MA. I have always wanted to be a part of it but never thought it was possible. It is a 10K race which means that the course is six miles.

Six miles.
Good Lord.

Then again, a half marathon is 13.1 miles so I better start somewhere. There is also a race Memorial Day weekend which I would LOVE to do. It is called the Run To Remember race in Boston and its goal is to honor fallen Massachusetts law enforcement officers. There is a five mile course and it runs through downtown Boston, one of my favorite places in the world. I think that if I can get through both of these races, including the training, I will be able to make a more firm decision about booking tickets for Disney in January 2015. At least that is the plan my husband and I have come up with so far!

There. I have said it. I am going to run and try to do a race…or several races. I will stay positive, be gentle with myself and my efforts, and try to remember that this will take time and a lot of patience. I am also VERY receptive to any suggestions and advice that any of my readers have for me. Please fell free to leave them in the comments section below.

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