Bridget Spence

I discovered Bridget Spence's blog through my involvement with the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure in 2010.  She was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was only 21.  Her breast cancer developed into metastatic cancer, but she battled on.  She became an advocate for the fight against breast cancer, and was very active with Susan G. Komen.

Her blog posts were funny, insightful and hopeful.  I've followed her blog off and on and knew that back in December, Bridget had said her goodbyes and asked everyone to let her go.  I just discovered that she died on April 4 at the age of 29.

The Internet is a funny thing.  It allows our lives to be touched by people we otherwise would never have known.

Bridget's blog

Nancy Brinker's tribute

FINALLY, Seattle!

This year, my Trekkin for TaTas teammates and I are heading for Seattle!

I've always wanted to go there, but no one ever stopped whining that it's always raining long enough to go with me.

So when my teammates said they were planning to crew the 2013 Seattle 3-Day, I thought it over for about 3.2 seconds and decided to join them. Two of my teammates, Laura and Diana, are crewing with me. We'll be lifting big stuff on the Camp Hydration team. Although we have to stay in camp during "work" hours, I'm praying fervently we don't have to camp.

Our team captain, Sue Lyn, will be walking. She's crazy that way. :)

As a crew member, I don't have to raise money. However, it is encouraged, so if you just feel the desperate need to donate on my behalf I'll virtually high-five you. As in, post big thanks and stuff.

When I remember I actually have this blog...

2012 MDA Muscle Walk

I can't believe I never posted this!

Last year, my mom, several members of our Sunday School class, and I participated in the 2012 MDA Muscle Walk. We walked in support of our dear friend and fellow class member, Mary Lou Eslinger. Mary Lou, unfortunately, has ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease).

The walk, held at the Zoo, was short, a lot of fun, and a huge success.

Mary Lou's daughter has organized a team to walk in her honor again this year, and I'm thinking about participating once more.

I tried uploading the pictures using the Photobucket "stories" creator. Hopefully if you click on the photos below, it will take you to all the pictures.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

The View from the Sort of Middle

Team 2ManyCats did it! We walked in the 2011 JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes, and we had a blast! The weather couldn't have been more perfect. People actually walked together--I wasn't all alone by the third mile. And even better...I wasn't dead last!

AND...we finished 3.1ish miles in less than an hour. Take THAT, SGK! :)

I think next up may be the American Diabetes Association StepOut Walk to Stop Diabetes. I also eventually want to do an Alzheimer's walk in support of my great aunt, who suffers from it.

Yeah, I think I may be hooked on this walking for a cause thing.

Trekking again...like I did last November!

Well, not exactly like I did last November.

This time, I'm only walking three miles. And only for a few hours on one day. Without all the financial commitment. But still...

My mom and I have formed Team 2ManyCats, and we'll be walking in the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes on April 30. This cause is even more near and dear to me than breast cancer, so I'm really excited about trekking on to support it!

We'd really appreciate any donations you could make on our behalf!

Donate to Team 2ManyCats

A Life That Was Changed...

Finally! I give you pictures of my 3-Day adventure! I wanted to use the pawprint slideshow. I mean, a team full of CCLs, how perfect would that have been?! But it cut off the photos too much, and I had to go with this theme instead. *whine*

The 3-Day for the Cure was a once in a lifetime experience for sure. It was hardly the Kumbaya-singing lovefest the 3-Day online community promotes, but it was a good experience. One I'm glad I had. I do feel changed by it. In a very positive way.

I also feel a bit lost now that I don't have it to obsess about. A good, hugely relieved lost, but lost. Like I'm forgetting to do something. Like buy socks.

Unfortunately, thanks to my size and sometimes my sugars, my pace during the walk was too slow, and I was forced on to sweep vans several times. But I was able to finish more of the walk than I ever imagined I could. I'm really proud of that fact. But I am most proud of myself for the fact that not once the entire time did it occur to me I could quit and check in to a toasty, pillow-filled hotel room. Not once. Never. Not at all. I'm really surprised now that it didn't. And pretty freaking awed about it.

Thank you so much to all my donors! Thanks to you, I was able to raise $2,560! You'll never know what your financial support meant to me, or how many lives you saved.

You didn't have much money, but you gave it anyway...I am a life that was changed...I am so glad you gave.

I also want to thank my encouragers and my prayer warriors. Everyone who asked me about the walk, who told me they were proud of me, who assured me I could do it.

And my bestest besties and phenomenal mother whose constant texts and calls got me through those three days...like Skyler, who somehow made me laugh in the midst of a pink Kool-Aid festival about the fact I'm too slow. Raff, who surprised me by not trying to talk me out of the Red Zone but telling me to kick some tail instead. Meg for sending me some medical TLC in the form of one very hot fictional doctor.

My mom for the training and travel support. Her training waned during one incredibly horrible year for her, but her support never did. She paid for a major portion of my trip. She even paid the charges for texting me encouragement! I especially appreciate the fact she was so terrified I was going to lose my diabetic feet but didn't tell me until after the fact how much she didn't want me to do this because she was so worried I would.

Thanks to everyone who played any role whatsoever in my 3-Day journey. I will never forget how many people truly believed I could do this. How many people are so proud of me. How many people have changed my entire opinion of myself with your belief.

Maybe it was a Kumbaya lovefest after all.

DEE-VINE Forecast!

Three days 'til the 3-Day!!!

The weather forecast couldn't be any better!!!

10 Day Weather Forecast for Phoenix, AZ - weather.com

One Week!

So there are only seven days until the 3-Day!

I can't believe it's that soon! When you sign up for the walk, you think you've got a couple zillion years to prepare and poof! Time zooms along as usual and before you know it, you're making a last minute list of things you need to get this weekend. Because this is the last weekend you have to prepare!

I'm alternating between levitating and fainting! Levitating over finally seeing my teammates and hanging out with them! I can't wait for that, for our pre-walk dinner, for our post-walk dinner celebration with two bonus Catsters, for our hot stone massages, for whatever geeky sightseeing I can talk them in to...oh, and yeah, all the crazy, wonderful, amazing fun we'll have on the walk itself!

And I'm so not kidding when I say this...I also can't wait to see the 823 pictures (at least) I'll take!

I'm so excited for an hour or so, terrified for ten minutes or so, frantic about all I still need to do for another 15 minutes or so, excited for five minutes, terrified...

Fat Girl Walking wrote a post that included some great advice: "enjoy what you've already accomplished."

So I have been. I've been beaming, pretty much, that I've made it this far. Logged as many miles as I have, learned as much as I have about shoes, blisters and socks, actually bought that hideous sleeping bag contraption...

I've beat myself up so much about not training enough, still not losing weight, spending too much money on this thing. But in the past week, I've reached the point of being ecstatic I've come this far. I've reached the point where I figure I'm as ready as I'm going to be, and you know, that's ready enough.

Last year at this time, I thought walking a mile was a big deal. And I did it so rarely, it was a big deal when I did. So enough miles of training or not, still 1000 pounds to lose, I've been more active this year than I've been since I was probably 16.

And that, all by itself...is pretty freaking awesome!

:O :O :O :O :O

21 Days Until the Event!

Three weeks from today.

*faint* *faint* *faint again*

Just Call Me a Cowgirl!

I wear spurs!

Or at least a spur. I wear it all the time. Because...

I have a heel spur!

Urgh.

Funny, but not really, story.

Almost this entire year, while training for the 3-Day, I've had pain in my left heel. I thought for oh...three months or so...that it was because I was so out of shape and hadn't built up my endurance. I thought it was because I switched to sandals in the summer. I thought it was because I was fat.

I tried so many different shoes hoping they'd help. They didn't. I've tried inserts hoping they'd help. They haven't.

Finally I started whining to my mom so incessantly she couldn't help but listen. "It feels like I've slammed my heel down on concrete repeatedly until I shattered every bone in it. Now it feels like that ALL the time. Weird thing is, it stops hurting the longer I walk. And hurts the most when I get up in the morning."

She informed me that's how her foot felt when she had plantar fasciitis.

D'oh!

I started googling, and yeah, sounded just like it. I googled best shoes for plantar fasciitis and found my New Balance 1200s. They didn't do a whole lot for the pain, but hoo boy, do I love 'em otherwise! I started stretching my foot, popping lots of Ibuprofen and doing everything the doctor told her to do to get rid of her plantar fasciitis. Except stay off my feet.

Didn't help a whole lot.

I finally broke down about a week ago and went whining to my doctor. He did an x-ray and informed me I have a heel spur. Whipped out the x-ray and showed it to me. OK, I'm nuts, but I think it looks pretty cool. Like a shark's tooth sticking out of my heel bone!

He said it's probably been building up for 15-20 years and started hurting so much because I've increased my walking big time.

The good news is, he told me what to do about it and said I can still do the 3-Day.

The not so good news is, he said losing weight would help a lot.

First, he gave me some supersonic Aleve or something. Gotta admit, as much as I hate taking pills and as good as I am about forgetting to take them, I'm loving this anti-inflammatory. And not forgetting it so much.

He told me to ice my heel 20 minutes twice a day, how to stretch it before I get out of bed, how to stretch it before I walk. And he told me to get heel cups or a heel cushion. The cushion sounds like the pillow one of my old bosses had to sit on after her hemorrhoid surgery. I couldn't find the cushion, but I finally found the heel cups. They're gel cups that wrap around your heels and unlike inserts, don't irritate the rest of your foot. I gotta say, so far, I'm really loving those puppies!

Admittedly I haven't walked as much as I should have this past week. Okay, I haven't walked much at all. But I've done everything I'm supposed to, and my heel is feeling much, much, much, oh so much better. I also have worn my tennies non-stop. To heck with any other shoe, the 3-Day is now days away!

Days.away.

:faint:

Hometown Hells Hills!

What do you do when stupid football is taking up all your flat walking routes?

You get the dumb idea to take a walking tour of your hometown. You do this last Saturday, and you think, wow, this is such a cool place. So beautiful. Wow. I've never noticed that before. In all these years! Wow, the Sonic bathroom is a million times nicer than I ever thought it would be. And dang, why didn't I take a picture of that hysterical new "Downtown Business Section" sign?

And just a mile or so in, it hits you.

Even the flat places in town...the places you always thought were flat in your car...are freaking Mount Everest.

And after you do the scenic walking tour, after you climb those flat hills you used to sail up as a skinny teenager...you find a rock solid blister as big as a dime on the right side of your heel, and you can't bend your knees until Thursday.

But you feel pretty dang awesome for being as fat as you are and still making it to the top of that mammoth hell hill without stopping!

Here are pictures of the hells hills and other cool places:



Our old church building. It had beautiful stained glass windows that we moved to the new building, and dark sloping hardwood floors. It was a wonderful sanctuary that would never fly nowadays, when church is less about worship and more about entertainment. I had no idea the lighting was going to turn out like this. Cool, huh?:



Heading towards the dike. When I was little, I used to live near it, so I spent a lot of time playing on it and walking across it:











View from the dike looking down at the town (aka business section):



Oh, the places you'll go!:



Getting ready to climb the hell hill:



I MADE IT!!! I MADE IT TO THE TOP! I wondered if my muscles fondly remembered the good 'ol days when my mom, neighbor and I walked five miles a day and climbed this very hell:



Break time!:



Back on flat land on Sunday, I tried out the pom pom my teammate Laura sent all of us. I wanted to make sure it wasn't going to drive me batty on the walk. I'm happy to report, it's good to go. I didn't even know it was there. In fact, I couldn't quite figure out what the woman who told me she loved my "tassle" was talking about. Anyway, one of the ribbons fell off, and I loved what it did. You can't really tell it from this picture, but it landed in the shape of THE ribbon. Coolness again, huh?:

New Training Partner!

My cat Tessa is as crazy about strolling as I am about chocolate. So the other night, my mom and I finally broke down and tried to fit the stroller in her car, so we could take Tessa on my training walk.

It worked! We had to turn the stroller--and Tessa--sideways to fit it in the car, but she didn't mind. She only yelled twice as we drove to the track.

Then she strolled for three miles before she started getting that hairball on its way look about her.





You know she's been gloating about her big adventure to the other cats ever since. ;)

To Heck With This!

This:



Plus this:



Plus shoes, socks, clothes, water bottles, fanny pack supplies, etc...

Does NOT compute.

This sleeping bag is too little for my hugeosity anyway, so it's going back. Which means I need an even bigger, heavier, thicker sleeping bag.

And what exactly is the point of a sleeping bag anyway? You might as well be lying on nothing.

Yeah...I'm staying in a hotel.

And Another Reason...

I got this message from a fellow 3-Day walker the other day. She's on another team comprised of CCLs and wanted to share this wonderful burst of inspiration:

Just wanted to share with you that yesterday I had lunch with my friend Maria who was diagnosed with breast cancer 5 years ago when she was only 38 years old. She had a very aggressive cancer and even after a double mastectomy she is not cancer free - she has been on chemo continuously since her diagnosis. Unfortunatley her cancer has spread to many areas - lungs, liver, bone - and she recently had to go back on IV Chemo - she was on pills for 1 1/2 years. The good news is that the new chemo is doing the job and she is doing well and it has regressed. Amazingly enough she is still living a pretty functional life - working, taking her kids to soccer games etc.

Her dr. has told her that her cancer will always adapt to the drugs and when it does she has to go on a new med that the cancer is not yet resistant to - this will be the case for the rest of her life. She also said that without organizations like Komen there wouldn't be nearly as much research for new drugs. So thank you ladies for walking and making a difference. We're keeping people like Maria alive and that is no small thing my friends.

The donations, the support, the love, the blisters...they DO make a difference!

So does the weather. I was able to walk seven miles Saturday. It was cloudy, breezy and apparently not very humid. I was so relieved to discover I can log some distance when I can actually breathe!

Why She Walked

I don't know how exactly, but I stumbled across this blog a few weeks ago. It's the blog of Jennifer Hoffman, an AZ 3-Day walker. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000. It was treated successfully. But like it so often does, her cancer came back. Metastacized. Much like Casandra's did.

I was intrigued by her story and added it to my favorites so I could read her older posts. On days when I really need a reminder why I'm putting my diabetic, hormone loopy, insanely fat body through this.

Today, one of those days, I found this post:

http://www.08azbreastcancer3dy.blip.tv/

This video is her story, the story of why she walked.

It's also why all of us walk.

(And get all weepy and feel bad about griping about it being too *bleeping* hot to walk. Why, although I so hate myself for signing up for the 3-Day in what has to be the worst weather year ever, I still can't wait to do it).

Jennifer died April 21, 2009.

T-Minus Four Months!

See this blank stare I have going on? This "Whaaa?" expression on my face?

It's only FOUR MONTHS until the 3-Day.

Only four more months to train. And figure out what all I need for the walk. And shop for it. And...pack for it.

*gulp*

Bid on Boobs!

My teammate Laura is auctioning off some super cute stuff to raise funds for her trek! Check it out and bid away!

Bucks4Boobies

Shopping = Cross Training! Yeah-huh!

Yesterday, I went to get fitted again for shoes. This time I went to a running store where they have more than one brand of shoes, and no weird Chinese shoes that aim your toes at the ceiling.

I ditched the shoes I've had. They were OK, but as I told the new fitter, they felt like they were trying to make my feet do something they don't want to do. She seemed to understand what I meant. She said they may actually have too much padding, which was making them so stiff they feel like they have no cushioning whatsoever. Weird.

I gave them to my mom/personal trainer. Decided to let her walk around looking like she was born with a birth defect that requires her to walk on stilts instead.

Of course, no running shoes are exactly beautiful, but I do think the ones I ended up with now aren't quite as ugly. This time I got New Balance 760s.

I told my mom before I went in, if they've never heard of the 3-Day like the last place, I'm not letting them fit me for shoes for it.

So I go in. I say, "I'm walking in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure. "Oh, yes! That's great! When?" "November." "Cool, well come on over here and we'll get started." She seemed to know all about it. Asked me if I'm walking in memory of someone. Measured my feet, twisted my knees around, marked on my feet, watched me walk back and forth in the store, then filmed me on a treadmill. And then she says...

"So you're training for a 5K?"

It was all I could do not to roll off the bench laughing. What? What? I thought she'd heard of this thing. "Um no," I said. "I'm walking SIXTY MILES. In three days." She got that now-famous glazed, "Yeah, right," expression, but then was all chirpy excited about it. I wondered why she had completely ignored me when I said I need a shoe at least a half-size bigger than normal. Clearly, who would need to avoid losing toenails for a 5K?

This is still cracking me up. Who would TRAIN THAT HEAVY TO WALK THREE MILES? Seriously? I'm rolling on the floor again. I hope I don't sound terrible saying that. When I started this thing, I thought it was a miracle if I could hoof it a mile. And I barely could! But at this point, two miles feels like a stroll around the yard. So train for six months to walk three miles? I'm equal parts sorry, proud and excited that that thought is just slaying me!

Anyway...I hope I like these shoes. I wondered if she gave me the same ones I actually tried on in the store when I had to cram my feet in them this morning. They're not long enough, I know that already, but I'll need new ones before the walk anyway. So if they work otherwise, I can get a half size bigger next time. So far they're pretty tight, but I get ten days to try them out and break them in. And I have to say, I LOVE the wavy laces!

The great thing about this store also, they had some of the stuff I've been wanting to try. I've read so many recommendations on 3Day blogs that I have quite the running list. So I got a pair of the Injinji toe socks (in pink!) and finally the uber-recommended, ever popular Glide. I also got some DeFeet socks to try because well...they have pink ribbons on them. I did somehow, so far at least, resist the pink Pepper Spray.



It's so hot it would be utterly suicidal to walk here today. Think I'll cross train by finishing Eat Love Pray. So I can get Janet Evanovich's Sizzling Sixteen on Tuesday! HEY...if I got an Ipod before Tuesday...could I download it to listen to while I walk? There's a thought...