Oh, Kelly Clarkson, thank you for lifting my spirits. I've felt supremely awful today, but laying in bed with a heating pad on my back and blasting Kelly's latest single, I feel better.
I was planning on resting today to give my legs some more time to recover from my shin issues, but after crying the entire one-hour drive home I felt like the only thing that would make me feel better was a good, hard run. For some reason, my leg cramps don't bother me when I'm running faster than a comfortable pace, so I decided to try some speed intervals. For 3 miles, I ran quarter- to half-mile intervals at about an 8:30 pace, with quarter-mile walk breaks in between. The last mile I did two quarter-mile intervals and one half-mile, but I didn't record my walk breaks on Toby. I ended up spending 34:00 exactly out there and I was pleasantly winded at the end.
The cause of my bad day has been the cause of every bad day since December 23 - my ectopic pregnancy. It's not officially over until my hormone levels are below 5 and I have to get blood drawn every Wednesday to check them. When I got the methotrexate shot on January 11 my levels were in the 300s, but I don't know the exact number. Two weeks later they were at 255. Another week and they were at 69 - I was really excited at this point thinking this ordeal was nearly over! I was really hoping that today's blood draw would be my last. I waited anxiously the entire day to hear from the doctor, but not until my husband called them at 4:45 did I find out my results - 20.
20 is really not a bad number and still a decent decrease, but I wanted this to be the end so badly. When the nurse was taking my blood sample this morning she looked at my arm and said, "Goodness, it looks like you've been stuck a lot lately. I hope you're not sore." My arm is not sore, but my heart sure feels like it's been through the ringer. So now I'm hoping and praying and crossing every single finger and toe that next Wednesday my levels will finally be below 5 so I can be done with all of this.
Even if my levels aren't low enough next week, I feel comfortable saying they will definitely be low enough the following week, which will be the week before the half marathon. The race has come to represent a lot more to me than just achieving the goal I set months ago and a dream I've had for years - it feels like the culmination of this awful pregnancy experience, a positive event to mark the end of it and the beginning of the next chapter of my life. I know I'll emerge from all this stronger than I was before. I can't wait to run through that finish line.
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