Monday, April 11, 2011

Today marks the six-month anniversary of my surgery! Things are going well with my healing and my surgeon, just a couple of weeks back, for the first time in four and a half months, reversed his decision that additional surgery would be needed.

Thank goodness!

Not only am I a person that avoids going under the knife at all costs, but I also don’t fair well with down time. Had additional surgery been necessary, my surgeon assured me that it wouldn’t have been as involved as the first time round. When I queried if I’d still be able to run, he looked at me as if I was insane and told me a resounding, “no.” Hearing his words, after having worked so hard to resume running since my surgery made me wither inside—all that work for not.

For as long as I can remember, running has been my sense of finding inner peace. Without the ability to exact that, I feel…off, like I’m not quite…balanced or something. Aside from the physical health benefits, running makes me feel whole. Like I’m in charge of my own body. There were countless years when I was unable to run much less walk due to serious injuries. During those trying times, I felt myself wither inside much the same as happened when my surgeon told me I would likely need more surgery.

But I held firm to the faith that my body, if allowed time, would heal on its own, providing me the privilege of being able to continue with my running, training and feeling large and in charge of my physical being, which allows me to smooth down the ruffled feathers of my soul that a busy and demanding life can cause.

Being a person who is driven by meeting goals, I had set a personal one that I’d kept to myself until now. With it, I promised myself that I’d be back to my pre-surgery self, as strong as ever, by seven months after my surgery. Getting the recent good news from my surgeon, being cleared to finally travel again, and hitting my six-month anniversary, feeling as strong as I did prior to my surgery, makes me thrilled, for I feel that not only have I met my goal, working darn hard to get here, but I did so with a month to spare, which is pretty darn cool!