
Even though I know I don’t handle pre medical appointment
days at my emotional personal best… I try to be aware of it. While there has
been progress on how I handle it (it probably helps there are less these days
and as I’ve shared with my doctors, the less I see them, the more I like them).
Those nights are usually filled with bad dreams, nightmares of appointments and
various past issues from waking up in an ambulance or the life changes that
have come with it. When I was in Minnesota during the Q&A, someone asked
what the most stressful point was… and I responded with one of the two, the
fact that both times I’ve woken up in an ambulance it was not too long after a
good run. The first one was literally the day after I was in the lead of a
training run for the first time since college. The second was a few days after
I’d taken home a trophy for the cancer survivor division while I was in the
lead in the middle of a 10 mile training run. Both times I felt fine a few
minutes later and both times we were then having to try to figure out why, do
tests, do blood work etc. Dealing with various cancer patients, many of us
struggle with the fact that we’re fighting a disease that for way too many of
us comes with no “tangible” symptoms of warning. For me, it’s literally knocked
me out cold. The second, which also knocked me cold, was my marriage ending
shortly after… Still, answering that in a crowd full of strangers some of which
were just kids didn’t seem appropriate.

Then it was finally time to head out. We all have different
ways of handling our demons… but I decided to take a slightly circuitous route
on my bike the way to the hospital where I’d see the restaurant I first
collapsed at, the hospital, the place I used to work, the MRI location. I
couldn’t settle the emotions of whether the right move was to give them a
middle finger or a nod of thanks of sorts… neither occurred.

After the medical stuff and after the picture was taken, we
took those human moments where I shared with him the Minnesota speech (https://www.facebook.com/notes/iram-j-leon/minnesota-speech/10153993565360554)
and Minnesota Article (http://www.postbulletin.com/sports/localsports/runner-confronts-toughest-obstacle-brain-cancer/article_57668089-d130-5f9a-bd5c-fcb16e6472e7.html
). He told me about a new brain tumor support group the hospital is starting
and invited me to it’s opening event (I’ll be there). He asked about my next
race and I told him the next one was my first triathlon and turns out as I
knew, we’re both runners and we’re both horrible at swimming.
Still, when I left there, the shock factor hadn’t set in and
I didn’t have anywhere to be for a couple of hours so I got on the bike and
just rode and rode and rode. I rode past the physical therapist I was seeing a
few years back, the old doctor’s offices that I had to go to, and in the only
place I actually said thank you to was past the hospital where Kiana was born.
Then I stopped and the next conversation was with my neuropsychologist… where
we discussed what I will always call cheating and what he will always call
compensating. I talked about some of the games I do which didn’t seem to be
translating into real life… he said that the issues I was describing were still
consistent with temporal lobe and hippocampal damage. He shared the story about
rats who get lost and how they tried to show them new things in a maze and
thought they had actually gave them back a sense of direction but then realized
they were just using the light shadows… (this is similar to what I do where
when I get lost, I listen for the sound of one of the major highways in town as
a way to reorient). We talked about the listening to books thing and the adding
distractions etc etc etc but the grand conclusion was that while nothing had gotten worse, nothing had gotten better
and it likely would never do so though I always try to find the glimmers of
hope because the conversation ended with (if I hear of any new research on
this, I’ll pass it on). In perhaps a completely hypocritical stance (when
friends tell me that nothing’s improved on their cancer/other medical issues),
I try to remind them to be grateful that at least things are stable. But I work
harder on the mental issues than anything else… so it was disappointing.

And the next day, on
my first day cleared to drive, I did not do so. Part of that is I’m not 16
anymore and didn’t feel the urgency to tear up the road the first day I got it.
Part of that was insurance, batteries etc had to get into place. But most of it
was just nervousness that maybe driving
stick was harder than I remember. But because I do have a triathlon in 3 and
half weeks, for the first time in my life, I swam, biked and ran all in one day
(this is going to be a tough event).
It is my hope that I will continue to drive as little as
possible but that I’ll keep the drive that was partly a reaction to that big medical
restriction. But it may well say something, that the first place I drove to was
a running party at a bar though I did not drink (where I still paralleled park
successfully on the first try, but still almost got a ticket for not placing something correctly). And call it being cautious or cowardly, but I'm going to mostly stick to parking lots and streets rather than highways for a bit. And when Kiana found out I could drive, she didn't care that much when I said we were still going to walk most places like we've gotten used to... I think the first place she'll get driven to
The question is
often asked, what drives you? And for me for most of the last 3.5 years, in
cars, it’s literally been someone else most of the time. The joke someone made
that my pick up line of “can you pick me up” is no longer valid and someone
reminded me of something I said that if all went well I’d start thinking about
getting a girlfriend (I didn’t get one that day nor do I currently have one but
I am more open to the idea and there will be no one I ever call a George
Clooney girl again).

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