Category: RUNNING STREAK (Page 3 of 34)

I’ve had my fill of the medical world these past few weeks. The Medical Director of Max Health, their parent corporation, stubbornly denied my referral to a Tampa surgeon, despite insistent phone calls to my physician, insurance company, and numerous support folks. I could tell they were tired of my calls when a receptionist accidentally failed to put me on hold, and I clearly heard their comments in the background. The Medical Director, concerned solely for keeping the business in their network ultimately cost them the business of both my wife and me, as I immediately switched to another Primary Care Physician and Millenium Group, despite the fact that we both liked the former doctor. I will now see if this new group will make the referral or if I have to wait until January 1 when my PPO kicks in. 

The difference in professionalism between the larger hospital in Tampa and the Regional hospital in Sarasota was night and day. As a small example, I came home from the Sarasota Hospital with a crude hand-drawn sketch of the procedure they were going to perform compared to the life-size model and four-color brochure that Tampa provided. Plus, they gave me hope that the chest incision might be much smaller than the full open-heart opening that was discussed in Sarasota. This means recovery time could be quicker. The level of experience with the surgeon and staff was also much higher. I’m already grateful that my wife’s family, comprised of several Cardiovascular experts, has pushed me to the bigger city. 

The only promising news here is that my Running Streak continues on, so it’s more and more likely that I will make my 15th anniversary. After the surgery, the doctor said that it will probably be twelve weeks before my broken sternum will have healed enough to withstand the jarring of jogging. Whether I will start another streak is questionable after that long of a layoff. 

Depending on the insurance and related referral snafus, I will have this surgery either in December or January. The surgeon mentioned that if I were to live in Great Britian, it would be a year-and-a-half wait, easing my wife’s concerns about urgency. I’m having no symptoms, so there’s no need to rush into the process without gathering all the pertinent information. It also gives me some time to work out a new plan for my prostrate surgery that was originally scheduled for late next week but has also run into a snag. It’s part of a clinical study that after all these tests and visits that I’ve made with this my second urology group has suddenly found a discrepancy in my subjective answers to their questionnaires about the urgency of my symptoms that could exclude me from the study. 

I did the first questionnaire, wasting my time on similar paperwork for my first urologist, after a two-hour drive to their office. I had to make this lengthy drive because the initial local office closed after accepting me into the study, so I had to seek another group. I felt like my bladder was going to burst as I tried to fill out the redundant forms. At that point, I was also taking medication for the condition, so the answers were probably dramatically different than those I gave on the second visit while I was off the meds. I don’t understand how this paperwork could ultimately exclude me from the surgery, considering all the other tests that they ran on me.

The whole clinical test is sounding more and more like a cruel scam. If they ultimately decide not to let me continue, it will be too late to get my prostrate problems resolved before the heart surgery. This means months and months more of uncomfortable bladder issues while lacking my current mobility. My entire rehab will consist of getting to and from the bathroom without assistance. Then, it will be time to go again… and again. 

Fall is in the air, even here in sunny Florida, with cooler temperatures and subtle foliage color changes, but a far cry from the beauty of the northern forests. It’s a lot of work to clean up those falling leaves and there are already reports of snowfall, two things I definitely don’t miss. I did see a few light jackets on my run today, and I barely broke a sweat on this morning’s 2.1-mile trek. I could feel the chill in my bones and stiff muscles but gradually worked my way through it. 

I’ve continued to run despite the inevitable surgery, and my wife is right that I remain oblivious to this reality. I can’t see myself on a walker or process the thought of admiring my hideous scars in the mirror. I do know that I will miss a day of running for the first time in nearly 15-years and this will end my streak with the United States Running Streak Association at www.runeveryday.com. I will move to the list of retired streaks and have to start all over again. It’s now hard to imagine a day without running. Today was consecutive day #5,421 (14.84 years). Tomorrow I will only have time for a mile (the minimum to maintain the streak) because we’re headed to Tampa early to consult with another surgeon. 

Note: When I originally wrote this paragraph, I couldn’t come up with the word “denial.” My wife claims that I’m in denial on this whole issue – probably more like shock. Pardon the silly pun, but we were just cruising D’Nile a few months ago. Maybe I’m still there!

Yesterday was Halloween, and I had dinner with Maleficent, Scream, and a giant Garfield that looked a lot like my son. We met at Chili’s after they had gone out and collected hundreds of assorted candies. I delivered the traditional cash-stuffed cards to the grandkids that for many years had to be mailed from Indiana, Illinois, Texas, or Oregon. It’s good to be just a few miles away to watch them continue to grow up. Also, I don’t have to shovel snow or rake leaves even though Fall is in the Air!

Two minutes a mile faster! Plus, I did it with one eye shut! Soon, I’ll be setting Olympic records, especially once I’m bionic. My eye is healing but still burns. They remove the Prokera membrane on Thursday, so just two more days of being a One-Eyed Jack. Depth perception is a problem, especially trying to drive yesterday. With my wife now teaching school, I’m getting up at 6 a.m. when she does, before the sun comes up. I get a lot done while she gets ready for work including dog duties and mopping the garage floor. We can have dinner on it tonight. I now have a few minutes to write before Chair Yoga class on this busy Tuesday.

My wife has the car today and its Trash Day, so this is why it made sense to clean the garage with no canisters or vehicles to work around. I also swept my office floor and did a few games. Tomorrow, we’ll both sleep in, before two more days of substitute teaching and a quiet weekend. We’ve enjoyed a couple of game nights with the neighbors lately, including Triominos and Mexican Train that we’ve never played before. I guess that old people are into this kind of thing!

My wife is putting together a future travel plan, once Tally has crossed the rainbow bridge, if I don’t get there first. She’s thinking of renting our house for a year and exploring the world. It would probably give us a couple extra thousand a month. We would use a combination of the Marriott Vacation Club, hotel points, and the gracious hospitality of friends and family.  It sounds like a lot of work to me, but she still has the travel bug, and this may be an affordable opportunity, especially with the rental fees that people are getting here in Florida. We do have resort accommodations, a pool, golf cart, and proximity to the beach to offer.

I first have several medical issues to deal with before we can take these steps. Hopefully, they won’t interfere with our plans to go to San Francisco, Orlando, and Buenos Aires.  We’ve yet to have a game night that has involved playing cards like Euchre or Poker. On my own, I frequently play Solitaire on my phone, while my wife typically plays Bridge on Monday afternoons at our clubhouse. At any rate, life has unfortunately dealt me a bad suit of Hearts, starting with the One-Eyed Jack. 

A nineteen-minute mile is about as slow as one can go without falling over. With a bandage over one eye, I did a lot of weaving and stumbling, still fighting off the fog from days of being medicated on Xanax. The last four runs have been at the minimum mile-plus but today I tried to get back to normal. My wife had a substitute teaching gig this morning, so Tally and I dropped her off at the school just down the street. All of us got up by alarm at 6a, leaving retirement luxury behind for a day’s work. Tally is still expecting her golf cart ride to the dog park but had to settle for a poop in the field adjacent to us. I plan to go to the Chiropractor and then pick my wife up at 3:30. She’s tending to a fourth-grade class today, while I will fend for myself at lunchtime. 

Maintaining my running streak is getting harder and harder, knowing that it will soon come to an end. I find myself saying, “why not today?” There’s not much point in going on when you know that it’s just a matter of time before the one thing that you find disciplinary pride in doing cannot continue. There is a Retired Streak List that would currently place me at #155. To move up to #154 and qualify for the “Well Versed” category (15+ years) I will need to hang on until the end of this year. It all depends on when they schedule my open-heart surgery. 

I’ve made it through illness, hangovers, injuries, marathons, foul weather, work shoes, darkness, high altitude, surgeries, job interference, and travel scheduling. I’ve run on cobblestones, in airports, through dust storms, over uneven sidewalks, bridges, ship decks, sandy beaches, basements, parking garages & lots, hotel hallways, icy streets, steep inclines, creaky treadmills, and wooded pathways in 29 different states and 30 countries. I’ve fought through fog, sleet, snow, rain, high water, traffic, mud, hurricanes, tornados, lightening, extreme heat, nasty insects, and threatening animals to somehow get to the finish line every single day. They will need to knock me out and hold me down to stop this streak, as they plan to do. 

Today was #5,402 and not very satisfying at such a slow pace. I never thought I could run this slow, if you can really call it running! Nor, did I ever imagine having heart problems! A walker passed me again this morning without much effort. I used to be fast, believe it or not! Now, I’m just persistent and stubborn, hoping to make it through two miles, down from the 5k standard that even recently was my daily goal. My wife went back to work today, while my job any more is to keep running, especially on a School Day! 

Today was #5,400 in the running streak. It felt like I was both mentally and physically tired while trying to complete the 2.1-mile course. I pushed through with thoughts of the inevitable end to my precious streak and images of Frankenstein on the operating table. When I met with the surgeon later in the day, she confirmed that they would need to open my breast plate to access the area where my aorta enters the heart chamber. She recommended replacing the now calcified and leaky valve with one from a willing bovine or swine. I was impressed with her explanation and detailed drawing of the surgical plan but struggled with her lack of experience. She’s a graduate of UF and specializes in aorta repair, but she doesn’t have the expertise of a master surgeon with 10,000 hours of practice. I was warned that this would be an issue at a Regional Hospital like Sarasota Memorial. I was also not comfortable with the fact that the department head passed me off to a relative rookie. We’ll now look more seriously at Tampa and Stanford. 

I’m feeling a bit depressed and sorry for myself after years of exercise and conditioning that I thought would keep me healthy. Instead, I’m looking at a serious operation where they actually stop my heart, functioning only via ventilation, followed by months of rehabilitation. The surgeon assured me that I would feel much better in the long run, seemingly amazed at the fact that I could continue to run despite the circulation and breathing issues that I’ve faced. The deterioration in my running skills have been obvious but so gradual that I’ve gotten accustomed to the routine. I hope to keep going until the surgery and restart this daily habit in the future. At least, there’s a little bit of optimism left in me.

Tomorrow, it’s the urologist for more prostrate tests and Friday will be a preliminary Prokera insertion, a healing device made from amniotic membrane, done prior to cataract surgery. Apparently, the surfaces of my eyes are just as wrinkled as the rest of my body, so they have to smooth the ocular surface. I have yet to find someone else that has had this done but according to the doctor it is not initially painful, but “fifteen minutes after you leave my office, you’ll hate me.” I’m not looking forward to the weekend, looking through an extra layer of tissue and waiting for the next dose of Xanax. I’ll also need this pain killer to watch Michigan once again demolish Indiana in football. It’s all at least a distraction from a broken heart. 

I’ve established many habits – good and bad throughout my life. They say that it takes 30-days to start one. Brushing my teeth was probably the first, along with combing my hair, things that hopefully all of us do every day in the spirit of personal hygiene. I didn’t make daily flossing a regularity until later in life. Push-ups are part of my daily regimen, dating back to my teenage years and inspired by a grandfatherly-like figure on family vacations at the Bay Palm Trailer Park, now just a few miles down the street. I do about 90 every day, along with some stretching and crunches before my morning run. This has been slightly disrupted recently with medical procedures.

I’ve tried to add swimming to my list of good habits, but only with marginal success. Some of my many bad habits are sweets, mainly cookies, Diet Coke, and television binging. Video games on my phone, like MonopolyGO and Solitaire Cash are rapidly becoming addictive practices. The phone itself is something I can’t put down, constantly searching sports, Facebook, weather, and personal banking apps. Screen time is often shocking and continues to grow. My wife considers leaning, shuffling, and shallow breathing to be annoying habits of mine. Her list is probably too big to elaborate on. 

My biggest addiction is running every day. I’m obsessed with it from the moment I wake up, often regretting what has become a daily task. The Florida heat had me up earlier but overcast skies and cooler temperatures have kept me in bed longer of late. What was once a 7:30 start is now closer to 8:30. I was also in the habit of doing a daily 5k, but excessive heat and humidity caused me to reduce that by a mile. I just completed the month of September with only 64 total miles, and I’m also at 737.5 miles this year, with only 91 days left to reach my 1000-mile goal. For the first time in many years, I probably won’t get there!

I continue to shuffle down the street every day, doing my best to ignore stiffness, lack of balance, and awkward form. Today, was #5,390 on my quest to reach 15-years of running every single day. It is likely that I won’t make that either, with a pending heart procedure that will probably put me in the ICU for a few days. I try my best to enjoy these last days of “The Streak,” but under the circumstances, it’s hard to remain motivated. I feel like I’m running on concrete legs with a piano on my back while the slightest headwind might bring me to a stop. Once I do stop, will I be able to start another one? That’s the million-dollar question, as old habits are in this case thankfully hard to break! 

I continue to struggle with my hands, especially after running. The adrenaline rush makes them shake even more, making it difficult to type. I hit the wrong keys and have to make constant corrections. Caffeine (Diet Coke) only adds to the frustration. I just tried to check the oil in my car and could not get the dipstick back in the hole without using both hands – one to steady the other. Using a screwdriver is often impossible. I once again ask the question of how is a tremor essential? I can’t imagine the trials of tribulations of those suffering from Parkinson’s. I’ve known a few in my lifetime. 

Running every day is a distraction from this annoyance, although it’s not necessarily a pleasant experience. It’s hard work for a 72-year-old like me. I once thought that I would do it up until the day I died, but my mechanics are awkward, and balance continues to be an issue. I see the same people every day along my route, but most are biking, walking, or working in the yard. There are only a couple of other runners in the neighborhood, and half of them are snowbirds that are just beginning to return from their summer retreats. Misery sometimes likes company, so I miss them during the hot months. Today was pleasant with overcast skies and temperatures in the mid-seventies (just like me).

I’ve also been plagued with technical issues this morning. I can’t get into the MonopolyGO! game app on my phone and this Go Daddy site was stuck on the Spanish language. I couldn’t find a way to change it back to English because all the options were no entiendo. That has finally been straightened out along with the hacking of my Peacock TV account, after too many phone calls, e-mails, and chats. I’m still getting errors on my phone apps but hopefully that will clear up soon. Also, I spent $550 unbudgeted dollars yesterday on my air conditioning system after a routine service call uncovered that my UV light had burned out and there was excessive slime mucking up my drainage lines. Then, it’s painful procedures and co-pays, maintenance contracts, and association fees, as the bills pile up. Oh, the hassles of retirement – it’s really no different than the daily grind for all of us!

“The Run is Done,” a simple rhyme that I hear in my earbuds each morning as I strip off my shoes and socks. It’s said by the AI coach that lives in my Nike Run App and keeps track of my miles or provides performance data. I haven’t always used this app to monitor my runs, but it does date back to 2021, two years ago. Before that, I relied on it occasionally but also used a Nike watch, Fit-bit, Apple watch and various written diaries or logs to time and record my runs throughout the years. I’ve averaged just under 2.5 miles every day, although recently I had cut back from a 5k to 2.1 miles in lieu of the Florida heat. 

For many years, I used a transistor radio to keep me entertained. After being in the business, I liked to listen to local radio stations as we traveled and hometown favorites on my everyday jaunts. On many occasions I would listen to talk radio. Sometimes, I just liked the silence with only the sound of my shoes striking the pavement. Nowadays, the Nike app allows me to play my favorite Apple Music downloaded tunes unless the connection goes bad. I’ve written poems in my head as I’ve plodded along, solved the problems of the world, and planned the day ahead, all along wishing to hear the words, “The Run is Done.”

I was hard-wired to the devices that I carried until the technology for wireless earbuds evolved. Prior to this ingenious innovation, there were times when I got entangled and disconnected while running or even nearly decapitated when it caught on the branch of a tree or poorly trimmed bush I was passing. Currently, it’s just me, my phone, and these earbuds that go with me on these daily journeys. I also get notified by the AI coach in my ear every half-mile that I complete and also heard split times before my pace got embarrassingly slow and I shut that feature off. I don’t even want to know anymore but can’t help but sneak a peek after I finish. This morning, my first mile was under 15 minutes, while the second slowed to 17 minutes. Most people walk faster than this, unless they are tethered to a dog or two. Granted, I’m taking it easy after a heart procedure. 

I now wonder what the Nike running coach will think when he (or she) no longer has me to push along? Will they understand the reason that I’ve stopped slogging every morning? Do they secretly laugh at my form and times? What do they do when they’re not watching me and filling my head with praise and encouragement? Furthermore, what will their final words be when I make that last run? Will it be more profound than just “the run is done?”

It is easier to type without the brace on my wrist, but my hands still shake so the lack of coordination with my fingers leads to many corrections. The two conditions are not related because my puncture wounds from the catheter will heal but the essential tremor is apparently here to stay. I’m feeling better today having completed the familiar two-plus mile route this and keeping my streaking journey alive. In the world of streak running, there are no excused absences. You do your daily mile minimum regardless of the circumstances or fail. I’ve done this now for 5,381 consecutive days, but the finish line is sadly in sight. More testing in the next few weeks will eventually lead to major surgery and the inevitable end of my race. I salute those that will continue on without me. Looking back, I thought I saw the end a few days ago, but here I am still at it!

When I do eventually cross that finish line, there will be relief and sadness but no regrets. I’ve run through ice storms and tropical depressions to get this far, so it will not be easy to stop. My recent posts have been apologetically obsessed with this reality, but writing like this is like personal therapy. Most of my few readers know me and are aware how attached I am to this streak and its bragging rights. As I’m stumbling, bumbling, rumbling along each morning, I try to appreciate the benefits of all this exercise. I think it all paid off when they found my arteries to be clear of any blockages, despite my high cholesterol that also requires medication. 

My way is the highway – miles and miles of wear on my many pairs of shoes throughout these fifteen years. During the course of this streak, I will have logged over 13,000 miles, enough to get from Portland, Oregon to Venice, Florida and back twice! Although a bit dramatic, I can’t help but think of the crooning voice of Frank Sinatra, and the lyrics written by French artists, “And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain…I traveled each and every highway, and more, much more than this, I did it My Way!”

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I first thought of Jack Nicholson in the movie, The Shining and the “Here’s Johnny” line, but quotable variations of unexpected returns to battle are numerous throughout history. 

“Hello, boys! I’M BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!”‘

—Russell Casse, Independence Day