One Month After

Guess who stopped by to visit me while I’m on my running hiatus?

Yes, that’s Russell Brand. He stopped by after his wedding to Katy Perry to show off his chest hair. Then, Jim Carrey came over and put on a little show with my son.

So very nice of him since he’s still a little sad over his break up with Jenny McCarthy. Then Tiger asked me to play a round of golf with him. I had to tell him what a bad boy he has been.

What? You don’t believe me? Would you believe that 4 weeks after surgery, I loaded up the kids and we headed to London to meet Mike who was already there for meetings? Yes, that sounds a little more reasonable. Just a few days before my breast cancer diagnosis, Mike and I had booked a trip to London over the kids’ fall break. Mike was scheduled to be there for work and we were excited about taking the kids to Europe for the first time. When we met with the surgeons to schedule my surgery, they were confident that we would still be able to make the trip. We cautiously made plans and hoped for the best.

As I mentioned in my last post, I was doing well walking and pain free most of the time, so we decided to go for it. I booked a lot of our activities ahead of time and tried to stick with bus tours in case I got tired or the weather was bad. While the first day was exhausting, we did see quite a bit. From our hotel, we were able to walk to Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and then took a tour of Westminster Abbey. The next day, we hopped on our bus tour and hit Madame Trousseau’s where the above pictures were taken. We went to the Sherlock Holmes museum  and then went to Abbey Road where my daughter, the biggest Beatles fan of her generation, was very happy. Here are the kids walking across.

We did all of the big tourist attractions:  London Tower, a Harry Potter tour, The National Gallery, and a walking Beatles Tour. We spent one day going to Stonehenge and Bath. Both were worth the trip.

For the last day, we took a train to Liverpool, birthplace of The Beatles. There we went on a half day tour where we saw to every possible Beatles sight. Here is the Number One Beatles Fan touring Penny Lane.

After our Beatles education, it was time to head back home.

One morning while we were in London, my son needed to do a training run. We took the tube to Hyde Park  and agreed to meet after an hour. While he ran, I walked. I couldn’t help it- I had to try to jog at least a little bit. It was strange but good. I feel like I’m ready to run again and I’m hoping to get the go ahead when I see the doctor on Friday. I have a 5k race on Saturday, which will have to include a lot of walking even if I get the go ahead to start running again. My plan is to enjoy the race and then see what I can do in the next three weeks to post a better time at the Turkey Trot.

Thanks for all of the positive energy and encouragement over the last month. I’m pain free and feeling like myself again. I’ve still got many more steps in the reconstruction process, but most of my daily life is back to normal. I’ll be back with a race report and who knows, maybe there will be some running involved.