This morning we went for the first run since before Christmas. We left Maryland, and our children and grandchildren, our friends, in a hurry shortly after Christmas to go to Iowa where my sister was dying of stage 4 cancer. I'd been taking care of her for 10 months, during the days, with the exception of a couple of breaks to return to Maryland. But this time she was admitted to the hospice room in the local hospital and was quickly losing multiple abilities.
So we got back and took the night shift in the hospital. It was ugly. Stressful. Awful. We did 15-16 hour shifts. We'd come around 5pm and leave 8am or 9 or later the next morning. We did that, with a couple of breaks (other sisters spelling us) for almost a month. Even when we weren't at the hospital, I couldn't sleep most of the time. We went for some hikes in the snow, but no running. No pushups.
My sister died on Monday, January 19th. Her funeral was that following Saturday. Two days later, we left Iowa in our RV.
So now we are recovering from a very stressful 10 months or so, which culminated, of course, in the most stressful time of all, right before she died, as things got so, so ugly. With the multi-trillion dollar medical establishment in this country, you'd think we could do dying of cancer a little better, but no.
Anyway, so today, we ran for the first time. Maybe 40 or 50 minutes. I'm not sure. I forgot to check my watch when we stopped.
And I've already done three sets of 10 pushups.
So rocking out here.
I'm coming back.
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