Springtime News

Happy Earth Day! Yes, I lean toward environmentalism :). Reduce, reuse and recycle! We only have one beautiful Earth, let's all try to keep her that way. 

It finally feels like Spring here. The last bit of snow has finally melted, although we usually get a little bit more here until late May--gotta love the prairies! The green grass is peaking through the sea of brown lawns. The sun is shining... Or it was just a short time ago? I am dreaming of my flower garden and hoping for a small crop of vegetables to make it through this summer. As much as I enjoy living here, I sometimes wish we lived in the tropics instead.  Anyway, we've been lucky enough here to have a few days of warm weather. I finally went out for my first outdoor run a couple of weeks ago; and a few more since then. I'll admit I was a little nervous, not knowing how my body would cope. Treadmill running is nothing like outdoor running. I discovered a few things on that first outdoor run. One, there is a right way and a wrong way to breathe when running; I wish I knew this 20 years ago when I took up running! With controlled deep breathing, you can actually run longer with less fatigue and lactic acid buildup. Putting my new breathing technique into practice, I have noticed an improvement in endurance, comfort and recovery. Two, I have indeed sustained some nerve damage from the lung tumours and/or pleural effusion. After my run, I noticed only half of my face was red and hot. My left side (face, shoulder, arm, fingers) was cool and pale. Do I still have feeling on that side? Yes, thankfully. I will have to mention this to my oncologist when I see him next. It doesn't bother me, I just look a little odd for awhile after I run. Three, I am able to run a comfortable 3km outdoors, not as fast as in my prime running years but not bad considering the circumstances. I am working my way up to 5km so I can participate in the annual Mother's Day Run, as we usually do every year.

In other news, we had been waiting patiently to hear back from our Schnoodle (schnauzer+poodle) breeder; we signed up for a puppy in February! We just got word that our puppy was born on April 18th!! We will have to pick her out from a litter of five! I have asked the breeder to send pictures so those are coming. We have now switched from researching cancer to researching how to train a puppy! Hopefully our experience of fostering rescue dogs will come in handy. If everything works out according to the breeder's plans, we will be picking her up in June. We are so excited (and somewhat anxious) to finally add a family pet to our home!