SCREEN WIPE . . .

I have awoken with a new attitude. Screw my aching back. To hell with my wobbly left knee. Damn my weak and coddled lungs. It's a new day and I have a new strategery (with all due respect to Shrub, of course).

I am going to forego the hill today.

I have decided, in the wisdom of my own psyche, that there will be no such hill in Central Park on Sunday. And if there is, well . . . I'm just going to have to puke on it, then keep on running. So it's enough, I believe, to walk up the hill and start running on the slowly undulating flatter pavement beyond, getting myself used to nature.

I have been reminded that it's all about attitude, and that is most likely true. After all, my legs are fine -- they can keep going as long as my spirit is willing. So instead of listening to my own wheezing and panting, or concentrating on the unusual amount of spit gathering in my mouth, I will have to focus on other things: green trees just on the verge of changing colors; the tens of thousands of people running alongside me; DYC and C and Banana urging me to keep going; the pleasure of being awake and active on a beautiful Sunday morning; the small but not insignificant sense of achievement I will experience at having completed my first 5k; the small but not insignificant contribution I will be making towards finding a cure for boob cancer.

Rock on.

***

UPDATE ON THE BOOB . . .

It's fine.

I went in for my ultrasound last Friday. After taking all the shots, the tech left the room to make sure the films printed in focus, then came back in to tell me very seriously, "You have to wait here and the doctor needs to speak with you." My life took a slow flash before my eyes. "This is it," I thought, "the moment my life will change. This is what other women go through. How strange that I'm so young. My daughters are going to have to start having mammograms at age 35. If I even live to have daughters. How strange. Am I okay? Yeah, I'm okay. I can deal with this. Right? How will my parents deal? Will my friends think I'm a pariah? Nah, what if it's nothing. What if it's something?" The human thought process is a strange, strange thing.

After waiting a tense 10 minutes for the radiologist to come in to speak to me, I learned that nothing is wrong with me. Everything is fine. Nothing showed up on the films. No cyst, no tumor, not even a muscle strain. Even the radiologist was confounded; neither of us can figure out what might have been causing the pain and why.

But I'm relieved. If it ain't there, it ain't there. I can live with the mystery.

In fact, the pain has started to lessen. No more sharp, stabbing sensations. Now, it's that dull, achy, healing feeling. I'm fine with that. In fact, I'm LOVING that.