Where have I been?

It’s that time of year…

Around this time of year, the holiday season, it’s normal for me to feel down or depressed. It usually started just after Halloween. Halloween being the signal that we are on the downward track on the roller coaster ride to Christmas and that it will be here in no time.

No, it’s not Christmas I was dreading, nor any of the other holidays. It just so happens that my birthday is one week after New Year’s Eve. The onset of the holidays is my signal that, soon, I will be another year older. And when do I turn older? Right after the excitement of the holidays has died down. It gives me time to reflect on how I’ve turned another year older and regret all the things I haven’t accomplished yet at my age. I suspect that a lot of you don’t even need the specter of an approaching birthday to cause you to reflect on another year misspent. Heck, you have New Year’s Day to remind you that another year has passed and, well, what have you done?

Ah, but this year is different for me. As I reflect on the past year and what I have managed to accomplish this year, I can point to a few things.

I participated in my first 10k race (and first race EVER) in April. Six months later, I shaved 21 minutes off during my second 10k race.

That Mississippi River bridge I drive over every day from work? Ran a 4-mile race over that in October.

And there’s now a 13.1 sticker on my car from completing a half-marathon.

When I took out all my race numbers from this year, I had 9 racing bibs. I have participated in 10 races this year (they ran out of bibs before I got there for one race).

So, rather than be upset about what I haven’t accomplished and facing another year of self-pity and regret, I am looking forward to seeing how much more I can accomplish in the coming year. Maybe I can do 12 races this year. Maybe I can learn to swim so I can be in a triathlon. I’ve already signed up to be in a full marathon in March, so there’s that to look forward to. The transformation in my thinking this year has been “just find out what you can do by going out and doing it.” And even though I am slow by most runner standards, it’s faster and more distance than I’VE ever done before. And really, that’s who I am competing against. The old me. The old, negative me who saw time passing by and regretted things without actually attempting to do anything. So, now, I hope to approach new years and new birthdays with a sense of “what can I accomplish this time around?”

In the meantime… (make sure you read this part ALL the way through).

I have another reason for wanting to see what I can accomplish this coming year. It will be fully understood by explaining what I’ve been going through the last few months.

Back in August, I went to see my doctor for a routine check up. She did some blood tests on me since I am diabetic and wanted to see how I was doing. My diabetes is in check and doing okay. However, she noticed that something was out of whack in another part of my blood chemistry. She said that she was going to recommend I go to a kidney specialist to get it checked out. She didn’t seem too concerned. She also scheduled an ultrasound for my heart to see how well it was doing. I went to that and my heart checked out okay. Then I had some more blood tests done and finally went to the nephrologist on the Monday before my half-marathon (which fell on a Saturday). When I got to the nephrologist, he told me he had looked at my results from both the blood tests (one from my doctor and the one I did for him) and in both cases the numbers indicated that I only had 50 percent of my kidney function. He said it was if I had only one kidney. He asked me when I had been diagnosed with diabetes and I told him it had been the previous year. He said that, usually, you don’t see that kind of kidney damage from diabetes until 10 or 15 years after being diagnosed. Of course, I thought, that perhaps I had been undiagnosed but had diabetes for much longer than we thought. I asked him what I needed to do. He said not to be “overly concerned.” He was going to schedule an ultrasound for my kidneys to see how the blood flow was to them and see what size they were and a urinalysis and more blood work. I asked him if I could continue training since my half-marathon was 4 days away. He said I could work out as much as I wanted, just stay away from sodium. I went home afterward.

Now, I come from an extended family where, rather than “erring on the side of caution,” we “err on the side of ‘worst-case scenario’.” I immediately went to the Internet armed with my blood work numbers. The result that kept coming back was “chronic kidney disease.” More specifically, with my numbers: “Stage 3, chronic kidney disease.” Apparently, there are 5 stages to chronic kidney disease. Stage 3 indicates moderate damage. Stage 4 means you have to start either a) looking for a donor or b) dialysis. Also, chronic kidney disease never gets better. You can only slow down the damage. After reading all about it, of course, I handled it calmly and collectedly…

HA! Um, no. I immediately went into “freak out” mode. So many things went through my mind. None of them good. I felt emotionally and physically “fragile.” As if I were a bubble that was going to pop. The only thing I could hang anything good on was the nephrologist’s comment not to be “overly concerned.” But I will tell you this… it made thinking that I had to do 13.1 miles later that week a very small concern. The half-marathon was not even on my radar any more. Other people I know who were doing the half were concerned about completing it. I was thinking “I’m just going to go out and do what I can because HOLY CRAP, MY KIDNEYS AREN’T WORKING RIGHT!” Let’s just say, my kidneys became my overriding thought and concern.

Okay, so I did the half-marathon and felt good. That’s what was odd. I kept thinking “how could something be seriously wrong with me when I feel this good?” I had to keep it together emotionally by thinking that we really didn’t know what was going on yet or what I might be facing. Yes, the “not knowing” is an incredibly difficult part to deal with.

Eventually, I couldn’t keep being emotionally fragile or stressed out. I tried to start thinking positively about it. Or, at least, not as negatively. Things like “well, at least if I need a donor, someone doesn’t have to die to donate a kidney.” It’s not like an organ that you only have one of and the only way you’re going to get one is through a donor dying. Plus, if a donor does die, your odds are doubled because they have two to donate. Yes, things that like go through your head.

My training started to suffer. It’s hard not to think that when you believe something is wrong with you “what’s the point?” Last school year, I was the coordinator of my workplace’s “Biggest Loser” competition. The morbidly obese custodian used to tease me about it every time I walked by. He’d say “it’s the skinny man, on his skinny crusade to make everyone skinny!” To which I’d correct him and say “no, not skinny, healthier.” He also has diabetes and when I’d say that I was doing it to get healthier he’d say “you don’t know. You could drop dead tomorrow and I could outlive you.” And when I say he’s morbidly obese, I mean that sincerely. It’s not an exaggeration. He cannot walk without the aid of a grocery cart to prop himself up. So, on top of thinking “what’s the point,” I was thinking “great, Mr. Kenneth is going to be right.” Here I am trying to do the right thing and get healthier and my kidneys are not cooperating. So, the stress was getting to me. I didn’t want to work out for fear that I was “fragile.” But I also had the feeling that I had to go on. So I did sign up for the Cajun Cup 10k in Lafayette and the Turkey Day Race on Thanksgiving here in New Orleans. I trained as much as I could manage. But my heart wasn’t really in it as much. I no longer felt like “Super Shawn.” I felt like “incredibly mortal and delicate Shawn.”

So, I went in for my ultrasound for my kidneys. It took forever. I went in to work that day and later missed a call from the nephrologist’s office on my cell phone. Of course, my immediate thought was “we’ve found something that needs immediate attention, please go to a hospital right now.” But I called back and was on hold for literally 10 minutes before the receptionist answered. She said the ultrasound came back normal. So, apparently, the blood flow to my kidneys was okay and they were the right size. Annnd.. when I got home that day, I searched on the Internet about “ultrasounds coming back normal” in regard to chronic kidney disease. The results that came back said that if the ultrasounds cannot determine the cause, then perhaps they need to do a biopsy. Ugh, “biopsy.” That’s got to be the least attractive word in terms of sound and in desire to want to hear it uttered.

In the meantime, in order to prolong my stress and torture, the nephrologist’s office kept messing up the appointment days for the follow-up meeting with the doctor. At first it was supposed to be Nov. 17, then Nov. 28. Then, Nov. 17 AGAIN. Then, Nov. 28 AGAIN. Finally, it was to be on Dec. 1. I figured I’d be incredibly stressed out about the appointment in the week leading up to it. However, I was oddly calm. I guess I was at the point where I was thinking “let me just find out what’s going on and then we can deal with it.” At best, I was thinking the nephrologist would say “Okay, your ultrasounds came back normal. We need to run more tests. Let’s do a biopsy.” And then I’d be plunged back into a cycle of “not-knowing.” On the morning of Dec. 1, I did not have a panic attack. Which was surprising because usually, when I am stressed out, I do have a panic attack. I made it to the hospital and went to check in for my appointment. Then I sat down and waited 20 minutes past my appointment time until they finally called me.

Of course, you know the routine. Then they make you sit in the little room and wait for him to show up. As I was sitting there, I noticed that this room was decorated in the usual stuff related to whichever body part the doctor is a specialist in. In my gout doctor’s office, there are posters of joints and models of knees. In this room, there were models of kidneys and a big poster on chronic kidney disease. As I sat there and waited for the doctor to show up, I read the list of 12 or so symptoms of chronic kidney disease. I did not have a single one of those symptoms. Not even close to having one. I was puzzled.

Then the doctor walked in and the first thing he said was “I have good news.” Now, me being me, I immediately think “good news” is relative. The next words out of his mouth could be “you’re not going to die tomorrow, but you will die in three days.” So, I anxiously awaited his “good news.” He said my tests all came back normal this time. Even the blood work. He said my urinalysis was fine and the numbers in my blood had gone back down into the normal range. My ultrasounds showed that I had a small kidney stone in my left kidney, but it wasn’t causing me any trouble at this point. He showed me the relevant numbers, my creatinine levels for those of you keeping score at home. They had been elevated in two tests done the previous month, but now the levels were below the level I was in January. He had no explanation as to why they spiked in August/September. Perhaps my kidney stone had been blocking something. But he said that everything looked fine now and to check back in a year. When I said earlier that I had originally freaked out, it was an understatement. When I say I was relieved at this news, it is also an understatement. Perhaps the anomaly in the numbers was just that, an anomaly. Perhaps I was never in any real danger. But the feelings I had due to the experience were very real. I think about people who get bad news and it stays bad news. I can’t imagine what that’s like. I wonder if I will have to deal with it. But in the meantime I have to accomplish what I can.

Here it is 3 days later and I’m slowly coming back around to the idea that my life is going to continue for now. I can continue training and making myself healthier. I want to plan things that I’ve not done before. I really need to focus again on losing weight and getting in shape. I have a marathon coming up in 3 months (and one of those months is February, so we get short-changed on training days). Not having that kidney problem dangling over my head frees me up to think about and deal with other things. Rather than focus on a major health problem, I can tweak my training to address pain in my ankles or foot.

In Fight Club, there’s a scene where a store clerk is being held at gunpoint and one of the main characters threatens to kill him. Instead of killing him, he makes the clerk think about his life and what he really wants to do with that life. Then he lets him go. From that moment on, that clerk’s life will be a little sweeter to him because he was made to see just how fragile it is. I hope to take away a similar lesson from my recent experience and try to accomplish all that I can in whatever time I have left. I suggest you all do the same…