Walking….full circle

There is one more day left in 2011.  As usual, I bundled myself up like a penguin (white jacket and black leggings) and was on my 7-miler route this morning.

The streets were calm at 8:30 in the morning, not much traffic, semi-hybernating/partying week: the week between Christmas and New Year.  I started to retrace my steps in 2011 as I was stepping forward in a fast-paced power-walk mode.

Where do I start?  let's start with my lupus--a very good place to start.  2011 has turned out to be the year of my regular and on-going visits to UC Davis' Cancer Center for leukopenia--low white count.  As I have grown almost too painfully accustomed to bad news, it was a bigger blow than usual.  The sight and the smells, the patients and their ashen countenance proved to be a grueling exercise to walk in there and not be "moved".  A lovely East Indian hematologist greeted me and now we are fast friends.  She is young, warm, engaging and the best of all, encouraging at every turn.  Just as we thought I needed hormone treatments, my blood would do an about turn and the white count would be inching up.  Then down, up, down, up….and then the red count would take a nose-dive, then up, down, up, down....  My red count and white count have been playing on a swing all year--24/7--it does not seem to abate.  And so I have learned to live with yet another medical routine, and another doctor in the docket. 

Another lupus issue in 2011 is this pain predicament.  The very reason the walking and this blog started.  Please do read my past blogs to get more details.  Yes, I started to fight pain with walking (very painful at first).  Honestly, I can say I have traded one type of pain with another.  Power-walking leaves me extremely sore whereas lupus just tortures me with unrelenting pain everywhere in the body. 

June of 2011 marked a significant time for me and my entire family.  Our son graduated from high school and decided to go to Berea College in Kentucky in the fall.  We became empty-nesters and I am loving it.

My walking has turned into a time that I guard and treasure.  I recounted this morning my journeys to Montreat, North Carolina in June, then Berea, Kentucky in August, and the countless drives to Daly City, California visiting my mother.  I can declare that I am walking to think,  I am walking to calm, I am walking to quell pain and most importantly, I am walking to be sane.

I calculated that by now I have set my footprints over 350 or so miles of pavement.  Every footprint is intentional and purposeful.  My legs became re-aquainted with the former marathon runner (moi) and the muscles are back.  There is more a spring in my steps, there is power in my stride.  And it is high time to consider "walking" a marathon in 2012.  

My heart is full and my legs are pumped!