Just Keep Shoveling?

Well added a little cross training to operation regain fitness. It's called 3.5 hours of shoveling snow. Blizzard Nemo dumped 2ft of snow at my apartment. I live on the corner of the street which means double the sidewalks and snow banks. I tried to convince my upstairs neighbor who split shoveling duties with me that we should just build steps up and over one of the snowbanks (mostly because we kept getting plowed back in after we had made exits to the street).  He didn't like that idea, but I almost sold him on building an igloo.  I know my strength is getting better because a) I only took one break compared to the 3 my neighbor needed b) I was able to push through the 4 foot snow drift against my front door and shoveled myself out (at 6 am).

That is not to say that shoveling did not kick my ass. After my 6 am round of shoveling I came back in to warm up (wind was still whipping as the blizzard was still gusting 30 mph) and made myself chocolate chip muffins, and proceeded to eat two of them. After round two of shoveling I took a shower and ate three muffins. I then curled up on the couch for 4 hours to regain enough energy to do a little more baking. Well, lets just say my coordination might have been a little off at this point. I knocked a can of condensed milk out of my pantry, into my sink which launched a bowl I had used to eat yogurt out of onto my floor and it shattered. I spent the rest of my time baking and...

I then followed this up by not quite being aware of my spacial relations and lit my oven mitt on fire while taking a pan out of the oven (apparently got a little too close to the heating element). Luckily, it was easily extinguished by blowing on it. Oops. I think fire roasted oven mitts really adds a certain something to pumpkin cranberry muffins, no?

XRT is 54% done and I noticed this morning while the entire radiation area is splotchy pink I now have some hot pink larger splotches. It looks like I was outside in the sun without my SPF 85 for a couple of hours- lobsterified Irish skin. It's getting a little itchy too. But, over halfway there and only 2 more weeks of whole breast XRT before I get the boost (which will cover a much much smaller area and not the areas that seem to be reacting the most).

Still have bald spots, but the hair is growing fast and furious. Everyone is convinced my hair is growing at warp speed compared to the rate their hair grows at, but I remind them I am just a very graphic demonstration of the rate of hair growth.

On Friday I got some of the nicest feedback from one of my colleagues. This nurse wanted to let me know she had joined a 60 day challenge and was working out with a personal trainer to rebuild her fitness. She said that if I could still get out there and run while going though chemo and radiation she really felt she had no more excuses not to work out. Now that's what I call a win! It was also motivating in return. Friday was a year ago that I was able to break 60 seconds in a 400m and I am looking forward to being able to at least get back to doing intervals on the track soon (maybe March?).