First Descents Trip: Out Living It

So, now that I gave you the background info and got all of that off of my chest, here’s a recap of all the fun stuff (another long post).

Day 1:  I woke up at 3AM to catch my 6AM flight from Philly to Atlanta and then onto Knoxville.  The 2 program coordinators and volunteer doctor met all of the participants at the airport.  It took a while for other participants to get in, but we finally had enough participants to fill a van by about 2PM.  And then it was a 2 hour drive to our amazing cabins in Bryson City, NC.  A long windy drive – I never get car sick, but this drive was horrible for everyone!  Our van was dropped off at cabin 5 and then we all met up at cabin 11 for snacks, dinner and conversation.  One of the first things we were told was that we could no longer use our real first names and that we all had to come up with a nickname.  At first, I was Jersey.  And then someone thought it would be funny to call me Snookie because I’m far from being anything like that train wreck.  Then someone asked me my name and when I replied with Snookie, they thought I said Snuggie.  So, somehow I became Snuggie for the remainder of the week.  Others included:  Peach, Austin, Stormy, Hollywood, Razor, Patch, Junebug, TBD, Queso, LaLa, Daisy, Swesty, Marco, Jeff, Bells, ChaCha, Tadpole and Uncle G.  After all of this, I was pooped and knew that I needed to rest  up for the long week ahead.

Day 2:  Our first day out on the water.  We first went to the NOC to meet our kayak instructors (Honeybadger, Tiny and Mono) and get outfitted in some really cool gear: kayaks, paddles, helmets, life vests, wetsuits and kayak skirts.

Picking out my kayak!

We started out on a lake to learn the basics – Lake Fontana.  Our first lesson was, what to do if your kayak flips.  We did not learn how to roll back up this day, but we did learn the dreaded wet exit (basically pull up your skirt and get out of the kayak so you can get to the surface).  The entire day was spent out on the lake learning the correct forms to paddle, turn and flip.  Our chefs met us there with our yummy lunch.  Then it was back to paddling and home for dinner. It was overcast this day and we did see a little rain, not the best weather to start out with.

All smiles on day 1…

Day 3:  We ventured out to a small stretch of the Little Tennessee River today.  I’m not sure where I was exactly, but it was slow-moving water and not too much scary stuff.  We spent more time practicing what we learned the day before:  slowing down in an eddy, peeling out from an eddy, paddling, and turning.  I felt more confident on this day and much more comfortable being out on the water.  This was also the day I did something I thought I’d never do…I peed in the woods!  I’m not a fan.  But I was prepared with tissues and hand sanitizer, so it wasn’t that bad.

Day 4:  No kayaking today.  Instead, we broke up the week with a group rafting trip down the Nantahala River.  This gave us the opportunity to see the rapids we would be kayaking down on Graduation Day.  Rafting was fun, but it was kind of boring after you’re used to kayaking and being in total control of your boat.  By mid-river, we suspected that our raft guide may have been hitting some wacky stuff earlier in the day, but luckily no one from our raft fell out!  We finished with lunch after Nantahala Falls, shopping at the NOC (hello new hoodie) and a hike along the Appalachian Trail.   Part of the trail intersects with the Nantahala River crossing.  Each day seemed to get progressively longer and more intense.  By the day’s end, I was officially exhausted.  This was also the hottest day so far and the first day that it had not rained while we were out on the water!

Day 5:  Back in our kayaks!  Today we were out on the Tuckasegee River.  Each day built upon the previous day’s skills, so we were mostly in Class II rapids on this day.  The water was moving faster and there were lots of rocks to negotiate around.  We practiced one-on-one with the instructors how to use our hips and knees to right ourselves back up if we flipped our kayaks.  I was too tense and just couldn’t get it – I stiffened up and freaked out every time my head went under water.  Ironically, this was also the first day that I experienced a low oxygen environment unintentionally – basically I flipped my kayak on a rapid around a rock.  Since I hadn’t mastered the maneuver to right myself back up, I had to do a wet exit.  The bottom was very shallow and rocky, so I managed to scrape up my hands pretty bad trying to get my skirt off and resurface.  My finger was pretty bloody, but I managed to get back in and get back on the water.

Day 6:  Graduation day and our official last day on the water.  We kayaked the Nantahala with an optional class 3 rapid at the end.  We entered in really choppy water – my kayak was all over the place and I really did not feel confident starting out.  Commence freak out mode!  And the river wasn’t the only water flowing that day – my freak out mode also included major tears and I just couldn’t stop crying.  I was really scared that I was going under and the icy cold water was going to shock me.

I was really surprised by my reaction and I think I surprised everyone else too.  All week long, I hadn’t really shown any emotion like that, but all of a sudden I just became a baby.  However, by lunch time my nerves had settled and I was back on track somewhat.  I made it through “Graduation Falls” (class 2 rapids) without any problems.  We then “parked” our kayaks and walked down the river to scope out the optional class 3 rapid.  I stood along the shore for a long time contemplating what I would do.  Once again, I was scared, but thankfully no tears.  I watched others take on the challenge.  Some made it, some flipped.  I decided to go for it – I knew I would come home with regrets if I didn’t at least try.  Also, another BC survivor reminded me that it was just water and if I made it through chemo, the rapids should be easy.  How true!  So, below is the rapid that I attempted.

Nantahala Falls – I didn’t quite make it, but I tried!

I make it through the first part fine, but I got my kayak turned around and before I knew it, I was under.  I’m so glad that I at least tried to go for it!  And not to worry, there were plenty of instructors and guides at the end just waiting to fish us all out of the water!

For some reason, I cannot upload MP3 videos to this blog site…So, if you haven’t seen my wipeout video, check out my Twitter feed on the right hand side of this blog.

After we finished up our last day of paddling, our NOC instructors presented us each with an award.  My bloody finger earned me the “carnage award” because I was the only to participant to shed blood all week-long.  We also received a nifty NOC t-shirt that only graduates get.

Before I knew it, the week on the water was over and we were heading back to our cabins to pack up and enjoy one last meal together.  But first, it was hot tub time.  Did I mention that all of our cabins had hot tubs?  I was definitely spoiled all week.  Our Friday night dinner was pizza.   Fridays are always pizza party night at home, so I thought this was awesome (only thing missing was a glass of wine – it was a dry week).

Each night at our camp fires, our program directors asked us an open-ended question or to reflect upon something specific…At our last camp fire on Friday, we were asked to use 3 words only to summarize our week.  I can easily describe the week with these words:  Challenging, Exhilarating and Healthy!

Trip highlights/my favorites

• Getting my face wet and trying to be less of a girly girl!  Hanging out in a wet smelly wetsuit is not my thing, but I didn’t complain too much!
• Meeting some amazing people!  Each person was genuinely nice and unique in their own special ways.  We also had quite a bit of talent in our group.
• Finding a stray doggie at one of our load-in sites (couldn’t bring her home)!
• Singing/jamming to Zac Brown’s song “Chicken Fried” to get ourselves pumped up each day.
• Waking up feeling exhausted, yet refreshed every single day!
• Amazing food – did I mention that we had personal chefs all week?  And that each meal was so healthy and nutritious!  Here is a link to the organization that handled all of our meals and kept us feeling good.

Would I do it again?  Sure!  There are options for future trips – FD2 and FDX…We’ll see where life has me next year!  What would I do differently?  Well, as I say when I return from every other vacation/trip, I would definitely pack less stuff!  I’d also try to relax a little more.  If any other young (18 – 39 years old) cancer survivors are reading this, I’d definitely recommend that you try one of the FD adventures!

First Descents Trip: Part I

So, I’m back from my trip to North Carolina with First Descents.  There is so much to report on…You might want to sit down, because this could take a while to read.  But, I’m going to do this in 2 posts.

First off, I really love First Descents and their mission.  Long story short – they give young cancer patients/survivors the opportunity to challenge ourselves and do something adventurous (and of course, its nice that the experience is free).  For me, this was a week of learning how to white water kayak.  Despite growing up at the “beach” and being a fish in my younger years, I have found myself becoming increasingly fearful of the water as I get older.  I tend to give Bri a death grip if we’re ever in the ocean together.

So, this trip really gave me the opportunity to challenge myself to overcome a small fear, learn something new and do it in the company of other cancer survivors.  There were a total of 12 program participants.  1/3 of us were breast cancer survivors and the others had all different types of cancer:  melanoma, thyroid, Hodgkin’s/non-Hodgkin’s, Leukemia, testicular, cervical, and ovarian.  We also had 2 program directors with us who worked for First Descents, 2 volunteers, 1 volunteer doctor (actually an oncologist) and 2 personal chefs.  Yup, that’s right – no cooking for me all week.  And we ate healthy, organic, DELICIOUS home-made (non-processed) food all week-long!

Aside from learning the mechanics of kayaking and tackling rapids, this trip also presented me with some other challenges.  For the first few days, there was non-stop talk about cancer.  My goal for this trip was not only to learn how to kayak, but to put the past year behind me.  I already spent A LOT of time talking about it.  And for the most part, I feel like I have moved on.  I think other participants were just at a different stage of the moving on process and I wasn’t mentally or emotionally prepared for that.  I understand that other trip participants may have needed to talk some more and use the trip as group therapy, but that really left me feeling uncomfortable a lot of the time.  In fact, I may have cried myself to sleep a night or two and called Brian in tears one afternoon.  After talking with some of the other breast cancer survivors, I even found myself questioning some of the decisions I had made regarding my treatment.  I really had to force myself to take a step back and reassure myself that I made the best decisions for ME given the particular characteristics of my cancer.

Other cancer survivors are also living in fear about reoccurrence.  I don’t know how I did it, but somehow after I finished all of my treatments I also convinced myself that I’m done having cancer.  I have managed to not think about a reoccurrence or be scared of it.  Again, on this trip I found myself surrounded by talk of reoccurrence and this put a horrible knot in my stomach.

I think all of the cancer talk really caused me to be a little more quiet and reserved on this trip.  I did not actively participate in cancer talk.  I talked about some of the basics initially (diagnosis, treatment regime, certain stats, etc), but left it at that.  Despite all of this, I had an awesome time and I met some amazing brave people.

Participant photo – after a long day out on the water!

Our two amazing and compassionate program directors – TBD and Patch.

Make it Count!

Happy Birthday to me…I’m 32 years young today!

You’re probably sick of seeing posts about First Descents…but I follow them on Facebook and Twitter and they post some pretty cool (and non-cancer related) stuff.  Their video post today was called “Make it Count.”  It seemed fitting for someone like me who is excited to be celebrating another birthday.  Check it out!  And let me know if that video doesn’t just make you want to go out and “do more” in life!

I also like this video because the main message could be applied to any aspect of one’s life – work, family, goals, hobbies, interests, etc.

P.S.  I’m having major deja vu right now.  I’ll have to go back and sort through old posts – did I post something similar last year (or perhaps even the same video)????

What’s New?

In bullet form (my favorite)…lots of links too!

• I’m going back to blonde.  I have scheduled my appointment, but I’m not telling anyone when it is (well, a few people know).  Y’all will just have to wait and see…
• Time is flying by – and I’m leaving for my First Descents white water kayaking trip in North Carolina in just a little over 2 weeks.  The above “Y’all” was me practicing my southern accent.
• I ate lunch at a restaurant the other day and ordered a salad that had 1,220 calories and 82 grams of fat.  I didn’t know this information before I ate the salad.  I went home and cried (true story).  Lesson – salads are deceiving.  And this is one of my top reasons for rarely eating out at restaurants anymore.
• I am now doing the social media for my department at work (Twitter and FB)…Keeping up with social media is hard (especially when I’m still doing all of my other job responsibilities)!
• Fair Hill Races is exactly one month from today and they still haven’t announced their tailgate theme!  UGH.  How are we supposed to win without ample time to plan?
• My birthday is next week!  I’m not sure what my celebrations will include yet.   I do know that my birthday is one of the two days a year that my husband gets me flowers, so I’m really looking forward to what he picks out for me (hint hint).
• Super Friends Unite (round 2) is this weekend.  It has been over a year since the 3 of us have all been together at once.  Although we had a blast last year, I’m really looking forward to catching up and not being ambushed in pink!

Cherry Blossom Run – Race Report

So, I’m not sure what direction this blog is taking.  I’m done with breast cancer.  It used to be the first thing I thought about in the morning and the last thing I had on my mind before bed.  Now, it all seems like a distant memory.  And I haven’t been posting on here because I haven’t had much to say about the topic (no news is good news right).  So, do I continue and just write about the stupid/normal stuff I do?  Do people really want to read that?  Well in case you do, here’s my way over due race report.

I have really only run a handful of races, but this was by far my favorite race so far.  There are 3 main reasons:

1. I ran the race with a group of other family members.  Support systems work and it was fun to motivate each other!
2. The distance was long enough to challenge me and force me to train, but not too far that I lost interest in training.
3. Location, location, location.  What better way to see D.C. (or any city) than on foot.

Overall, it was a very well-organized and fun race.  The weather cooperated and it was perfect running weather (overcast and about 50 degrees).  We stayed overnight with family in Arlington Saturday night, had a fun pre-race pizza party, visited for a while and then woke up bright and early to metro in to the city.  Upon arriving at the race start, I only had enough time to wait in line for the porta potties.  I did not have time to stretch.  In retrospect, I very well could have stretched while waiting in line, thereby killing two birds with 1 stone.  Why didn’t I think of that on race day?  Anyway, I finished my business and had just enough time to make it to my starting wave.

I actually think that I was in the wrong wave (too slow).  I spent the first 3 or 4 miles just passing people and my race stats show that I also passed 1,200 + runners in the 2nd half.  Overall, I was very happy with my time (1:30:23) – averaging about 9:03 minute miles.  Most of my training runs were around this pace, so I was pleased….Buuuut, I also thought that maybe my race pace should have been faster than my training runs.  Oh well, it was really really hard to run with so many other runners – I spent way too much time just zig zagging around people.

I have to give a huge thanks to one of my BFF’s (yup I said BFF) Amy!  Shortly after mile 9, I saw Amy and her husband Steve holding up huge neon signs and cheering for me.  Once we made eye contact, Amy jumped in the race in her jeans and zip up fleece and ran the last 1/2 mile or so with me (people probably thought that she was crazy because she crossed the finish line in jeans).  I think she said all these mushy motivational words to me, but I was seriously dying at this point so I think I just kept asking her how much farther I had to go.  Thanks again Amy!

Our family team - flexing and showing how strong we all are!

 

Cherry Blossom Race Day Goals

Sorry fellow runners, I am secretly happy that the cherry blossoms won’t be in full bloom on April 1st.  I have never intentionally visited DC during the cherry blossom season for one major reason – my allergies.  So, I’m hoping that they cooperate on race day so I can get through my run without a drippy nose or teary eyes.  And, hopefully my stomach and bladder will cooperate too.

Despite life’s craziness, Bri and I have had some good training runs lately.  He wanted to do another 10 miler this past weekend.  I didn’t think it was necessary, but I tagged along for 9 miles.  My legs felt like bricks and I just could not squeeze out another mile.  I’m a wimp.  So, here’s a few goals for race day:

1. Beat Bri.  Well, I don’t think that’s happening, so I’ll settle for crossing the finish line…not poop out after 9 miles and make it for all 10.

2. Start slow.  I have a habit of starting out too fast and then burning out early.

3. Take in the lovely sites around me and not obsess about my time.  I’m hoping that they don’t have too many (or any at all) clocks posted along the course.  And I’ll have to make a conscious effort not to check my watch at every mile.  Let’s face it – there are thousands of people running this race – I’m not placing.

4.  Have fun.  And try to run over the finish line with my arms up (I’ve always wanted one of those race pictures).

Falling Behind And Catching Up

Aside from daydreaming about future travel plans, we’ve been busy, busy, busy!  So, here’s a few updates.

Last week, we returned from an extended weekend in Michigan.  Bri’s cousin Ryan got married and we stayed a few extra days to visit with family out there.  I’m a sucker for weddings and I really do love witnessing that special moment when couples officially unite.  The bride, Kristen,  looked so movie star glamorous and Ryan had a huge grin on his face during the entire ceremony.  Great wedding and wonderful couple.  And thank you to Ryan for playing a Bruce Springsteen song for Bri and I.  Bruce is our favorite!

The beautiful wedding couple!

In other news, about 2 weeks ago, I finally received all the specific information about my trip with First Descents in May.  If you follow me on Facebook, you may have already heard about this from my posts.  Anyway, I honestly envisioned staying in some boy scout camp with cabins and bunk beds.  Much to my surprise, my accommodations are actually in luxury cabins overlooking the smoky mountains.  Should I mention that each cabin also has an outdoor hot tub?  Most people know that I’m a beach girl, but if I have to do mountains, this is where I want to be.  I am really excited about my trip.  My flight is booked and I am starting to go through my recommended packing list to see what I really need to buy.  First Descents has everything organized and planned out already – my itinerary during the day is pretty much filled with learning how to white water kayak.  We have one group raft trip and a trip into town for a few hours.  But other than that, most days will look something like this:  Wake up, breakfast, kayak, lunch on the river, kayak some more, return to cabins for a free hour or two, dinner, campfire and then bedtime.  First Descents even sent a gift the other day – nose plugs!  Apparently, I will need them while I’m out on the river.  I am really interested to learn more about First Descents and see if they are an organization that I will stay connected to (even if they are in Colorado).  First Descents has what they call “Team FD Events”, which is mostly where they form teams to participate in races and raise money for the organization.  The closest event to me is the Philadelphia Rock n’ Roll Half Marathon.  I’ve heard that the rock n’ roll races are awesome, but I’m not sure if the race date will work with my schedule.  We’ll see.

Bri and I have also been focusing on training for our upcoming race.  We have a family team running the Cherry Blossom 10 miler in DC in a few short weeks.  We did a pre-race practice 10 miler this past weekend and we were both happy with our pace (Bri was about 5 minutes faster than me, but I stopped for water).  However, I seriously lack energy after these long runs and find myself bumming around the house for hours afterwards accomplishing nothing.  Regardless, I am excited about the race and the fact that I’ll be running in such a cool city and with people I love.  I might do another post regarding my race day goals.