Week #1 Roundup

After six full days of active fundraising, the team has raised $2466.00! Thanks to everyone who has made a contribution - the response we've received has been absolutely amazing. However, we are only 33% of our way toward our goal, so we will gladly accept more donations!

In terms of training, I went to my very first spin class today. I don't think I've ever sweat that much in forty five minutes. Spinning is definitely not fun per se, but it was more effective than my runs, and I attribute this to music selection. I think I need a playlist of bad music for when I train on my own. Bad music as in Akon. Or does that Sexy Chick song just feature Akon? I don't understand this new phenomenon. How can every song feature someone else? What do these people do when they need to perform live? They can't possibly all go on tour with one another.

But I digress. I need bad music with a loud beat to help get my heartbeat up. Playlist suggestions, please?

All in all, this week I've clocked in around 31K of running, cycled 37K (not including today's spin class), had a session with an elliptical, and alternated core and weight training every day. When I commit to something, I go all out. However, I can't seem to commit to healthy eating. As soon as I got home from spin class, I devoured three quarters of a bag of Miss Vickie's salt and vinegar chips.

The majority of today was spent visiting daddy at the hospice. He gets worse each time I see him, and his right hand is starting to get really shaky. He had a shower and shave, so if you were to look at him, you could almost trick yourself into thinking he's healthy. And then he opens his mouth and says something that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. He's progressively becoming more and more confused, with the lucid moments decreasing in number. Today he thought we were on vacation on the east coast and that I needed to deliver some sort of rites to Wallace.

At night he gets very restless. He kept saying that we were in a "cruel game." I don't really know what he was talking about because he was going in and out, but from what I could gather, he was referring to cancer, at how it takes people and exploits their weaknesses and leaves them disabled. He also kept trying to get out of bed, which, right now, is physically impossible; he has almost no mobility in his left side. When my mom asked him why he wanted to get up, he said he needed to "prove it to himself." You're not supposed to see your father look like this. In his state of agitation, I just sat next to him and tried to calm him down by holding his hand. I asked him he if was cold, and he answered, "No, but are you? Your hands are cold. Cold hands, warm heart." Maybe so, but it hurts. Man does it ever hurt.

It almost feels as though cancer has infiltrated its way into my brain, too - it's all I can think about. I can't focus on my readings for school, it's what I repeat over and over as I train, it's what keeps me up at night. I think about it while driving and don't remember how I got home. I don't feel like starting grad school applications, and I'm running out of time. I don't feel like doing much of anything, really. I am mentally and physically exhausted. All of us are.

I had to pick up some items today, so I ran over to the nearest Wal-Mart (Ugh. A chore in itself). They had all these Christmas candies out on display already. I just about cried right in front of the tea and coffee aisle. We probably won't have another Christmas. I won't have another birthday with him. He'll never see Stace and I get married or have our own families. All because of cancer.

Myheartmyheartmyheartmyheartmyheartmyheartmyheart.