Mobility challenges

My parents have always been very proud of their mobility in their advanced years. My father refuses to use a cane even though he can’t walk very fast or far these days (and even though I suggested he could get a really fancy one, maybe with a golden lion's head, and wear a top hat, and I could follow him playing a recording of “Puttin’ on the Ritz”). As for my mother, she too scorned the suggestion that she get a walker—until it wasn’t a suggestion any more but a necessity, as it is now, following a recent series of trips to the ER for blot clots in both her legs. Typical of her, when it became a reality, she accepted it with good cheer, joking that she wanted to challenge her wheelchair-bound neighbor to a race. Normally I’d put money on the wheelchair but this is my mother we’re talking about—bet against her and you’re throwing your money away.

I don’t share much of her competitive spirit, I’m afraid; I tend toward an attitude of paralyzing self-doubt (I’d probably bet against myself going up against either walker or wheelchair). Sometimes, though, there are glimmers. Barely a week after my last marathon, I ran seven miles with the fast kids. These are the guys in our running club who battle each other for first place in local races and, when they race beyond our area, are always among the front runners. The fastest mile I’ve ever done in my life would still fall short of their marathon paces by a large handful of seconds—maybe two handfuls. If there were any situation that mandated the use of the letters W, T, and F, this was that. WTF was I doing running with them?

Regardless, I managed to keep up. They were cruising, granted, probably could have done that pace on one leg while I pushed, but the run went surprisingly well. I didn’t die, after all; that’s always a plus in these circumstances. Perhaps it went too well because two days later I did it again, got myself up running with the head of the pack on our club’s Tuesday fun runs. At one point two guys behind me were talking about their most recent 5k race and one noted that he’d done 17 minutes and change. He sounded disappointed. I tried to math that—stupid metric system!—and got as close as “sub-6 mile” before WTF-ing and letting them go by. 

There is no particular need for this abrupt switching of gears to speed mode. Yes, my one and only running goal for the rest of the year is to try to qualify for the Boston Marathon, but my target race isn’t for six months. If I kick too hard now, I’ll probably self-destruct before we even get to summer. Granted, I definitely have to work on speed. I’ve been in ultramarathon mode for a long time now, and I’ve gotten used to thinking of “pace” as unimportant. With super long distances, if you’re moving forward at all, you’re winning. Going from that to training for a BQ, which is all about that pace, takes some transitioning. 

Does it sound callously self-absorbed of me that I started this post talking about some serious health problems my mother is going through before segueing right into running? Well, this is a blog, so self-absorption is to be expected, but I’m going somewhere with this, and maybe you’ve already figured out where. I got the news about my mother on Saturday. On Sunday I ran with the fast kids. Not a coincidence.

I talked to my mother a couple of nights ago. “How are you?” 

“I’m being tortured.”

“Tortured? Well, that’s not good.”

OK, so it was a stupid question given that she was in the ICU and a stupid response given her answer, but it’s hard to know what to say in these situations.

She told me how they tried to push the blood through her leg, how much it hurt. I had a mental image of a leg slowly being rolled up like a nearly-spent tube of toothpaste. If my mother admits to feeling pain, it would probably take something that drastic.

There was a pause, and she added, “Now I know what you went through.”

I don’t ever recall having been tortured in my life other than the sort of mental self-torture I excel at. I figured out what she meant, though; a few years ago I had to be hospitalized with massive deep-vein thrombosis in my left leg. The circumstances were quite different for me, though, and while there had been some pain, there was far more discomfort than anything else. I couldn’t sleep much, couldn’t bathe at all, couldn’t use the bathroom on my own, couldn’t eat before surgery—and there were several surgeries. Still, none of that was exactly torture. But my mother kept saying it: I know what you went through. I know how much pain you felt.

I had a feeling she was really saying something else—an apology. At the time I was hospitalized, my cousin was getting married in Seattle, and my family had to be there rather than with me. I wasn’t bothered in the least; there wasn’t much they could do for me other than just sit there watching me not sleep or eat, and besides I had great parades of friends coming in and out with books for me to read, snacks for me to eat after surgery, and alcoholic beverages for me to drink once I got out (or on the sly while I was in). But I guess my mother felt bad about that now. “I didn’t realize what this was like for you. I didn’t know how much pain it was.”

She was feeling guilty for not being there for me, and the more she said it, the guiltier I started feeling for not being there with her. She feels guilty and I feel guilty and oh goodness, the whole mother-daughter guilt-fest thing, you know?

I could say that I’m going to try to BQ for my mother, but that would be ridiculous. She doesn’t care if I qualify for Boston; while she’d be vaguely happy for me if I achieve one of my personal goals, she’s never really understood this whole running business. I’m not running for her; I’m running for me, though I guess I’m also running because of her, in a way. My body will let me down one of these days, just as hers is doing now. Maybe it’s stupid to run with the fast kids at my age, especially since I can’t really keep up with them for long and my heart might very well explode right out of my chest if I try too hard. But I’m still here, so I guess I won’t bet against myself just yet.