Treadmill to the Rescue

Little man had a big hospital appointment yesterday, as he does every 3 months. Husband was planning to take him, but we both woke up at 5am and immediately knew the original plan was going to be altered dramatically. First of all, we were awoken by the little one coughing, which was bad since he was supposed to be sedated for his lumbar puncture. Right away, the whole plan of whether or not the procedure would even be allowed to occur was in question, and my eyes hadn’t even opened yet.

Second thing that happened was Husband quickly realized he was sick and not going to be going anywhere that day, which meant my plan for a quiet day alone in the house was derailed. I was pretty impressed with myself (am still impressed with myself for that matter) that I didn’t get upset about the loss of the day, with all of my little activities planned and such. There was nothing to be done about it. Little man had to go, so I had to go. All of my plans would wait.

It took a million and a half years in morning traffic to get to Comer Children’s in Chicago, so that was not ideal, but once we got there, I found a phenomenal parking spot, and everything with the procedure went shockingly smoothly. I don’t know if you are familiar with the concept of “hospital time,” but hospitals are all separately located within their own time vortices, and generally every possible delay will not only occur but will also add more time than anyone would’ve thought to account for. You might enter the hospital at 8:30am for a procedure scheduled to take 2 hours, and you may leave the hospital any time between 11am or 4pm (or beyond), and the weirdest part of all of it is that it all feels like the same amount of time has passed. I can’t explain that. Whether 3 hours or 9 hours, it feels like 24 hours have gone by. But the day was beautifully hitch-less! It was amazing! And our little guy’s counts were excellent, and the procedure itself went exactly right. Couldn’t ask for a better appointment.

However, hospital time worked its sorcery, and I still felt exhausted and rung out by the time we got home. Plus, my plan for the day was changed, which frazzles my little planning brain. Here’s what I did: I didn’t freak out. After we got home, I let the little one watch more Curious George while I changed into my running clothes and went down to the treadmill. Yes, it was sunny out, but I needed to feel like I was in a cave for a bit, I guess. And I smiled as I ran. I felt good.

Lately, running and working out in general has felt like more of a vanity project than anything else. I’ve been questioning my own motivations for doing it and have been wondering (maybe worrying) that I’m venturing into the land of obsessive, planning my meager amounts of free time around workouts, the quality of my days sometimes hinging upon whether or not I get a run in. But yesterday, running brought me back to life. I needed that run. I needed to get some nervous energy out, I needed to sweat while listening to music too loud in my headphones, and I needed to smile. And in the end, yesterday was a GREAT day.