Kidney Stones + Marathon Running

Forgive the lateness of this post, but here is the story of my first (and possibly last) marathon. Be warned, it is possible that this might have TMI for some people's taste. 

The kidney stone is circled in yellow here. Notice how there
isn't a matching white dot on the other side. That
is because the dot isn't supposed to be there...

Gross picture of the stone stuck in me.

The pictures shown above are pictures of my kidney stone friends. On September 26, I woke up to some intense back pain. I thought it was just cramps...but no matter what I did they didn't go away. Naturally I called my mom to seek her advice. She called my cousin who is a doctor of sorts who called me and asked all kinds of questions about my pain. The conclusion he came to was that the pain was being caused either by my appendix, gall bladder, or something else so I should go to the emergency room. At this point I was pretty much rolling around on the ground, trying to get comfortable, so the hospital didn't seem like a bad idea. (for any of you who haven't experienced a kidney stone, the best way I can describe it is that it feels as if someone were stabbing you with a knife in the back. A lot.) So we called up some dudes who gave me a blessing really fast, and an old home teacher of mine came  and took me to the ER. It was funny because the pain caused me to crack a lot of jokes. I was funny. The hospital people did a bunch of tests on me to see what the problem was. The last test they did showed some stones in my body that were obviously out of place, and the cause of my pain. The doctor said that the stone was 6 mm in size (trying to come down a 1 mm tube). He also said that there was a 25% chance that I could pass it on my own, in 4 weeks. Gross. He recommended surgery to take it out really fast--which they did. That was exciting. All I will say is that I didn't like it, even though they put me under for it.

This whole thing went down 1.5 weeks before I was supposed to run the marathon. The doctor said that there was no reason why I couldn't run it. He even said I could go running on Saturday (two days after the surgery). I appreciated his faith in me, but I really didn't feel up to the whole running thing. I think I did go running a few times though.

The day before the race arrived and I had the misfortune of having another stone comin' down the tube. I cried a little, and had another blessing. I contemplated staying home and just forgetting about the marathon, but I couldn't do it. I sacrificed a lot of my time, energy, money, and a social life to train for this. Not to mention the mental preparation that it takes. It nearly killed me to think that all my sacrifices were in vain. So I decided to just go and see what happened. I'll let the pictures help me tell the story from here.

Just after picking up the number. I was on drugs at this point.
I drove down to St. George with Ellie and her angel parents.
I felt ill, but I didn't die or anything.

The morning of the race came, and I felt alright. It was a giant
miracle! I felt like I'd be a winner just by showing up to this thing. 

So the race part was fun(ish). Ellie and I ran together just like we'd trained for the first 14-15 miles or so. Right before the race I had listed the numbers 1-26 on my arm, and put a person in my life by each number. Then I tried really hard to think about that person for that whole mile. It was fun to have something new to talk about with Ellie, and fun to remember the people who had helped me get through the first 23 years of my life. 

I realize this isn't really legible, but if you're currently reading my blog, consider yourself on the list.

We kept this up until mile 15 or so. I just started feeling not too hot, so I told Ellie it was time for us to split up. I couldn't bear the thought of holding her back. So I walked, while she ran ahead. Then I almost started crying. I wasn't ready to leave  her. So I ran and caught up. We ran another mile together before I was really done, and we said "see ya in a few!"

The rest of the race I just felt nauseated. There were big white vans that were driving up and down the course picking up people who couldn't finish up. I wanted so badly to get on one of those vans. In my head I  had done more than a half marathon, which is pretty good considering my condition, so quitting was ok. I would have quit if I could only have figured out how to get the looser vans to stop for me. I never did, so I just finished instead.

My dear friend Cami Jo came to finish the last mile with me.
We kept a pretty brisk pace until the very last bit, which I
ran. Then I got my cool medal. 

I finished!
*note the neck line on my shirt, it is crooked. I have a tan line
now that is also crooked. #itdrivesmecrazy

At the finish line the had a special place for runners to hang out will all kinds of food. I had a crazing for some diet Coke. I had given it up for training purposes. Lucky for me, they had a trailer with soft drinks including my beverage of choice! Who would have thought? 

This was an incredible lesson for me, and a very humbling experience. It seemed that everything that could go wrong before this race, did. I didn't feel like I had enough time to train, I kept pulling muscles before my long runs, and then the whole kidney thing had to happen. I came to the starting line with a prayer in my heart. I gave all that I could give, which was next to nothing. All I could do was show up, and I had to depend on God to help me with the rest. I think this is how life is most of the time. We are nothing without God. I also learned about sacrifice, and how it is the only vehicle to love and commitment. The only way to actually be committed to a marathon is to train for one. I believe that the only way you can handle the physical and mental strain it requires of you is for you to sacrifice in the process of training. This may seem odd, but it taught me a lot about how to love people. I always pray for charity, imagining myself as an empty vessel needing to be filled with charity provided by the Lord. But I realized that that is the wrong order. Christ loves us because he gave his life for us. He did it because he loved His father, and us, but think about how much more He loves us because of his sacrifice. If I want to be filled with charity I need to sacrifice for people. I will do so initially because I love Heavenly Father, but then I will be filled with love for the people I am serving. It is a cycle, but it doesn't start with a love for people necessarily. It starts with a love of the Lord, which leads to sacrifice, which then leads to feelings of charity and love.