the verdict is in...

you guys all ROCK! Thanks to those of you who kept your fingers and toes and whatever else's crossed... and for all the support, yet again.  :) 

For once in my life, he said I was normal! LOL  Yes, as normal as I'll ever be :)  My bone mineral density is where it should be, no bad side-effects from my anti-seizure medications, no increased risk of osteoporosis!  Yay me!  I was totally prepared to be thankful to running for giving me a heads' up on something, allowing me to catch something before it was too late.

I am so relieved.

I'll tell you what has been going through my mind these last few days.  I had been trying to mentally prepare myself to hear the words that would crush me.  To be told that my bones are weak, more susceptible to fractures, told that I am better off not running, and better off sitting on the couch eating chip and bon-bons -- lower impact stuff.

Trust me when I tell you that I'm not a controlling person, some may even say I'm nice, (Marlene, help me out here... LOL) but since my brain surgery, getting my life and independence back, there is a certain number of things that I do need to control, (or at least try to be in control of), and which I value highly. 

Running for me equals control, freedom, independence and health.  I have already been stripped of these once, i think it might have destroyed me to have these taken away again.

Blood work came back fine too, just low in iron, which I have been for years, nothing new or surprising.

So as far as my doctor is concerned, I have a clean slate, a clean bill of health.  I'm almost in tears as I type; that's how nervous I was about my appointment, and how happy I am now.

Yesterday marked the end of my injury program, and I finished it off with a 10k run!  It was great to finally hit double digits again.  I felt great immediately after the run, stretched out, went home, had a nice hot bath, stretched out again, then cleaned out the garage.  My calves felt tight last night, naturally I got concerned, iced, but woke up this morning feeling great.  I think it'll take me a while to get my head out of my legs... to stop thinking that every ache, pain, feeling of tightness is going to be another stress fracture... I'm working on it.  

Tightness in the calves has been a common topic in forums that I found while researching the Pose method of running, or a more forefoot type of landing, and since I'm activating different muscles by landing forefoot rather than heel, I'm sure it's to be expecting, and should subside with time.

Easy 40 minutes on the bike this morning.

Needing your help again.  My Saucony shoes, the ones that are good, working for me now have about 200km on them.  Not sure why this happened (perhaps due to changing my landing) but the material on the inside of my left heel has completely worn through leaving me a nice hard piece of plastic for my heel to rub against.  I started feeling it around 7k yesterday, and although I didn't blister, it didn't feel so nice getting into the bath yesterday.  Only 200k, I really don't want to give up on these shoes already!! Is there anything out there, a product, like a heel pad, a secret or a trick that you know of that will get me a few hundred more km's on these?  I won the other pair of the exact same shoe, which are on standby, so until I can figure something out I guess I'll start breaking those in. I'll have to make sure that my laces are tight enough and that my heel is not sliding around in there, maybe doing some extra rubbing...

Alright, that's it for today, have a great week!  I can't believe it's already December!

**edit, added the pic of the shoe after Lisa's comment.... and actually it makes sense!  I only got this "wearing" when I put my orthotics into these shoes, after a few weeks of running again. When I first went back to running I was just using the regular insoles, then thought I'd try with my orthotics.  I've been tossing back and forth about the use of my orthotics since I'm trying to change to a better running form, will talk to my chiro about that.**