On Monday, August 24, 1992 hurricane Andrew hit Florida with force. As you would expect all services including Hospitals were suspended. I remember a lot of details of where we stayed and how we coped with Andrew living in Miami but the main aspect is that we were not affected. We were fine. However Monday August 24, 1992 wa also the start of a new Chemo cycle for me. It was Monday hell day. Mondays was the worst of days. I would get to the hospital very early and would usually get a bed because it would be an all day event. I know little about what was it that I got on mondays and francly it made absolutly no diffrence if I knew the components or not so I did not even care. I knew it would get rid of cancer and thatwas sufficient. I would get my IV in and would for most of the day sleep as all the medicine went in. Medicine....yeah right. I knew enough that I was given a medicine in the morning and the reason I stayed there all day ws to get an antidote in the afternoon. Medicine...I don't think so, the only thing that requieres antidote is poison. Regardless cancer deserves poison so I was not about to question the method. As I would get up at 5:00-5:30 in the afternoon I felt very heavy and tired. I felt like someone had beaten me up. I was not hurting but would be completely spent. It was hard to get up. It was the only day I would not drive and after almost a year in chemo we knew we needed the car fast and we needed to get home quickly. What followed were severe side effects. I don't need to detail them but the next 12 hours would be pure hell. I would not want to speak to anyone or do anything but go from the bed to bathroom to either pee or throw up. The only thing I could hold down was Sunkist. I was cery proud all thru treatment that there was only 2 times were I threw up outside of a bathroom or my house. Funny what you can get proud of huh!!! One time it was a monday and I had to get out of the car. The other was right after Taco Bell with Julissa at 87th Ave and Flagler. Julissa got very scared but afterwards I just said lets go and off we went. Throwing up was way of life just like going to the bathroom. If you work at it you can kind of controll it and I worked at it a lot.
Andrew hits, and what do we do on Tuesday. I tell my mom "lets go I need to get to the hospital". I remember she telling me I was crazy and that there would be no one there. She was right, but I didn't care. I had been almost a year taking all that crap and I can now see the end. Do you really think Andrew would stop it? I felt like a death row inmate. When they first tell you that you will die you are terrified and try anything to get away, but then one day you just want them to tell you where the room is and where is the button that would end your misery. That is how I felt. Andrew or no Andrew I was going to get it anyway and believe me it was better sooner than later. If I did not get this cycle that means I would fall behind. To me that was unacceptable. So we went to the hospital. I could not believe what I was doing. I was actually all over Jackson Memorial looking desperately for my chemo. That was something I will never understand but that is how history wrote itself.
My actions after Hurricane Andrew were not because I had lost my mind. It was discipline. It was the discipline it took to get what I needed done and get back to my life and go home. This week I faced a new challenges and actually failed miserably. I had to travel to Miami for some work issues and I was expected to return yesterday but we could not finish our work and needed an extra morning there. Monday I had to do a 45 minute run. To be honest I felt pretty spent and my knees were not all that strong. So I figured that because Tuesday was a rest day I could interchange the days. That was monday's excuse. Tuesday came along and I found that I just could not get out of bed so early to train and I slept in so I did not train on Tuesday morning. As it turned out the afternoon got pretty hectic trying to finish our work so we could make the flight early on Wednsday. We finished late about 7:30-8:00 and I was beat. So no work out on Tuesday. To make matters worse I caved in to temptations at Ihop and Versalles so my diet kind of went south although I do not know how bad it is because I have not weighted myself. In the end I lacked discipline, not desire discipline. My discipline was so bad I feel heavy and clumsy as I write. I have meditated on it and I am commited that it will not happen again. Discipline is the only thing that wil get me strong enough, slim enough, and tough enough to finish the Ironman. I can not and will not tolerate this to happen again. As I often preach training has to be an ireplaceble part of your day. Anything that needs to take place in a particular day needs to be acomodated around training and your other everyday issues. I traded some bed time and tv time for training. Frankly I better start listening to my self and applying it. i sould have watched the tv while I was working out and I can for sure sleep when I die!!!!!
Discipline is the only thing that will take me to the finish line. The saying goes "I can" not "I can't".
***Please excuse the errors I am having a hard time with the correction feature.
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