Half a million

The view from Georges Island  - We went there on a day off
because it is both beautiful and walkable.  20,000 steps that day!

You may remember back in May how my oncologist recommended I get more exercise and suggested I try and walk 10,000 steps a day (if you don't remember, the post is here).  At first, 10,000 steps a day was an effort.  And that's putting it nicely.

But, despite whatever grousing you may see here, in all this cancer stuff I do try and be grateful for everything I can do that helps fight cancer.  With that (and the fact that my smart oncologist said to), I've worn a pedometer every day since and made the 10,000 steps a day goal my own.

The rest of this post comes awfully close to a long brag, so unless you already love me and my family, this may be a good place to call your post reading done for the day and congratulate yourself on good a decision.  But, if you do love us or are exceptionally brave, well, here we go!

Last week, I hit day number 50 of this walking 10,000 steps a day effort.  I haven't always hit the 10,000 point each day, especially in the beginning, but my average over those 50 days is above 10,000.  Which means--get this!--since May 22 I've taken over 500,000 steps.  Half a million. Crazy, right?

A few weeks into it, I bought a FitBit to replace my mechanical pedometer.  By then I'd proven to myself that I was pretty committed to the walking, and the mechanical pedometer kept periodically jamming which was frustrating (to say the least).  I'm finding the FitBit more accurate than the pedometer I was using, plus it doesn't click when I walk (annoying at work), and not only does it call me "champ" when I hit my goals (love that), it also tracks lifetime stats--so without a lot of effort, I can now tell you that since I began using the FitBit, I've walked 120 miles.  That's spread out over a number of days, of course, but it still feels pretty cool!

To be fair, many of those steps and miles were steps and miles I would have taken anyway just going about my day.  But I've found that I can't get 10,000 steps just going about my day (even if I park a few spaces farther, or make a couple trips to the photocopier, or make separate walks to the printer and inbox instead of combining them into one trip), but instead, for my lifestyle, it requires the extra effort of going out for a walk daily.  So, I still feel pretty proud of myself for accomplishing this goal.

Well, proud of myself and also grateful for my family.  I mentioned a few weeks ago (here, if you want more info) how my husband helped me get the steps on a particularly bad day--every day since that day I've had the company of my husband and/or my daughter on these walks (and when she was over here my grown stepdaughter, too).  They're consistently good cheerleaders which is immensely helpful. My mother-in-law has begun tracking her own steps which is pretty cool, and, especially because she knows what goes into getting those steps, she tells us regularly how impressed she is that we're doing this, which also feels pretty good.

All this "way to go" attitude has been good for me and I obviously enjoy it. But, for someone like me who tends to mistake urgency with importance all the darn time, even more important has been my family's attitude that getting the steps in is important and how they've made it a priority.  Because, in all honesty, even knowing it's important, without their support it would be way too easy for me to say, "Eh.  Today I [am busy/have a lot to do/feel tired/(whatever other excuse you can think of)], I'll just skip it today and try again tomorrow."  I can be kind of lazy that way, especially when in the moment.

And it is important that I get some exercise.  Aside from the general knowledge that fitness is good for  people (even people like my cancer-free husband and daughter, actually), there have been lots of studies showing that women who have breast cancer and who exercise tend to have better outcomes than those who don't.  You may have seen the flurry of news about one such study that hit mass media a few weeks after my oncologist made the recommendation (one such article here).  I wish I could say exercise was guaranteed to cure me, but the best I can say is it might help and it certainly won't hurt.  Which is actually still good enough to make me think it's worthwhile to do.

And, truthfully?  I'm really enjoying it.  I love the time with my family.  I love feeling a little fitter and a lot better (really, I do feel healthier now and walking is no longer embarrassingly difficult for me, which is definitely progress).  I like the feeling of achieving a daily goal. I like being out on the town track with all sorts of other people of all ages doing similar things, and I like being there looking pretty much like everyone else because when I'm walking I'm cancer patient incognito. And most of all, since I don't actually know how to cure cancer, I feel better being able to take action myself on something that might be helpful (in addition, of course, to the Faslodex, Lupron, and Xgeva that others prescribe and inject into me--I do my "show up for it" job really, really well, but that's not the same thing, obviously!).  And, I suspect taking whatever action we can is part of what my husband and daughter are feeling, too.  There isn't really that much we can personally take the lead on to fight this cancer, but this is the thing we can do, so we are bound and determined to do it.

Want to know something crazy?  I've lately been wondering, assuming I stay stable or show regression and regrow some bone, if I might someday be able to work through a "Couch to 5k" program and sometime in the next few years run in a 5k road race.  I would need to get medical clearance before taking on high-impact stuff like running on these cancery bones, of course, but who knows what might be possible?  Besides, I've read that running may be even better than walking for breast cancer survival....

(Edited to add:  My husband read this and thinks I'm not bragging nearly enough, so let me assure you, I'm all kinds of "FREAKING HALF A MILLION STEPS AND KEEPING THE 10,000 THING UP FOR 50 FREAKING DAYS!!!!!!!!  EEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!" but on the inside, of course.  Well, mostly on the inside.  Well, sometimes on the inside, anyway.)