let it be true.

(Note: If you’ve come here looking for my usual reflection on running, you need not read past the end of the next two sentences. So long as running brings you joy, I urge you to keep at it. Life being precious and short, if running is a chore or little more than a way to measure yourself against others, I plead with you to seek out new avenues for spending the days you’re given.)

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Eight years ago, my firstborn daughter, Lily, slipped from my grasp and fell flat on her back in the grass at my feet. Instinct kicked in the moment she hit the ground and I swooped her up, rushed her inside, and then shuttled her off to the hospital before whatever emotions I might have felt had time to record as memory.

I cannot recall now how I felt then though the memories of the fear and trepidation of the hours and days that followed are vivid.

I cannot recall now how I felt then, but I will never forget how I felt last evening, eight years after, when Lily, having listened to a retelling of that story at her bedtime, assured me that I hadn’t dropped her, but had “saved her life.”

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Preliminary results of a CT Scan at the time of Lil’s fall suggested a brain bleed, but careful scrutiny in the days immediately after and follow-up testing weeks later confirmed that the smudge in the films wasn’t bruising, but my initial relief at not being to blame quickly gave way to the understanding that the abnormality was far more disconcerting than a temporary wound.

That abnormality, situated in Lil’s left temporal lobe, an area of the brain employed in the comprehension of language and vision, has been the subject of monitoring ever since.

That abnormality has never stopped being disconcerting.

Mostly, though, it just was. It didn’t grow. It didn’t diminish. It didn’t cause any ill effects. It just was and its menace consisted solely of being there.

In time, twice annual scans were relaxed to annual scans and, as the results of those sessions remained consistently unchanged, time between scans was eventually stretched to two years.  And, with assurance from the surgeons that more time could pass between scans, that abnormality quietly, almost imperceptibly relinquished its menace. We never fully forgot it was there, but it ceased to be the sole cloud carrying potential for rain in an otherwise blue sky.

Those sunny skies encouraged us to close our eyes and bask in the warmth and we did, but when we opened our eyes the forecast had changed.

This past winter, in the midst of her 3^rd grade school year, Lily began to complain about her eyesight and, just like that, we had a symptom for which we’d been cautioned to remain vigilant. Lindsay and I immediately realized that another two years had passed and Lil was again due for an MRI.

Lily had been seen at Johns Hopkins since she was two, but circumstance merited a move to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and she immediately felt more comfortable in this youth-centric facility.

By the time we visited for Lil’s initial MRI, she had already seen an optometrist and had been prescribed corrective lenses.  Her need for glasses wasn’t proof alone that there was great reason for concern, but we looked forward to verification that the old familiar abnormality still simply was.

It wasn’t.

There were signs indicating both structural changes and growth. A visit with an ophthalmologist corroborated the likelihood that the tumor was cause of the rapid deterioration of Lil's vision. Allowing for the fact that orientation from machine to machine can differ and it had been some time since the last scan, a follow-up MRI was slated for 30 days later. If it showed additional growth, we would need to consider what immediate action could and should be taken.  If it showed additional growth.

It didn’t.

We returned to watch-and-wait mode, heartened for the moment, but the wake-up call of that first sign of growth coupled with additional input from Lily suggesting that she was also having some cognitive issues, failing from time to time to be able to formulate the words that she had at the ready in her mind, kept us on edge. She told us she knew that it was growing, knew that something needed to be done. She asked, earnestly, if she would die. As parents, we’d been asked that question before and it’s a painful question to answer even when it’s brought on by the death of a pet, the passing of an elderly relative, or simply the developing youthful mind. It’s exponentially more difficult a question to answer when it stems from your child facing that very real possibility.

Lindsay and I were forced to discuss surgery and its implications, something we really hadn’t had to do since the first discovery of the tumor all those years prior.

This time there was a third voice in that discussion and, as it belonged to the person carrying the reason for the conversation, the voice was the most important of the three. Lily didn’t want to wait, she wanted to take action. She wanted to take IT out. She desperately wanted the surgery and didn’t understand why we didn’t just do it.

The surgeon we had first seen all the way back in 2008 recommended at that time that we move forward with surgery, remove as much of the tumor as possible, and biopsy it. Second and third opinions advised caution and ultimately convinced us to wait, primarily because of a lack of symptoms on Lily’s part and the imminent threat, based on the location and structure of the tumor, that healthy brain tissue could be compromised and survival was not guaranteed.

That threat remained imminent and was the very reason why we didn’t just schedule surgery.

September arrived and with it yet another appointment with CHOP’s Radiology department.

This time the results were unambiguous, the need to take action inarguable, and, in a cruel twist, at least for her parents, Lily would have her wish.

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Our oncologist and surgeon have made it clear that while we should take steps to address the situation with surgery, the immediate risk is not so great that we can’t schedule the procedure at a time over the next 6-9 months that would be least disruptive for Lily and for our family, including her doting, adoring little sister, Piper Bea.

My daughter loves to dance. She loves to swim. Both of these activities are her most direct connection to life as it is and how she wants it to continue to be.  She does not want this…this thing in her body or its ominous shadow hanging over her any longer than it must. She wants it out and the sooner the better. The sooner it is out, the sooner she can dance, the sooner she can swim.

Yes, there are risks and, yes, there is potential that the procedure will not be effective, will not fully alleviate the issue, or could even cause other issues.  There is that potential.  That potential is not nearly so great as the absolute guarantee that doing nothing will ensure issues that neither Lily or her parents care to sit idly by and watch manifest.

Better to think of dancing, to dream of swimming. Best to dance and swim now, in the meantime, and as soon as possible after.

Endless have been the conversations that Lindsay and I have had over the years about that foreign castaway inside of our daughter. We’ve cursed its constant, silent presence and the way in which it so often made us second guess every odd gesture or peculiar mannerism that Lily had at any given moment, little happenings that other parents would have paid little mind, likely no mind whatsoever. Knowing that it was there was a strange chronic punishment but for what we weren’t sure.

It was a constant guilt I was resigned to shouldering for the remainder of my lifetime.

A nine year old knew better.

Without knowledge of its being there, that foreign body would have grown unwatched and by the time it made its presence fully known, we would likely be looking not at a tricky surgical procedure but faced with an inoperable tumor with a grip on Lily’s central nervous system that could not be loosened, a grip that would have put her very existence in jeopardy.

Eight years ago, I dropped my daughter and couldn’t possibly have imagined that, in doing so, I might have saved her life.

Please, please let it be true.

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If everything falls into place, Lily will undergo laser interstitial thermal therapy in mid-to-late November. This neurosurgical technique will create a dime-sized hole in the top of her skull and allow a laser probe, steered by real-time computer guidance and informed by MRI-monitoring, to reach the tumor and then destroy the foreign cells by super-heating them. By employing this technique, we hope to minimize the damage to healthy tissue and lessen the potential for infection that comes with a traditional and more invasive craniotomy. It will not immediately remove the tumor or what portions of it would have been possible to cut away without too great a risk to healthy portions of the brain, but it is expected that the destroyed tissue will diminish with time and perhaps be eliminated entirely, something that subsequent MRI scans will need to confirm.

The greatest risks are the likelihood of visual deficits (think blindspots, not blindness) and potential for language deficits.  The fact that the tumor is surrounded by healthy tissue and in relatively close proximity to the brain stem brings graver concerns, but we have every confidence in CHOP and the precision of our surgical team.

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We know our friends and family will have numerous questions and, as much as we’d love to answer all of them, Lindsay and I ask for your patience and understanding as we need to focus our energies on supporting Lily, reassuring Piper, leaning on each other, and attending to all of the logistics necessary to balance life alongside the preparations ahead of surgery and whatever our situation proves to be afterwards.

You can help us best by simply loving Lily as we know many of you do and sending her positivity by whatever means you believe most effective. The means of transmission isn’t important. She’s a sensitive child, always has been, and she’ll feel it, I can assure you.

If you feel compelled to pass word directly to Lily or should happen to run into her in the days ahead, all I ask is that you respect the gravity of what she’s facing and the immensity of processing that at any age much less at nine. She has been privy to every conversation with the oncologist and the surgeon and has been given the opportunity to raise concerns directly. No punches have been pulled by anyone in speaking to those concerns. Tears and heartfelt apologies, genuine as they surely would be, are not helpful and Lily will not respond well to them.

Trust me.

My daughter does not aspire to be extraordinary, even if her mother and father already believe her to be. Lily loves being "just a regular kid" and cherishes the moments that make her feel like she is just that. In that, she mirrors her father. She is sufficiently frightened about what lies ahead, healthily so, and doesn’t need the well-wishing but too-evident worries of others to make her that much more scared. She remains just a kid and when this is in the rearview, she still will be. Treat her that way and I promise that you’ll have helped. Remember that our Piper Bea could use a little love and attention too and I promise that you'll have helped.

Thanks, in advance, to all of you from all of us. Thank you for caring about us and for sending us positive energy.

It means much to us, as do all of you.

beyond the stats.

The day one calendar replaces another is the day runners knee-jerkingly tally the numbers and report their statistics.

I'm a runner (I think), so here's my look back at 2014.

Mileage:  ?

Vertical Gain:  ?

Number of Summits:  ?

Finishes:  ?

Ultrarunners in particular love to tout the lessons that long-distance running doles out.  There's even a commonly held belief that the range of emotions, the physical highs and lows reached while covering 50-100 miles in a single day is nearly a condensed lifetime unto itself.

Maybe.

Or, more likely, it's just a more-than-a-normal-single-day experience.  To be fair, that's quite a lot and I don't mean to scoff so much as to maybe dial down the answers-to-everything mythos.

As an aside:  I sometimes wonder if there's an abstract math equation to prove that the degree to which a runner (or some other pick-the-sport athlete) holds up the tutorial aspects of her or his running (swimming, baseball hitting, pole vaulting, hot dog eating, etc.) is directly relative to how much he or she is ignoring or denying the factual lessons of real life.

I share those things I think I've learned through running with my children and feel quite certain that the love and respect of the outdoors that is the real impetus for my being out on the trails has impacted them and made them aware of the fact that there is magic in the natural world not equaled or matched by virtual reproductions or distractions.  After that, my favorite hobby takes a backseat to other realities in terms of bestowing wisdom (have I any). 

___________________________

Which brings me to a Target parking lot a few weeks ago.

Lily and Piper Bea had accompanied me on (for me) a brave venture into the teeth of holiday retail madness.  We had knocked out the last of our gift gathering and for the most part avoided any of the mine-mine-mine consumer conflict the mass media is all too happy to report.  Said conflict is surprisingly easy to avoid if you don't yourself feel entitled to, well, everything.

We'd walked in with smiles and we walked out with smiles, an admittedly minor miracle on my part as I tend to be all too on-the-watch for reasons to be disappointed in humanity on shopping excursions.  Shame on me for such a mindset and perhaps writing this post is yet another lesson learned.

As we steered out of our aisle and passed by the other stores in the shopping center, I noticed an elderly woman approaching a crosswalk on a motorized grocery cart.  I coasted into a stop well ahead of the crosswalk and gently waved the woman across with my biggest of neighborly smiles.

She grimaced in my direction and pulled one hand off the steering column to gesture towards the ground as though demanding me to stop.  I had already stopped.  I was stopped, smiling, and patiently waiting for her to cross.

The furrow on her brow deepened and she wagged a pointed finger at me before repeating her "slow down" gesturing.

Stunned, I felt my smile melt into a confused gape, my gentle waving turning into a frustrated shrug and a sweeping arm pleading for the woman to "cross the road already".

Exasperated, the woman shook her head accusingly from side to side and inched into the crosswalk.  As she and her cart crept by in front of our car, she continued to cast annoyed glances at me while muttering to herself.

I began to roll down my window with the intent of explaining to the woman that I had been stopped all along and had been happily intent on giving her the opportunity to cross safely.  Before I could say a word, she reached the other side, threw both of her hands in the air, and thrust them at me in a manner that made it clear I was being dismissed.

Remembering that the girls were in the backseat and recognizing that what was about to come out of my mouth was going to be something quite inappropriate, I rolled the window up and moved along.

"Girls, I just don't understand why people assume the worst.  I really do believe that, deep down, we are all good people and mean to treat each other fairly.  It's a real shame that we lose sight of that so often and that a joyous time like Christmas can actually cause us to be less nice, not nicer."

A peek in the rear view mirror revealed that my daughters were actually hanging on my words while looking curiously at the woman.

I continued spelling out how that woman had jumped to conclusions without even considering that....

just then a man stepped out in front of us waving his arms with an unmistakable urgency.

I slammed on the brakes, wondering what the hell was going on now and finding the want to escape the parking lot jumping to the top of my holiday wish list.

The man stepped to the front passenger window and I rolled it down to find out the nature of his flagging us down.

"Your headlights aren't on," came through the open window with a warmth that made me immediately appreciative and thoroughly embarrassed at my own assumptions.  My rescuer began to walk away from our vehicle, stopped, turned back to the open window and smiled a "Happy Holidays to all of you" before returning to his errand and vanishing into the store.

By the time I repositioned my dropped jaw and processed my having moments before teetered on the brink of yelling at an elderly, mobility-challenged woman who was trying to alert me to the fact that I needed to turn on my lights, there was no sign of her and any opportunity to apologize and thank her had been lost.  We drove around the parking lot for a few minutes making certain that she truly had gone.  Guiltily, I explained to the girls the mistake that I had made and asked them to forgive me for my having been so hypocritical.

"You are good, Daddy.  You are mostly nice to people."  So said my tell-it-like-it-is daughter, Piper Bea.

___________________________

Any respectable recap needs a stating of future goals, right?  I actually don't know if that's right, but let's agree that it is.

So, here goes:

2015 Goals:  Be good, be nice.  Good-er and nicer than the day and years before.  Heed every lesson not just those imparted while wearing a race bib.

Everything else'll figure itself out.  Always has, always will whether I run 1 mile or 10,000, stand atop a mountain or don't, finish every race or fail to even start a single one.

Do glad.  Be nice.  Be good for goodness sake.

new wheels.

Do you remember the giddy anticipation you had when you got your first car?

I do.

Unfortunately, our running family's newest set of wheels arrived just ahead of a foot or more of snow, so it won't get an immediate test, but Spring looms (have you ever really believed in the predictive powers of large rodents?).

In the meantime, the girls went ahead and picked their seats and patiently let me fine tune their respective harnesses.  Lil spent the next half hour buckled in her seat, reading books, eating string cheese and singing/humming songs.  If I could pry her hands free of that string cheese, I'm pretty sure the Kelty Speedster Swivel Deuce would receive two thumbs up.

Stoked.

learning.

Because of backpacking last weekend and letting the days that followed slip away, I stepped out the door this morning well aware that it had been over a week since my last run. I had been doing a good job of maintaining mileage, but as has happened in the past, I'm amazed by how quickly discipline can falter.

Turning the sound down low and turning my body over to the running that it loves was long, long overdue.  I love my job but it has no right to consume every waking minute much less some sizeable portion of my non-waking minutes.  I adore my children but they're sure to have a better father at their disposal if I manage to get in some exercise and clear some mental fog.  My wife is a treasure and, as such, she deserves a husband who isn't diminished by a lack of physical exertion and an inability to get out from under the weight of everyday stresses.  Even the dog stands a greater chance of some attention if I get in a run.

So, with the support of the whole family, off I went.

After a sustained period of temperatures hovering at or well below freezing, today's mid-40s felt almost Spring-like.  The sun was shining and the winds had lost the aggression of the preceding weeks.  I pointed myself in a direction with a vague notion of which roads I planned to turn onto and how far I expected to wander.

Once upon a time, I felt the need to time every run, to go further than the time before and to do it faster than the day before.  I learned the hard way that "success" by that definition is unsustainable and a fool's goal.  Other than an occasional glance at a clock on the way out the door, I can't remember the last time I purposely timed a run.  And, not surprisingly (at least to me), I've never enjoyed running more.  I'm consistently reminded that every run--short or long, flat or hilly, fast or slow, trail or road--is a learning experienced.

Early hills brought on a welcome fatigue that I was able to power through and embrace.  After the first 4-5 miles, I enjoyed a sustained stretch of downhills that were followed by rolling, manageable miles.  Before I knew it, I'd put nearly 11 miles and several days of anxiety behind me:  http://www.usatf.org/routes/view.asp?rID=344286

I stepped through the front door in need of hydration and food, but all my other needs were fulfilled by the run and the three sets of smiling faces that awaited my return.

Clouseau's wagging nub added to the welcome.

Another lesson learned.

regrets.

I did something this morning I'd promised myself I'd never do.

I left home without hugging my girls goodbye. 

I've done it before, sadly, but only because they were fast asleep at the time.  It didn't bother me on those occasions (maybe a little), but it sure has my heart aching today.

They probably didn't even notice, so busy were they watching holiday DVDs and, in Piper Bea's case, perfecting crawling skills.  Doesn't make me feel any better, however, about being more focused on running pre-work errands than on keeping promises.

Almost makes me hope for coal in my stocking, just to keep me honest.