Monday, March 15, 2010

Tonight - A Poem

I rocked with you tonight
I breathed in the Johnson & Johnson smell of your soft hair
The peach fuzz that stubbornly returned
After chemo had claimed everything but your laughter
It moves as I exhale.

I wanted to snuggle
To pretend you were still brand new and vulnerable
When nothing could calm you except your pacifier and swaddle blanket
Before you were diagnosed
But you won't have it.

You would rather fight
And sit up and twist around and smile in my face
The wide toothless smile only an infant can master melts my heart
Begging me to put off your bed time
And get on the floor and play.

Common sense tells me you need to sleep
Your body needs to rest, to regenerate
The cells that were killed off, and the nutrients you lost
When you couldn't eat because of the nausea
That no amount of medicine would help.

When I look at your tiny cherub face
I wish I could still see the innocence of your youth
That has instead been replaced by the solemnity of facing your own mortality
Cancer has robbed you of your babyhood forever
Before you even realized you had one.

But my mothers intuition argues this
It says set her down and make her happy
Don't check the clock, don't replace the pacifier that fell out when she grinned
Make silly noises and tell secrets
Giggle until there is no room for worry.

She might be tired in the morning
And there are more exhausting days to come
But I refuse to let cancer take this away from us
When it has taken so much already
You can nap tomorrow, and we can have tonight.

Kristi M. Rufener

Friday, March 5, 2010

Bargaining

There are some things you give up when you go on a diet, and then there are some things you don't.

Hubbard Avenue Diner pie is one of the latter.

And today, in celebration of Bill McDonough's second year at Starion Financial, one of my co-workers showed up to work with said pie.

I know she didn't do it to spite ME, even though I have been wroking my butt off the past two weeks to get fit.

But there it sat...staring at me with it's creamy goodness... An Irish Cream pie with cute little green shamrock sprinkles...

I knew I was going to have some. It was inevitable.

So I compromised.

I spent my lunch as follows- one half hour was used for the car wash, which was ten people deep (always a guarantee in Wisconsin as soon as it hits fourty degrees), and the rest of my lunch was used for a one mile walk.

After making sure I was still in my calorie goal for the day, I rewarded myself with half a slice of heaven.

Worth it? Definitely.

And I know I can hit my fitness goal as long as I "Keep my eyes on the pies".

Kristi M. Rufener

Thursday, March 4, 2010

On Subliminal Messages

Last night was my third night on the C25K program, and by the end of the 1.19 mile jog/walk, I was in agony.

And not the good kind of agony where your lungs burn a little, and your muscles are weak, but you feel accomplished; nope, the kind of agony where it feels like someone cut your leg open and ripped out your tendons and muscles from your feet to your knees.

Kevin briefly joked about running ahead and getting the truck to pick me up, and I choked out a laugh and muttered, "Don't be silly," even though in the back of my head I was ready to cop a squat and flag him on.

It took every ounce of strength I had to drag my sorry butt to bed, and even more so to get my feet close enough to me to take off my shoes.

I figured I would feel better after some rest, right? Wrong.

Woke up this morning and it feels like there are tiny people in my knee high boots stabbing me with razor blades.

Got filled in by one of my coworkers (who works out regularily, something I didn't even know EXISTED!) that I probably have shin splints, and need to take a week or so off until they feel better or I could cause a stress fracture.

Now, if this isn't my own body sending me a message, I don't know what is. I guess shin splints are your body's way of saying WOOOAH, slow down a little here or I'm going to cause you unnecessary pain. (Or, as I like to think it's telling me, "Maybe you just weren't cut out to be a runner. Why don't you try your hand at competetive sleeping?")

So for the next week I am going to try walking a mile in my shoes and see if that helps.

On a side note- I think it's time to go back a year and remember what Charlotte looked like before she was diagnosed, and where she is now. So without further ado:




And here she is now:



(We are working on our sharing...)

Got Milk?


So, now that I typed that excessively long post, do you think I can count that as my exercise for the day??

Kristi M. Rufener

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Smarts- And I'm Not Talking About The Witty Kind

Because anybody with HALF a brain wouldn't have done the stupid, stupid thing I did two nights ago.

There I was, totally innocent, standing in the kitchen, microwaving dinner (hamburger helper, really healthy, just trust me).

My parents microwave is stationed above their stove, and I usually set whatever thing I am heating and eating right on the stove after it is warmed. However, this particular night, my dad was making Sweet Baby Mark's (long story about barbeque sauce that would probably encroach on some kind of trademark infringement), and Carla was making a grilled cheese and tomato soup, so most of the kitchen was being used.

Carla had finished making her food, and I had taken over the area, so before I set anything on the stove I wanted to make sure it wasn't so hot that it was going to melt the rubbermaid containers that I was cooking in.

Before I continue this story, I want to say that in MY defense, most people that use a stove leave the pan on the hot burner until everything cools down. It's sort of a signal that says, "Hey, I used this part of the stove, so it's probably still hot." At least, I like to think that most people do that. And since my parents have a GLASS top stove, it is only that much harder to figure out if it is still heated up or not.

Anyway, continuing on with my story, (and destroying almost all of the credibility that I ever had), I lowered my hand over the heating element on the right- it was warm, but not HOT- so I deduced that the left side was probably the same, and laid the back of my entire right hand on it.

Big mistake.

Because apparently, Carla had JUST finished making her grilled cheese on that burner, and moved her pan to the back of the stove leaving the burner uncovered.

Needless to say, I will never be a professional chef, because even I am pretty sure that no one in America goes for charred fingers with a side of bonehead.

I also found out that it is very hard to count money and type with a bandaged hand. Luckily, I am down to three band aides and a bruised ego, both of which are healing little by little.



So, if you were wondering why I haven't written anything lately, I plead temporary insanity.

Because only someone who has totally lost their marbles would put their hand on a hot stove.

Kristi M. Rufener