I returned from Chicago today.  So much happened in just a short amount of time.

I arrived in Chicago on a sunny and warm Wednesday afternoon.  I took an Uber to my Airbnb in Oak Park. The owner of the building lives on the first floor.  The second floor, where I stayed, consisted of two rooms, a large kitchen, a bathroom, and a private deck where I sat and soaked up some Chicago September sun. The whole upstairs was for me, and later to be shared with my sister Nora, who arrived the next day.

On Thursday, I went to see the fab Leo, hair stylist extraordinaire. I met him back in January and was happy to get an appointment with him for a hair cut.  After he cut and styled my hair, I walked around downtown Oak Park and marveled at the shops and restaurants full of people. Back in January, there were four businesses open: one happy hour type tavern, the hair salon, the jewelry shop, and the wine shop.  Back in January, the snow covered most everything and I walked along a shoveled foot path, the snow covering the public benches. So you can imagine how nice it was for me to see what downtown Oak Park really looks like.

Feeling quite glamorous, I went back to the Airbnb to meet Nora and John. Nora brought her bags in and off we went to RML Specialty Hospital to present Toni’s medical team with Toni’s artwork, a gift of gratitude, painted while Toni was a patient there in the hospital. Her artwork is titled Trees: Lungs of the Earth.

It was quite emotional, stepping into the hospital, several months later. The security guards greeted us with a warm smile. The receptionist, who must have taken my temperature some 75 times, was effusive in her greetings! And then there was the medical team.

I will include two videos and a photo here for you to get a feel of the visit.

La Tarsha, Patient Ambassador, told the story of how, if a medical staff was assigned to take care of Toni for the typical two-day shifts, they’d form a bond with her.  Afterwards, long after their assigned shift was over, they’d come back to revisit Toni, before or after their shifts, even if they were assigned to a different floor in the hospital.  As a result, there were so many people stopping by Toni’s room just to greet her and chat briefly with her! La Tarsha jokingly told Toni that she was going to set out a Red Carpet for Toni!  Toni thought that was pretty funny!

La Tarsha also told the story of how the patient next door to Toni’s room asked La Tarsha, “What’s going on in that room next door? Do they have food or something?”  And La Tarsha would have to play it down. “No, there’s just another patient in there.”

Here’s a video of La Tarsha telling the Red Carpet Story:

VIDEO #1

And here is the reading of the dedication for the RML Staff:

VIDEO #2

The hospital visit was followed by a celebratory Greek feast in Chicago. And the next day, we headed over to Indiana with my nephew Chuck for our duathlon.

Here is my niece Angela:

IT WAS HARD.  Maybe it was because we had to get up at 3am in order to drive over to Peru, Indiana to a state park called Mississinewa Lake. Peru, Indiana’s clocks are set at one hour ahead of Valparaiso, Indiana. Yes, there’s a one hour time change depending where you are in the state of Indiana. I dozed in the car, but felt bad about Chuck having to drive. I knew he was just as tired as I was, so even though I wanted to sleep, it was a guilt-ridden car-sleep and not a sound one. We arrived two hours later to a colorful sunrise and it was already 7am in Peru, Indiana. We checked in at 7:30am and the race began at 8:30am.  I had imagined there would be a huge crowd as I’ve experienced in the Danskin Triathlon in Seattle or in the Duathlon in Naperville, but it was a very small group.  There were a total of 100 volunteers for the event and well under 100 athletes!  More volunteers than athletes and only 7 of us were doing the Sprint Duathlon!

Before the first batch of Olympic Triathletes hit the water, we had a moment of silence for all perished on September 11th, twenty years ago.  What a world we live in! I felt so emotional standing there, thinking about 9/11.

Chuck and I ran and biked in tandem. Again, I felt bad that my nephew opted to keep pace with me. He is a great athlete and could have gone so much faster than me, but he stayed with his auntie.  The running trail was on pavement and then we ran through a deciduous forest on a dirt trail.  The bike ride went through some incredibly beautiful prairie land. We passed cornfields grown way past “knee high in July”, silos glimmering in the late summer sun, farm houses, stands of oak trees, and friendly folk sitting on their folding chairs, cheering us on!

There were so many thoughts going on in my head: I should have trained harder. Next time I’ll train harder. I don’t know. Will there be a next time? Ok, I’ll start training in November for next year’s event. Why did I go to bed at 10pm? Why didn’t I go to bed at 7pm? My legs ache. Maybe I should just stick to yoga. Yoga! How am I going to do yoga on Monday? I probably shouldn’t even be doing this.

I am so hard on myself!  Chuck kept telling me we were making good time, that we were doing well.

And then I remembered my muse! Toni!  I thought about how I cheered her on as she was being weaned off the vent! How a whole community of family and friends helped cheer both of us on as Toni struggled with each breath. How scary that was for her to use her weak damaged lungs to breathe and to slowly say goodbye to the machine that breathed for her all those months. How incredibly brave she was! And to wean off the ventilator twice. To have to start all over again. I thought all these thoughts and I kept running. I pushed past the pain until I forgot about the pain. I let go of the small talk, the idle head talk, the not-measuring-up talk. And I just pushed forward.

Pace Yourself.

Breathe.

And we did it.

And the day ended with a drive back to Chicago where the city sparkled with Never Forget tributes to the victims of the tragic 9/11 attacks. Yes, a very emotional time it has been.

https://vimeo.com/user15146408/download/603620581/267b45c49b

https://vimeo.com/user15146408/download/603620581/267b45c49b