7 more and pondering...

I ran another 7 miles today (hadn't done ANYTHING since the last 7). Felt better, and I wasn't nearly as tired afterward. This week I need to ride my bike, lift, and do some speedwork. I find it super hard to stick to a running plan when I want to keep up with other things too. But I guess the big thing is just to get overall more fit, so it doesn't have to be all running all the time. I've missed boot camp the past few weekends, and will the next few, because of vacations and races (the "group long runs"). Plus I scrapped the core class when it started interfering with Andra's bedtime. So basically, I think I am just weaker than I should be, and that is affecting my running. I totally have noticed that my hamstrings feel much more tired than they used to. I need to make a much bigger effort to lift weights and do core stuff, some of which I can do at home so I have no excuses, but...I just prefer the classes. I actually think I can go to core this week since Andra's bedtime is later now thanks to summer and vacation.

I spent some time last week thinking about Andra's hemangioma. A few weeks ago I sent an email to probably the best birthmark/hemangioma doctor in the world, who happens to be right in NYC. He's a surgeon and he's done remarkable things for kids with dangerous and disfiguring hemangiomas. Now, Andra's is small, and purely cosmetic (not near her eyes, moth, nose, etc. all of which can be dangerous places for them). We are having it treated with lasers, but they've come close to doing all they're going to do at this point. They have greatly reduced the redness and probably helped stop the growth/spread of the tumor, but they don't penetrate deeply enough to do anything to treat the puffiness - hers sticks off her forehead about a centimeter, and looks not unlike the stump of a unicorn horn (in a good way!). Anyway, I emailed this guy a picture, and he wrote back saying that the lasers have probably done their job at this point, steroid injections (something our pediatrician had done to her daughter's hemangioma) would not really do anything, and the best thing to do would be to excise it - meaning, cut it out. Now, this guy is a surgeon. So of course he recommends surgery. And it wasn't like he was saying we should do it, just that we could. He gave me his phone number, and said to call in the evenings to best reach him (apparently he's a super nice guy, too). So I've been pondering what to do. I will probably call and talk to him at some point, that seems obvious. But the dilemma comes down to, is it worth it to have it removed? It will eventually go away on its own. But when? By the time she's 2? 3? 8? 10? There's no real way to know. It will start shrinking within the next year or so and gradually go down and away...but they all do it at their own speeds. Eventually she'll get hair enough to cover it. It's not really that big a deal, but would she want me to have it go away sooner? And (a question for the doctor) if we did remove it, does it matter if it's now or later, say at age 3 if it's still kind of big? Would it be easier and a relief just to make it all go away in a 2 hour surgery, or is the risk of the anaesthesia and just seeing her in the hospital for what is essentially an elective, cosmetic procedure not worth it? These are all basically unanswerable questions, and hardly a life-or-death situation. I have family friends who are in the midst of watching their second little boy wither away due to a mysterious mitochondrial disease, and so I'm hardly losing sleep over this decision, but still. The responsibility of parenthood is kind of intense sometimes.