A Mommy Story

I’ve started looking back on the year that just ended, and while I have so many good memories of the year, and so many moments to be thankful for, I also quickly realized this wasn’t the best year for our health.

For starters, this was the year of the stomach virus for us. It started at the most magical place on Earth in March, when Mira fell ill with a gastrointestinal virus, three days into our Walt Disney World trip. Aaron caught it two days later, and Cordy caught it a day and a half later, on our drive back home. While it did keep the family from seeing Animal Kingdom, we still managed to visit the other parks, although Aaron’s visit to Hollywood Studios was only a half day.

No, Aaron wasn’t the one taking this picture – he was sick in bed that morning.

A couple of months later, Cordy again fell ill with some kind of stomach bug at the end of our Cedar Point trip. On the upside, at least she didn’t get sick until the end of the trip.

In September, we were excited to attend an annual picnic of a group of friends, many of whom we only get to see once or twice a year. After driving two hours to the picnic, Cordy immediately became sick, and we had to turn right back around and go home, missing the event entirely. She also missed nearly a week of school after that because she was so sick.

In December, it was Mira’s stomach that required us to leave our friends’ annual Christmas party – long before we were ready to leave – after she unexpectedly lost her dinner.

So…what have we learned? Much better and more frequent hand washing, that’s for certain. I’m not sure how the kids fell victim to so many stomach viruses in a single year, all during the worst possible times. As they’ve grown older, they’ve become much better about keeping their hands clean and keeping hands away from their face as much as possible. Mira still has a desire to touch everything around her, though, so I’m sure that was the cause of at least the Disney outbreak.

I’m hoping 2015 will bring us stronger immune systems and no illnesses poorly timed to traveling or important events.

Personally, 2014 was a year of too many injuries for me. I spent the first part of the year with a shoulder that wouldn’t move without intense pain due to a poorly placed flu shot that caused subacromial bursitis. I’ve never had a shoulder injury before this, so learning to get dressed and perform daily activities with a limited range of motion on the left side was frustrating. The injury improved with a cortisone shot and 6 weeks of physical therapy, but then flared up again over the summer.

So far my shoulder has been pain-free since my second cortisone shot in August, but I can’t say for certain that it won’t flare up again. I’m wishing for no shoulder pain in 2015.

If that wasn’t enough: I started running more in 2014, and just as I was getting into the groove and starting to LOVE running, something started to hurt on the outside edge of my foot. Since mid-October, I’ve been dealing with tendonitis that is stubborn to heal. (Or maybe I’m the one being stubborn, because I want to get back to running.) Two and a half more weeks in the boot, and then hopefully I’ll be allowed to start running again.

I cannot wait to get this thing off.

I want 2015 to be my best running year ever. I can’t wait to get back to training for the runDisney Enchanted 10k, and maybe even try for a longer distance later in 2015.

I’m not saying 2014 was terrible. These are mostly minor issues – very minor compared to some illnesses and injuries – and I’m thankful that we’re all still relatively healthy. I’d just like to be even more healthy in 2015.