KITTERZTOO.COM: New York City Part 2: My Marathon

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New York City Part 2: My Marathon

My blaring alarm startled me awake. It took me a second to realize I was in New York and not at home. The bed was just that comfortable at the Hilton. I didn’t want to get up, but I needed to make some phone calls. I called my NYC twitter friend, @OpinionatedGift , who warned me with the weather being in the 90s to buy some Gatorade™ or Smart Water™. He told me about the subway system and which one route I should take. I was really going to need it for my trip to see the Statue of Liberty. I also planned to see him later that evening with @MajorBedhead in the lobby of the hotel.

Immediately, I started slugging water like I was in the desert. The thought of having to walk for an extended period of time, left a knot in my stomach. Months earlier I couldn’t stand for more than five minutes without pain shooting down my legs. That usually happened before the muscles burned with pain. I couldn’t walk very far either without needing to sit down. I have a spinal disk extrusion in the lowest part of my back. Part of the inside of the disk had squirted out into the disk space and was now rubbing on the nerve roots of my spine. The pain is excrutiating. Being so overweight makes the pain worse due to it mostly all being in my stomach. Most of the weight is in front, pulling downward to the point that the muscles in my back can’t hold it. Add to that, Fibromyalgia, and you’ve got a recipe for failure.

One day I got sick of it. I decided to join an athletic club with a wonderful warm exercise pool. I started swimming two days a week in May, 2010. By the time I left for this trip, I swam five days a week taking cardio swim classes three days a week. It’s like aerobics, but in the water. It’s a very intense workout that nearly killed me a couple of times. Well, not really, but I felt like dying afterwards. I would swim two to five hours a day. That’s not just hanging out in the pool. I was treading water, doing resistance training, and cardio. Yet, I wasn’t losing any weight.

Frustrated, I went to my doctor. I had a lot of swelling which was a lot of water weight. He put me on heavy-duty diuretic, and for the trip, he put me on Fentanyl patches. I noticed within the first week I could walk a lot farther with the pain medication. The swelling going down helped significantly.

Sitting in my hotel room, I slapped on another Fentanyl patch hoping to kill whatever pain I had walking. I don’t think I knew quite what I was in for. I was so nervous that I began this whole body sweat. Literally, I wore 12 hour makeup which actually seemed to be more like 3 hour makeup when the day was through. Part of it was nervousness. She would be the first twitter person I would meet. The other part was it was so bloody hot in the whole building. Whoever thought of having BlogHer in the beginning of August in a city that has is essentially asphalt was unbelievably ignorant. I grabbed a handful of paper towels as I headed down to the lobby. If it was this hot down there, I just knew I was in for trouble later. I could already feel the sweat dripping down my back. For fuck’s sake! Some impression I’m going to leave! That’s me, the fat sweaty lady who can’t walk far without having to sit every few feet. I had a couple of minutes to take deep breaths before she arrived.

Meeting Nichole in the lobby, I could tell right away that she had a vibrant soul. Her personality exuded from her, as I was so happy to finally hug the person I’d stayed up nights chatting with on Twitter. She brought a friend along, and I could tell she was just as friendly as Nichole. I immediately felt at ease. We all jumped into a cab and headed toward the subway. Normally, they could walk, but they both knew I wouldn’t be able to. Of course the first thing to happen to break the ice even more was when we got rear-ended by another cab. The cabbie wasn't sure whether to get out and go look, or just blow it off. He got out, looked, and shouted a couple of obscenities at the cab behind us. He jumped back in just in time for the light to turn green. To add to the "What the fuck?" file, a van pulled around us with the business name not only hand-painted, but also misspelled. Instead of the word, "Trucking", it was spelled "Truking". I wonder if they're in the phone book under that name?

Seeing the subway for the first time was interesting. It’s exactly how you see it on television; just a staircase going below street level. It’s so gritty, dirty, and raw below street level. Did I mention stifling? Yeah, if you thought it was hot above ground, just take it below into the steam tunnel of grunge. We all decided to get an all day pass, and of course you can only get that at the self-serve machine of confusion. Do you think one of the options was “All Day Pass”? No, that would be too simple. So, of course asking other people around you which option to choose is amazingly helpful. Finally, with passes in hand, it was time to enter the platform.

As I turned around, I realized the only way to get onto the platform was through turnstiles. That ranks up there on my oh-shit-how-am-I-going-to-fit meter. I figured once I swiped my card, I would cram myself through, much like a sausage extruder. Amazingly, I didn’t have too much trouble. By now, the sweat is pouring off me and I’d resigned myself to the fact I wasn’t going to look stylish or trendy. Fuck no. I was going for that Slip-'N-Slide couture. Just throw me down on the ground and have a run at me. I seriously think you could have just slid right off of me. I was just that wet.

The subway sounds exactly like you hear it on television. Television, as you know, has prepared me for many things in my life; subway etiquette being one of those things. It’s similar to elevator etiquette, but just a whole lot faster and a total contact sport. First, I noticed the “Step Aside” embedded into the floor of the subway. So in other words, don’t stand right in front of the opening doors and get the hell out of the way. As passengers get off, you shove to the outside and slink in as fast as you can. Luckily, I didn’t trip at all, and was able to squeeze in without anyone swearing at me. Success!

I was so excited! Not only was it my first subway ride, but also the car also had air conditioning! Oh sweet air conditioning! Thanks to Nichole, she’d researched everything and knew which stop to get off at. That unloaded a ton of stress so I could relax and do what I love: observing people and the experience itself in detail. I think the Mariachi band complete with cowboy hats getting on midway through the ride was an added bonus. It’s that train wreck moment where you mentally say “Okay…” and just watch the weirdness unfold. They sang and played guitars. I was somewhat disappointed they were only on for two stops, but hey, I expected as much because they weren’t getting any serious tips on our car.

Soon, we were at our stop near Wall Street. I saw the huge amount of stairs and realized as I was climbing them that I was extremely light-headed. I shrugged it off and slugged more water thinking it was dehydration from all the sweating. At the top of the stairs was the most lovely farmer’s market. Seeing all the fruits and vegetables under the tents made me wish I could buy a pint of strawberries for the trip back. It was surprisingly windy, and I attribute that to being so close to the water. I could see the Hudson River from Wall Street.

We met Nichole’s old coworkers, one of which was Maureen. She was so exuberant, and you could literally feel happiness just standing next to her. They all picked a place to eat, which I realized was five city blocks from where we were. There were no taxis in the area. I’m fucked. I’d already had to squat down to unlock my back a couple of times. At that point, I really didn’t know how in the hell I was still walking. I’d already smashed my all time record for walking since 1999. I quickly scanned the neighboring buildings. There was one restaurant close by. Do I say something? I didn’t want to be rude, but I knew damn well, that I was already hitting the red zone in pain tolerance. Even with the breeze I was a drenched mess of sweat. So, I turned to Maureen and explained to her my situation. With a caring smile, she said she’d explain what was going on. I still felt self-conscious. I could feel the blush of embarrassment staining my cheeks red. I could tell no one liked the idea of going to Chipotle restaurant, but they begrudgingly agreed to go. I felt like shit doing that to all of them. I knew if I did walk up the five city blocks, I would be unable to walk back and then continue on to see the Statue of Liberty. No way was that going to happen.

I tried to shrug off that nagging feeling of dragging everyone down. I hated not being able to walk the five blocks. I hated not being normal. That damn word, normal, has haunted me for most of my life. I still feel the need to apologize for not being normal. As we all sat down to eat, the restaurant was hot and I wish we could have enjoyed the breeze outside. I didn’t talk much. Fact was, I was really light-headed, my legs felt like lead when I stood up, I couldn’t get my pulse rate down, and I couldn’t catch my breath. As a former EMT, I knew a couple of those symptoms were disturbing. My blood pressure was low and I was possibly becoming dehydrated. I knew I needed to get electrolytes in me. There wasn’t any Gatorade for purchase. I would have to make do with the bottles of water I was chugging. I just made a mental note of my symptoms, and figured if it got worse, I’d tell someone.

We parted company with Maureen and began walking toward the river. I had no idea where we were supposed to go, so I wound up asking a police officer for help. We were directed to an area beyond the park. By now, I was in some serious pain. I couldn't breathe, and now I was starting to feel like I could pass out any second. I think the only reason I hadn't is that I kept screaming "Don't you dare collapse before you see the statue!" in my head. As I trudged across the park, I could see the ferry for the Statue of Liberty moored along the river bank. I knew I was almost there.