McGinley Method, Take 2

I stopped blogging after Week 6 because I had to focus on getting through the last weeks of school and getting myself miraculously back to Wyoming again. I had a lot of emotions having to return to Wyoming so soon, and I don't think I would have even tried to go through with it if it weren't for the outpouring of support people showed through their donations to my GoFundMe and my venmo. I've been home from Wyoming for a few days and have already started re-writing my Boston Marathon training. Every time I think it's over someone tells me it's not.... and when it's the doctor treating you that says you can run... well, why the fuck not?

The week leading up to leaving for Wyoming was absolutely insane. For starters, my phone stopped working on the Thursday before. It kept telling me no SIM. My sister was planning to come over on Saturday with her husband so that he could help assemble the giant playset our kids got from Santa.... My hope was to have it up before we left so that my mom, who was watching the girls, wouldn't have to do much because they would hopefully stay outside and enjoy the novelty of the backyard swingset and clubhouse. Well waking up on Friday, Maebel had a little cough so since we're still covid conscious around here, before Mary planed to come over we took the girls for Covid tests to be sure. On my way home (tests were negative as I expected) I stopped at T-mobile to get my phone fixed... and it they said I had to take it to an apple store... which is 45 minutes away and I was planning on doing this playset thing... so I wasn't going to have time to go to apple for a while. 

Mary cancelled on us because her daughter was sick. So we had to do the whole playset ourself! (My dad did come over, but questionable how much he helped as he basically just confused my husband haha! but having his better drill was helpful) It took us THREE full days and it was 85-95* and non stop sun each day! So... I never got around to getting a new phone and although I should have been checking my emails etc.... I just wasn't thinking because I was trying to compartmentalize everything and not think about Wyoming until I checked the other boxes in front of it. I am super impressed with how well we put the playset together though! 

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Super long story on the phone made short: it took 6 hours from the moment we left our house to go to apple and the moment we got home! They couldn't figure it out and ultimately I laid the law down and was like "I need a new phone... I'm going on a trip tomorrow and I need a phone" and they just gave me one because it was clear there was an unknown defect with my other one and I was still under warrantee. Because it was a brand new phone I had to re-upload all my apps and make it "My" phone again (get contacts back etc.) But there was just too much to do so I just was like "I'll do that when we wait for the plane"

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Well... We missed our first flight... I can't even tell you how close it was. I made it one minute before the doors closed and they gave Matt an extra two minutes. I was like "he was right behind me" but he usually does pre-check so at security he forgot to take his i-pad out and had to go all the way back through. Fortunately they got us a new flight just a bit later and  so we could sit, get breakfast, and I could set my phone up. We got on the plane with plenty of leg room (they upgrade our seat for free too) and after the flight landed I turned my phone back on and realized how many missed calls and emails I had from the McGinley clinic. SHIT. As it turns out I needed another referral for the CTA's. For some reason I missed that memo (dead phone) and just before my insurance had approved the previous CTA's so in my head I thought it was all encompassing. I don't know, in hindsight why would I ever think that? Insurance will add every bit of red tape possible! Anyway.... I call and find out we are going to owe $2,400 more dollars than we planned! I'm trying to figure out how to not end up divorced in the Denver airport, but Matt is so good, he was just like "we're here already, nothing we can do now but figure it out"... Ultimately we ended up using our mortgage money because we both get paid the day after our mortgage is due. Ugh. But stress level is at an 11. I at least hustled to get the referral in before the actual appointment so I can shoot for the reimbursement later. 

We made the best of it! Used a bunch of gift cards I got to starbucks from students and a few more people donated to the GoFundMe which helped a lot. THEN the babysitter cancelled on my mom.... So I had to find a new babysitter from halfway across the country. That was fortunately the easiest hiccup of the trip, but c'mon! Everything going wrong! This didn't make me feel good about being out here.

 My appointment wasn't first thing in the morning like it was the last time, so I was able to eat early in the morning (had to be fasted for 4 hours leading up to CTA) and we had a perfect weather in Casper so we explored a bit which helped ground me about the whole process. We arrived to get my CTA and even though it burned a bit, I coughed up the cash.... I got a picture this time with the MVP flex. I did notice it was significantly harder to press hard enough to be above 120lbs of pressure. My guess is this is partly because I still haven't fully adapted to the loss of muscle from the first round. I found that very interesting but pressed as hard as I could. I was sweating like crazy between the heat from the iodine, and just the amount of effort it took to create that force and hold it.... I was so relieved when the technician said "release"  

I continued to feel stressed about this whole process, but the stress went away when I finally got to the appointment. Dr. McGinley showed me the baseline images from May again, showed me how much better things were now, after the first treatment. Then showed me exactly where there was still entrapment which matched my symptoms (more on the right than left which usually hasn't been the case but if you followed my blogs I actually blogged about that). As soon as I saw the images, all that stress and money has been worth it again. It's a shame this isn't covered by insurance because not everyone would be able to do what we just did. We barely were able to do it and we had a lot of financial help from friends and family and also from the government with the stimulus (and soon with the child tax credit) and had to stretch ourselves financially a lot by putting our mortgage off a day (which we wouldn't have done had we known) and maxing out every credit card we have. Did I mention I also couldn't find my debit card to pay? God, I had put it so safely in my wallet that it was stuck between two cards and I couldn't see it. Matt had been really chill about the money up until that point, but I could see on his face that he was going to lose his mind if I lost the card. 

I got the botox put in. It hurt worse this time than last time. The first time they inject lidocaine to numb first, and then inject the botox, but to reduce the amount of needles they are now using a cold spray and to numb surface and I wasn't a fan. haha! But I will say I think that my legs feel less bruised having 50% less needles injected into me... ​

I wish that was where the bad luck stopped but we also got caught in freak hail storm when we were at a food truck place with Matts friend on our way back to Denver.... and then out plane was delayed almost 3 hours. 

So overall, not the best experience but the one thing that went right was the thing we came for, so can't complain! It was 99% worth it to see it's working... I'll reserve my last 1% for when this last little bit of artery and vein is free and I can run. I feel pretty confident... So much so that I've already put together a return to running program. In about 4 weeks I'll be running 6 weeks I'll hopefully be running 5-6 days a week and I'll be 9 weeks out from Boston. So I'll get 7-8 Weeks of specific marathon training if all goes well.