First post of 2022!

 

Henri after his first haircut of 2022

Jane and Family Update:

A belated Happy New Year to everyone!  I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy.

I last posted in November after the NYC Marathon, which now seems so long ago.  I guess we should be getting used to how much the world can change in just a few months.  We made it back to Canada over the holidays to visit Todd’s family.  We drove to Montreal and then flew to Winnipeg from there in order to avoid the cost and hassles of flying across the border during the pandemic.  We made it home before Omicron hit and managed to keep everyone healthy.

We had a lovely month with Helen at home, who is now back at school and well into her sophomore spring semester at Mount Holyoke.  Alec managed to submit all his college applications by the deadline of January 1 and hopes to start hearing back from schools next month.  Meanwhile, Jane is excelling in her first year of high school <3

 

NF Update:

We were supposed to go to the National Institutes of Health for Jane’s latest restaging in mid-January, but the trip was canceled due to the Omicron COVID surge.  We had to scramble to get all her testing done at home over the last few weeks—no small task, since it includes blood work, physical exam with our pediatrician, EKG, echocardiogram, and check-ups with ENT, Dermatology, and Ophthalmology.  A big surprise—NIH is not requiring that Jane have an MRI for this restaging!  She had been scheduled for an MRI if we had traveled to NIH, but our team felt that, since Jane’s facial plexiform has been stable for the past year or more, there was no need to schedule one at home.  They felt that the risks of the pandemic outweighed the need for the MRI.  While we’re thrilled not to have to go through yet another MRI, it feels strange.  Jane, now almost fifteen, has never gone more than six months without an MRI since she was a little over a year old.  We still have one more appointment to go (ophthalmology) next week.  Once all her testing is done we hope to have the go-ahead to continue Jane’s medication.

 

Running Update:

Week of 1/3/2022	17.6 mi	2:55:25
Week of 1/10/2022	20.9 mi	3:28:03
Week of 1/17/2022	20.8 mi	3:24:49
Week of 1/24/2022	19.3 mi	3:14:40
Week of 1/31/2022	22.5 mi	3:46:32
Week of 2/7/2022	22.5 mi	3:48:03
Week of 2/14/2022	30.7 mi	5:11:03

I’ve almost got my race schedule settled for the year, and just in time because the first race is coming up in less than a month—the NYC Half Marathon!  Without further ado, our 2022 Events:

NYC Half Marathon—Sunday, March 20

Cheshire Road Race Half Marathon—Sunday, April 10

Providence Marathon—Sunday, May 1

New Haven Road Race Half Marathon—Monday, September 5

Fall marathon TBD (New York or Chicago?)

Philadelphia Half Marathon—Saturday, November 19

This will be my first time running the Providence Marathon, which I’ll run instead of the Vermont City Marathon.  I promised my college roommate, Dara, that I wouldn’t do the Vermont City Marathon this year because it falls during our 30th Yale reunion weekend.  (Yikes!  Which is scarier??)

If you’d like to start donating to our 2022 fundraiser, you can!  Here’s the link:

www.KRath4Jane.com