It's been more than seven months since I've had to step away from running . While I've been able to do other things during this time, I've experienced strong and varying emotions every day that I haven't been able to run. It occurred to me only recently, while watching an episode of Jane the Virgin  (an excellent show that I was pretty skeptical about initially), that I've been grieving the loss of running. In the episode, Jane recaps how she went through the well-known Kubler-Ross five stages of grief in one day, over the loss of a relationship. But it was her highlighting of these stages that made me realize I'd been going through the same thing—except over months, and over the loss of running. It may seem trivial, especially given the grave and tragic world events occurring daily, to make such a big deal out of running, but we all still have our personal challenges to deal with each day, and I in no way mean to minimize the suffering of others in this ...

Pain is life--the sharper, the more evidence of life. --Charles Lamb I've been experiencing a lot of "life" lately. For the past year, I've struggled to get a diagnosis for pain that I've felt on and off, and almost daily for the past seven months. I first noticed the pain around my left ear, and then on the back left side of my tongue and sometimes along my left jaw, and more recently into my head and sinus area. I went to my dentist, who referred me to an oral surgeon, who referred me to an ENT. Next, I went to three different ENTs who could not find anything wrong with me. I subjected myself to many frightening medical tests, halfway hoping to find something, halfway not. I did not. I decided after my last disappointing ENT visit that I had nerve pain, possibly a neuralgia (this was based on meager suggestions from ENTs, and the Internet, of course). I went to a neurologist, who ordered more tests, just when I thought there were no more that could possibly ...