Searching for Solid Footing was started just after my 40th birthday. It is a blog born out of the sliding doors change of direction my life has taken since the birth of my daughter and her medical odyssey toward the diagnosis of a rare form of mitochondrial disease. It captures how my life took a serious change in direction as I focus on my daughter’s health and care. It recounts my pursuit of training for distance running and triathlon as a means to try and carve out a sense of self in a life highly charged with the care of another, and provides a metaphor for the ever elusive ‘solid footing’ myself and my training partners search for during long winter runs. This blog captures my daily attempts to stay on top of my life and to adjust to the week to week, day to day and moment to moment changes that I wake up to due to my young child’s unstable health.

Searching for Solid Footing is how I live my life. It is not a search for balance or making the most of each moment – two ideas I consider to be highly elusive and emotionally exhausting. It is reacting to daily struggles and challenges – having set plans that must be set aside for more pressing matters – and finding solid footing to move forward and carry on in the best way I can.

I plan to share insight from my life experiences on mitochondrial disease, medical advocacy, navigating the health care system, parenting a special needs child, family life, training-fitness-health, competing for those who can’t, and my thoughts and observations on raising my 2 children.

And maybe more.

Thanks for reading.