Today is a busy day.  

I’ve got everything packed for my hotel stay tonight, and we’ve dropped my son off at my parents house, where he’ll be staying while I’m in the hospital.  

My daughter and wife have an event to attend tomorrow evening, so there has been a lot of preparation for that too.

I’m also fasting to prepare for surgery, so there will be a lot of vegetable broth and sports drinks in order to keep my fluid intake and electrolytes up.

While dropping off my son, I decided to stop by at the clinic I went to before having my ileostomy.

I wanted to thank the nurse who had been my support through my drug trial.

The clinic is on the second floor of the medical building; a room that I had to take the elevator up to in order to get to my appointment just earlier this year.

If I wasn’t taking the elevator, I was being assisted up the stairs because I would have been too weak to do it alone.

But today was different. Today I took the stairs.

Not only did I go up those stairs without help, but I ran up them!

It was a small thing to do, but the significance of doing it was enormous. My ileostomy gave me back the strength and health to do it.

If you’ve ever suffered with a debilitating illness, like Crohn’s disease, you realize how important these small accomplishments are. And it was essential for me to realize just how far I’ve come in such a short time.

I was lucky that my nurse was available, and I could tell from the smile on her face that she knew I was doing great.

We talked about my upcoming surgery and about how I was doing. We only spoke for a few minutes, but I was glad to have been able to thank her.

Thank you, Sandy.

We said goodbye and she wished me good luck, then I left.

I also took the stairs down.