About

You just want to know what Lauf(-) und Leckerei means?

Of course, if you want to know more than that, I'll tell you about me and my blog below.

Initially, I started this blog because it’s become a goal of mine to communicate better with family and friends. I’m living abroad and it’s always been a struggle to keep up with all of the important people in my life. My hope is that this will give me an outlet where I can share bits of my life, big and small. This site might seem a bit chaotic or even lacking a true theme, but so is life (or at least mine is)!

I’ve always loved food and trying new things, as well as being very active all through my life so that’s probably what I’ll write the most about. Recently I’ve developed a love for food blogs and often find myself drooling over the beautiful photos of food, however plain or exotic, so that will definitely be one element on here – hopefully with drool worthy photos to boot. Plus, I’m living in Germany and although I’ve already spent a few years here, I’m not going to deny you the pleasures of joining me when I get the chance to travel and explore. 

A lot has happened for me in the past year, which is why this has become so important. In early 2011, after almost half a year living and studying in Freiberg, I was at the gynecologist, who told me my prolactin levels were extremely high. I was sent for an MRI and it wasn’t long before it was confirmed that it was being caused by a pituitary adenoma, a growth on the pituitary gland. Now, the pituitary gland is often referred to as the ‘master gland’ because it not only produces and secretes hormones but the ones it does are important in the regulation of other glands of the body. It had led to amenorrhea for a couple years already, so although I was shocked to find out that I had a brain tumour, there was also an element of relief finally finding out where this was coming from and to be able to do something about it. 

I traveled to Dresden (it’s only 40km away) to meet with a neurologist and pretty soon after was being scheduled for an operation. It made me so happy that my family not only came to be with me while I was in the hospital, but that I was able to spend a couple weeks beforehand travelling around Germany with my parents and Johannes! Finally, it was decided that the best approach would be to operate through the skull (it is often an option to go through the nose/upper lip to reach a tumour in this region) and my operation was successfully carried out on August 30^th. The surgery was long, but without complications. I didn’t notice anyways - in fact I didn’t notice much of anything for a couple days. They kept me at the hospital for 2 weeks before sending me to a rehabilitation facility in Kreischa, a small village not far from Dresden. This is where, with the company of my mother, I finally got a bit more active and started to learn about all of the medication I’d have to learn to live with. 

Since I had no idea what I would do with myself if I took the whole semester off, I returned to Freiberg where I’m working on an MBA, and started attending classes only a couple weeks after they began in October. Between my studies, appointments, getting my life organized and learning to take care of myself again, it has been and continues to be a challenge. I don’t know anyone in the same situation and I’ve only recently started to think that I might somehow find a network online with people who can relate. Either way, I hope that through sharing on here others can learn something from my experiences as well. Because of this, I’d like to dedicate a portion of my blog to health topics. Rather than planning to back track through what has happened, my plan is to draw on the present, as I feel this is a continual learning process.

Finally, I will include posts about sports I do. Being active has been a big part of my lifestyle and although this past year has set me back quite a bit, I have gotten back into running. I’m already training myself towards my initial goal of completing the Oberelbe 10km race in Dresden at the end of April and am hoping to run one in under 54 minutes (I think that’s my personal best) by the end of the year. This is just a start, but it is very important to me as being active is my means of finally bringing some life back into my life. 

Feel free to contact me.