cancer – day 55

I noticed two failings in my personality this week, things that I know about and I think I’m improving on, but I’m far from actually having it down. One is that I find it incredibly difficult to ask for favors or to ask someone to do something for me. I was raised to keep an eye about always looking for some little thing to do to make someone else feel special or to help them out a little, not that I’m good at it, but I do what I can. My mom is thoughtful like that to the extreme, the little things I see her do to make other people feel good are just phenomenal and never something that would have occurred to the person to ask her for. But I’m afraid to ask Mark the kind of questions where doing something for me that isn’t absolutely necessary would inconvenience him the least bit. It’s not because he would say no, I guess I just feel like I should save asking any favors unless I really need them, he’s already had to do so much, and we’re not even in chemo or radiation yet (nor do we even know if I have to do chemo, ach, irritating). The second failing, well, ok, maybe I haven’t made as much progress on that one as I thought, I’m not even sure how to describe it. Which reminded me, it’s the 19th. Five years and nine months. 🙁

Highlight! I can raise my right arm straight above my head again, with just a little pull in the scar tissue. But heck, a week ago I couldn’t raise my arm higher than my shoulder. Finally! Not much pain anymore either, unless I accidentally try to press out of that arm to sit up or roll over in bed, or get up from the floor (oy vey! that’s still terrible). No lifting yet, but it can hold some weight now too. Uff da, I’d forgotten how nice it is to be able to stretch your arms when your back and neck hurt from working at the computer too long! (Note to self . . . if you have to change your Excel screen to 125% zoom in order to see the equations, it’s time to get away from the computer screen.)