cancer – day 369
I’ve started trying to go for walks. In all honesty, the first “walk” was just to the end of my driveway and around the house. My driveway is a little bit of a winding road, though still no great distance. Not even far enough for a whole chapter of Jane Austen on CD, but I had my earphones on thinking I might try to go farther. Not that day, but later I started walking to where my dirt trail becomes a paved one. And tonight I went all the way out the trail to the “big” road, which is still barely wide enough to allow two cars at the same time. But the walk to there and back is about a mile, which is all I can tolerate with the neuropathy, even in my comfy old running shoes. I’m not even close to being able to do the hike around my property, but once in a while I Jeep the long way around to the lake/pond and enjoy the peacefulness of that. On my new little walks, I don’t move quickly, I can’t really call it exercise, but I keep making myself do it as a means to get used to my feet burning while I’m on them, so I can get through the mile-long breast cancer walk in two weeks. I swear next year I’m going to register for “Sleep in for the Cure.”
The neuropathy still burns all the time with inexplicable variation (between bad and unbearable, which is a shockingly wide range, believe it or not), except that it’s decidedly worse when I’m on my feet much or use my hands much. In that, nothing seems to have changed since the neuropathy started during chemo. But I tell myself that I’m handling it better now, enduring it better, and I’m determined, however gradually, to get back to some semblance of the more active life I had before neuropathy. I honestly don’t know if that will involve dancing, and it’s becoming more and more unlikely that I’ll get back to teaching tango or ballroom & latin. The most painful thing I could imagine doing to myself right now is stand on a hardwood floor, even a sprung one, in heels for 45 minutes to teach a lesson or class. And, my gosh, the thought of doing that to my feet to teach multiple hours is unimaginable. So, the longer the neuropathy wears on, the less I expect to teach again.
I’m making a concerted effort to get back into the dance circuit again, though. I have two swing conventions coming up for sure, Memorial Day in Fresno and 4th of July weekend in Phoenix, and from Phoenix I’m planning to go to some of Nora’s Tango Week in San Francisco, though my dancing may still be extremely limited at something like that. But I’m going. I sent in my registration today, as a matter of fact. The money’s spent, I’m going. And I’m forcing myself into it by telling everyone I’m going. I have to keep trying.
Ahh, if only willpower and determination could cure nerve damage, eh?