cancer – day 346

When I’m working this much and not doing anything else but getting some crummy sleep, journaling just seems to be beyond me. My hands are in pain all day typing for work, using the mouse, holding the phone, and the neuropathy gets worse through the day the more consistently I have to use my hands. One nice thing, it’s been warm. I think the excessive cold was making it worse when I was visiting my parents in South Dakota for Christmas. But even though the weather is beautiful, working all day really puts my hands through hell. My feet haven’t been as bad as my hands, maybe because I’m not constantly putting pressure on them. At home I wear really loose big wool socks that don’t squeeze my feet, and though they get the stabby pains a lot it isn’t nearly as severe as when I try to dance.

I haven’t danced since early December at least. I taught with Mark once in January, but teaching isn’t dancing, and by the time I’d spent an hour standing and walking on the hardwood floors to teach the class, well, I couldn’t even stand the rest of the night, so forget trying to dance.

But I’ve been so busy I don’t miss it very much. There will be these moments where I’ll miss it, but mostly I’m so tired, and it’s been over six months since I could dance without neuropathy pain. It not too hard to convince yourself not to miss something that causes you constant increasingly severe physical pain.

But right after the Summit I’m making another attempt at a West Coast Swing Convention, in Reno the weekend after the Summit. I fly back from Atlanta, have one night at home to clean up after the fish and the cats, one day to work from home, and then I’m off to Reno (with the cats).

Far be it for me to have a weekend of rest after the Summit! And you know, even though rest is good, my body really needs the quiet time on the couch late in the evening, not using my hands and not forcing my mind to be so “on” (which requires a lot more effort now than before cancer/chemo). But I’m really looking forward to this dance weekend as a complete escape from how hard I’ve been working and struggling to perform at the professional levels I used to and wiping myself out by it every day including the weekends now. Dancing, I won’t be resting my body nearly as much as I would if I stayed home in the forest, but my mind will be relieved and at rest because the Summit will be over and I won’t punch into anything new until the following week.

I have used this line on myself a lot in my career . . . “The best thing about deadlines is that they are the end, and the next day will be something new.” I’ve stopped caring about having any “great accomplishments” in my life. I’ve achieved so much that the need for it burned out in me. The need to make some recognized achievement that it. It doesn’t change my professionalism or the level of effort and quality I put into my work, but, well, I guess the difference is that I don’t care about getting credit or having things recognized as my accomplishment.

I wonder if that will change when I’m healthier. I wonder if, when I feel better, I might care about that kind of stuff more again, like, getting recognition in order to get a promotion and a raise and all that. But honestly? Right now? I don’t want more, and I would be happy just being able to do what I do well and without neuropathy or chemo brain making t difficult to be my old successful self.