cancer – day 590 (I think)
I’ve become quite terrible about keeping up my blog, and yet on a daily basis there really isn’t anything interesting to write about. I work all the time, I spent most of November and December at my parents house and worked every weekend, and the neuropathy is a constant reminder that my body is still really messed up.
And then, last Sunday night, I was in an accident on the ice while traveling home, and now I have all kinds of estimates and repairs to deal with and I’m ridiculously freaked out about the release that’s supposed to go out on Friday that is dangerously far from being ready for publication and meanwhile I have my first mammogram on Thursday and a follow up appointment with the cancer guy (oncologist).
At the same time, I’m pretty darn calm about everything. I’m working 12-14 hours a day with few little breaks, and I know I’m doing everything I can to get the release out on time. The RV repairs are just something that has to be dealt with, and the biggest problem is how long it’s all going to take since my RV is a 2010 (though I managed to cause massive damage to it in 2009, before it was officially even around) and they have to manufacture the needed parts for repair since this is the only Winnebago Via of this model type in existence right now (they aren’t making more of them until March, I’m told). Similarly, the medical stuff is just more to deal with, and is generally something I try NOT to focus on.
The only other thing of importance in my life right now is my family, and they’re all doing pretty darn well. My dad’s shoulder surgery was a smashing success and he had very little pain and a fabulous physical therapy-enabled recovery. Mom finally slept again once Christmas was over . . . she was ridiculously worried about her grandkids not being able to have their usual wonderful Christmas with us because of that nasty Christmas storm in the upper Midwest. But we had Christmas a few days later, and that was fine. My brother’s family seems to be moving along their usual paths, kids in school and daycare and the usual parenthood stuff of managing three kids with one in hockey.
No more dancing. I’ve missed three really major dance events and a bunch of smaller ones in the past three months because of work and neuropathy. It’s probably time to stop calling myself a dancer or even a wanna-be. I used to be a dancer, and if I can do it again someday I will, but I’m not going to stress myself out over something I can’t enjoy because of how painful it is.
Walking is like that too, and so is typing, but those are things I have to do even if my feet and fingertips burn like they’re in a sizzling frying pan of bacon fat. I avoid pretty much all other contact with my hands or feet. I even shake hands less, now I give more hugs because it hurts so much to have people squeeze my hand.
Life changes; we adapt.