Time has slowed down. Tomorrow approaches but slowly. Not that I'm taking advantage of it and getting everything in order. Instead I'm just trying to spend time with Jim and the kids. Nothing special, but some quiet time for us.
I've talked to Miles a bit. Not too much. And I've confused him. I mentioned that I'd have a procedure like last time I was in the hospital with Ian. He started talking about me having a baby. So, I have a little more work to do on the communication front.
I've compartmentalized tomorrow. I'm not worrying about cancer. I'm worrying about not being able to pick up Ian for three weeks. And you know this (23 pound) baby likes to be carried. But that's been my approach with cancer. Focusing on the foreground. Trees not forest. Today not tomorrow.
I keep thinking how many times in life have I longed, really longed, for something - an exam, a stressful work situation, a conflict, a busy few days, business travel, chemo - to be over and then it is. So, that's sort of my attitude toward the next few days. Two to four weeks of recovery compared to five months of chemo. It'll be over and on to the next thing before I know it.
My anxiety about my echo was for naught. I got some words about my MRI and am electing to wait to hear them all because I'm not sure I understood the preview. And if I did, it wasn't fantastic.
Last World Cup, I watched every match. I was home on maternity leave with Miles and it was hot out. I snuggled with this babe, neglected to make friends with the other yoga moms and watched soccer. I'm having a bit of a repeat. I've watched most of the matches and I am reintroducing Miles to soccer. I was devastated when he complained during one game about not enough scoring. How at four is he already a typical American sports fan? What have I done wrong? Obviously I have no one to blame but myself, so I blame basketball.
We are hunkering down. It's mid-afternoon. Miles is napping in my bed. Ian is napping downstairs. Jim is working on the first floor. I've tried to put things in order at work and set it aside. We've declined a dozen generous offers of dinner and company over the last few days. We have accepted delivery of many many kindness. Notes of support and encouragement, flowers and gifts, offers of meals and extra hands to help us juggle a no-lift Mom with two littles. Don't tell Miles I called him that.
Some laundry, some packing, some playing. Dinner time, bedtime scramble and then a little kicking cancer out surgery. I'm up for it.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Another nice thing about cancer: perspective
First, I've spent the week at the hospital. Monday a two hour wait, literally to see the surgeon. Wednesday, my round of seconds. Second echocardiogram. Second MRI.
The echo started easy. On time, efficient, kind tech. But then we got too friendly. I made a joke about whether my heart was doing its job (obviously to unsophisticated me) and got all this hemming and hawing about results will be reported to the physician but I had a right to view them with my physician. Well I don't know about before but that jolted the blood pressure upward. Then I was reassured that she didn't want to get in the way of my surgery. So, I don't know what the report says, but what I heard was there is something wrong or different from last time we looked at your heart but it isn't so bad we have to cancel surgery. On that high note, I made my way to the MRI.
I swallowed a large dosage Ativan in the stairwell on the way to the next building. Although appropriate and recommended by all medical professional consulted, the stairwell made me feel sheepish. I was early for my appointment and waited for an hour and a half. Mid-wait, I remembered that MRIs weren't just awful because of the claustrophobia but the noise. I had forgotten about the sound. If I hadn't been Ativan addled, I'd have left. My fear and anxiety were pretty significant. Instead I read my book without processing. I watched the large Persian man next to me while he watched videos on his phone. After an hour together in the waiting room we were called back. Then we separately but simultaneously changed into gowns and took our places in the interior waiting room. Very awkward to make that transition from civilian attire to patient attire at the same time as someone else. It made me feel very frail and exposed. I try so hard to only be sick in diagnosis not appearance.
I was called first. I learned with more alarm that the MRI would last forty-five minutes, not twenty-five. Amen to Ativan. This radiation tech talked me through it and it was manageable. It ended on a funny note. My poor Persian fellow patient was still waiting when I got out and I got to witness his shock at seeing me post MRI ... Still gowned but now without a wig. I didn't care. At least my MRI was over.
Back again this morning for bloodwork. Nothing like three trips to the hospital in four days to bring sorrow to the forefront. Today's visit involved a fair amount of tearing up. For no particular reason aside from the obvious. I wrote Father's Day cards and cleaned out my purse while I waited.
But to the optimism. Today is a week since the first plumber arrived to snake out the clogged waste water line from our house to the DC sewer line. In the past week, we've had: two or three private plumbers; two DC WASA plumbers; one emergency dig out by DC WASA, including backhoes and dump trucks, very exciting for Miles; a sudden reversal of responsibility by DC WASA notwithstanding that they had already dug up my backyard and tore out my back steps; and now in a motion of pragmatism rather than defeat, multiple contractors consulted on the project. I hope for a possible resolution in the next few days. But cancer helps you not freak out about no real access to water in our home for a week now. With quick showers, judicious flushing, baths at neighbors and laundry at Mom's, we are managing. But this is the type of thing that would have driven me crazy a year ago. Now, it hardly registers. It is a problem that needs to be solved. Just one of many.
The echo started easy. On time, efficient, kind tech. But then we got too friendly. I made a joke about whether my heart was doing its job (obviously to unsophisticated me) and got all this hemming and hawing about results will be reported to the physician but I had a right to view them with my physician. Well I don't know about before but that jolted the blood pressure upward. Then I was reassured that she didn't want to get in the way of my surgery. So, I don't know what the report says, but what I heard was there is something wrong or different from last time we looked at your heart but it isn't so bad we have to cancel surgery. On that high note, I made my way to the MRI.
I swallowed a large dosage Ativan in the stairwell on the way to the next building. Although appropriate and recommended by all medical professional consulted, the stairwell made me feel sheepish. I was early for my appointment and waited for an hour and a half. Mid-wait, I remembered that MRIs weren't just awful because of the claustrophobia but the noise. I had forgotten about the sound. If I hadn't been Ativan addled, I'd have left. My fear and anxiety were pretty significant. Instead I read my book without processing. I watched the large Persian man next to me while he watched videos on his phone. After an hour together in the waiting room we were called back. Then we separately but simultaneously changed into gowns and took our places in the interior waiting room. Very awkward to make that transition from civilian attire to patient attire at the same time as someone else. It made me feel very frail and exposed. I try so hard to only be sick in diagnosis not appearance.
I was called first. I learned with more alarm that the MRI would last forty-five minutes, not twenty-five. Amen to Ativan. This radiation tech talked me through it and it was manageable. It ended on a funny note. My poor Persian fellow patient was still waiting when I got out and I got to witness his shock at seeing me post MRI ... Still gowned but now without a wig. I didn't care. At least my MRI was over.
Back again this morning for bloodwork. Nothing like three trips to the hospital in four days to bring sorrow to the forefront. Today's visit involved a fair amount of tearing up. For no particular reason aside from the obvious. I wrote Father's Day cards and cleaned out my purse while I waited.
But to the optimism. Today is a week since the first plumber arrived to snake out the clogged waste water line from our house to the DC sewer line. In the past week, we've had: two or three private plumbers; two DC WASA plumbers; one emergency dig out by DC WASA, including backhoes and dump trucks, very exciting for Miles; a sudden reversal of responsibility by DC WASA notwithstanding that they had already dug up my backyard and tore out my back steps; and now in a motion of pragmatism rather than defeat, multiple contractors consulted on the project. I hope for a possible resolution in the next few days. But cancer helps you not freak out about no real access to water in our home for a week now. With quick showers, judicious flushing, baths at neighbors and laundry at Mom's, we are managing. But this is the type of thing that would have driven me crazy a year ago. Now, it hardly registers. It is a problem that needs to be solved. Just one of many.
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Summertime
The past few weeks have been oddly normal. Work, socializing, groceries, bedtime routines.
A girls weekend filled with laughter, ridiculousness and poking about. Memorial Day weekend with our sixth wedding anniversary, our former Au pair's wedding and a friend's 40th birthday. Brunches, wine-filled afternoons, trips to the pool. My Mom's 70th birthday dinner. More socializing than we have done in months.
I feel pretty good for a girl with cancer. If you didn't know, you wouldn't know.
I have enough energy to get through the day. My eyesight is coming back. I can see the clock (as well as any forty year old without glasses) in the morning. My wedding ring fits. My ability to focus is growing. I can think beyond just trying to get through the day and to the point when I get to lay down.
Chemo already seems so long ago. The Tuesday routine is purged. I don't have an "Oh, wait" moment on Tuesday mornings. This is the shock of my post chemo world. That I could slog, fight, crawl and scrape my way through a literally inconceivably difficult life event and not shudder every Tuesday morning for the rest of my life.
This is not to say everything is restored. I still have a tendency to retreat to the Jelly Lounge in the evenings after the kids' bedtimes. I still have a fair amount of angst about some silly things and some serious things.
And my anxiety grows. I mean at least with chemo the hair is a fairly easy thing to discuss with others. I'm a little less inclined to chat about how swell I'm feeling about surgery. I long for a little anonymity. An old fashioned trip out of the country only to return when everything had healed and resolved sounds like a dignified approach.
Instead, I'll slog through this week's small indignities before next week's larger indignity. Final pre-op appointments and testing. The fateful and dreaded MRI. A technician's post-MRI expressions to interpret. The various statistical implications. A full work week. Two kids. One husband. And me pretending to enjoy summer.
A girls weekend filled with laughter, ridiculousness and poking about. Memorial Day weekend with our sixth wedding anniversary, our former Au pair's wedding and a friend's 40th birthday. Brunches, wine-filled afternoons, trips to the pool. My Mom's 70th birthday dinner. More socializing than we have done in months.
I feel pretty good for a girl with cancer. If you didn't know, you wouldn't know.
I have enough energy to get through the day. My eyesight is coming back. I can see the clock (as well as any forty year old without glasses) in the morning. My wedding ring fits. My ability to focus is growing. I can think beyond just trying to get through the day and to the point when I get to lay down.
Chemo already seems so long ago. The Tuesday routine is purged. I don't have an "Oh, wait" moment on Tuesday mornings. This is the shock of my post chemo world. That I could slog, fight, crawl and scrape my way through a literally inconceivably difficult life event and not shudder every Tuesday morning for the rest of my life.
This is not to say everything is restored. I still have a tendency to retreat to the Jelly Lounge in the evenings after the kids' bedtimes. I still have a fair amount of angst about some silly things and some serious things.
And my anxiety grows. I mean at least with chemo the hair is a fairly easy thing to discuss with others. I'm a little less inclined to chat about how swell I'm feeling about surgery. I long for a little anonymity. An old fashioned trip out of the country only to return when everything had healed and resolved sounds like a dignified approach.
Instead, I'll slog through this week's small indignities before next week's larger indignity. Final pre-op appointments and testing. The fateful and dreaded MRI. A technician's post-MRI expressions to interpret. The various statistical implications. A full work week. Two kids. One husband. And me pretending to enjoy summer.
Monday, May 26, 2014
the thirteenth tuesday
For starters, the title of the post is all wrong. It really isn't about tomorrow even if it is really nice not to be going to chemo for the first time in thirteen Tuesdays.
What it is all about is Wednesday. The day eight without chemo. I don't know (because I still can't bring myself to read any guide to cancer) what's in store, but it seems like Wednesday is the beginning of the end of the chemo side effects.
One of the fellows referred to me as a low side effect kindof girl. I liked the observation and she is right. I really haven't had it so bad. But it still hasn't been pretty.
From the chemo drugs: the low blood count. Which wouldn't mean much to me but for the fact that the fatigue it creates is like nothing I've ever experienced before.
From the blood count drugs: the back pain has continued. Two or three days a week I have deep, sometimes naroctic-requiring, lower back pain. Again, think back labor.
From the taxol: my nails, which held up for so long, ache and throb. A few of them look like they are going to go.
From the taxol: the hand and foot tingling. I've only really had it in my feet but it has grown progressively worse. For the past month or so, my feet have felt like they are falling asleep. But always. As in all the time. It is maddening. I'm constantly stretching them trying to wake them up. Apparently, this isn't always a permanent thing.
From all the chemo drgus: the hair loss. Its actually already started growing back. I've noticed a few eye lashes the other day. I've got wispy blonde hair coming back in. Not exactly ready for prime time but enough to give you some hope. And I promised Miles my hair would start growing back this summer. I wouldn't mind delivering on that promise early.
From the steriods: the swelling. I'm sure its a falsehood, but I've been happily assuming that my extra fifteen pounds is all due to the steriods (not the laziness or less than careful consumption). Even if that doesn't pan out, the puffy hands, feet and face are surely related to the steriods.
So, tomorrow is the first Tuesday since March without chemo. Wednesday is the beginning of the symptom fade.
What it is all about is Wednesday. The day eight without chemo. I don't know (because I still can't bring myself to read any guide to cancer) what's in store, but it seems like Wednesday is the beginning of the end of the chemo side effects.
One of the fellows referred to me as a low side effect kindof girl. I liked the observation and she is right. I really haven't had it so bad. But it still hasn't been pretty.
From the chemo drugs: the low blood count. Which wouldn't mean much to me but for the fact that the fatigue it creates is like nothing I've ever experienced before.
From the blood count drugs: the back pain has continued. Two or three days a week I have deep, sometimes naroctic-requiring, lower back pain. Again, think back labor.
From the taxol: my nails, which held up for so long, ache and throb. A few of them look like they are going to go.
From the taxol: the hand and foot tingling. I've only really had it in my feet but it has grown progressively worse. For the past month or so, my feet have felt like they are falling asleep. But always. As in all the time. It is maddening. I'm constantly stretching them trying to wake them up. Apparently, this isn't always a permanent thing.
From all the chemo drgus: the hair loss. Its actually already started growing back. I've noticed a few eye lashes the other day. I've got wispy blonde hair coming back in. Not exactly ready for prime time but enough to give you some hope. And I promised Miles my hair would start growing back this summer. I wouldn't mind delivering on that promise early.
From the steriods: the swelling. I'm sure its a falsehood, but I've been happily assuming that my extra fifteen pounds is all due to the steriods (not the laziness or less than careful consumption). Even if that doesn't pan out, the puffy hands, feet and face are surely related to the steriods.
So, tomorrow is the first Tuesday since March without chemo. Wednesday is the beginning of the symptom fade.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Woot Woot
I'm done. D.O.N.E. Done.
It's funny. I don't feel particularly anything about it. I feel calm. Quiet. Reflective. Proud. Cautiously optimistic.
Ready to have the chemo out of my system. My blood counts were low again. Even with the shots I'm administering, my energy is really low. I slept the afternoon away to try and recover from treatment. Once again, I am supposed to avoid any activities or people who could expose me to anything.
I am not ready to turn to what comes next. I'm ready for a little cancer-cation.
It's funny. I don't feel particularly anything about it. I feel calm. Quiet. Reflective. Proud. Cautiously optimistic.
Ready to have the chemo out of my system. My blood counts were low again. Even with the shots I'm administering, my energy is really low. I slept the afternoon away to try and recover from treatment. Once again, I am supposed to avoid any activities or people who could expose me to anything.
I am not ready to turn to what comes next. I'm ready for a little cancer-cation.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
And then there was one
I joked with one of the chemo nurses today that I'd put in my own IV. Doesn't that just tell you something about my life. IV jokes.
The long and short of the joke was after several nurse-led tutorials, I'm an old pro at my white blood cell booster injections. I would note that the first shot required a glass of wine to steel my nerves, which was quite helpful but not technically part of their training program.
December 10, 2013 to May 13, 2014. It really isn't a long time. But the pacing has varied. The first eight weeks of the AC treatment went quickly. Treatment and chemo eclipse one week. Feeling good the next. The twelve weeks of T plus C. Like watching the clock on Christmas morning. It just wouldn't move.
We accomplished a lot in five months. We also forfeited a lot. I'd say - and Jim is sleeping so I can't confirm with him- that it was also five months of intense learning. About our families - who have been incredible and unwavering in their support, love and commitment to our return to health. About our friends - who've propped us up, distracted us and cared for us. About ourselves - who we are as people, as a couple, what we want our family to be. What we will teach our children about what matters in life. I have learned a lot about myself and I made some personal adjustments too. For example, I have learned to be more open. And I am more certain of myself and of the identity I want our family and our children to have. We will not just be takers. I do not know how yet, but it is important to me that we become a family that is more giving of its time and good fortune. I have benefitted from what others have gone out of their way to do for me and I want us to know the answer to what are we doing for others.
Today at infusion, the nurses had a party for a volunteer who put in 2000 hours in the past year. That is the equivalent of a full time job. She brings warm blankets, she talks to all the patients, she brings lunch, she finds whatever you need. She has been there every treatment session I had. She knows me now. Tells me about her home, her plans, her Mother's Day. Knows I'm the only one who eats the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. Doing for others. Making a difference.
Eleven done. One to go. Even during treatment today when I was addled with the jumbo Benadryl dose, I was giddy. So close. So close. So close.
I'm sure surgery will be difficult but I don't care. Two weeks of physical discomfort? Sounds better than sixteen weeks of a deteriorating chemo mind game.
What else?
Miles misses Dani. Zaira seems great. Ian wants to walk. He appears to have a few words. Up. All done. Dada. Traitor.
Unexpected given that I'm still getting taxol, but my hair is starting to grow back. Peach fuzz, but still. Miles asked me why I had a boys hair cut. On a similar gender-focused note, we solved the "why miles won't eat grilled cheese" mystery. "It's not for boys" he told me one day. Ah, the importance of enunciation. One not girls, GRilled cheese later, he loves them.
Huge game for the Wizards tonight.
The long and short of the joke was after several nurse-led tutorials, I'm an old pro at my white blood cell booster injections. I would note that the first shot required a glass of wine to steel my nerves, which was quite helpful but not technically part of their training program.
December 10, 2013 to May 13, 2014. It really isn't a long time. But the pacing has varied. The first eight weeks of the AC treatment went quickly. Treatment and chemo eclipse one week. Feeling good the next. The twelve weeks of T plus C. Like watching the clock on Christmas morning. It just wouldn't move.
We accomplished a lot in five months. We also forfeited a lot. I'd say - and Jim is sleeping so I can't confirm with him- that it was also five months of intense learning. About our families - who have been incredible and unwavering in their support, love and commitment to our return to health. About our friends - who've propped us up, distracted us and cared for us. About ourselves - who we are as people, as a couple, what we want our family to be. What we will teach our children about what matters in life. I have learned a lot about myself and I made some personal adjustments too. For example, I have learned to be more open. And I am more certain of myself and of the identity I want our family and our children to have. We will not just be takers. I do not know how yet, but it is important to me that we become a family that is more giving of its time and good fortune. I have benefitted from what others have gone out of their way to do for me and I want us to know the answer to what are we doing for others.
Today at infusion, the nurses had a party for a volunteer who put in 2000 hours in the past year. That is the equivalent of a full time job. She brings warm blankets, she talks to all the patients, she brings lunch, she finds whatever you need. She has been there every treatment session I had. She knows me now. Tells me about her home, her plans, her Mother's Day. Knows I'm the only one who eats the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. Doing for others. Making a difference.
Eleven done. One to go. Even during treatment today when I was addled with the jumbo Benadryl dose, I was giddy. So close. So close. So close.
I'm sure surgery will be difficult but I don't care. Two weeks of physical discomfort? Sounds better than sixteen weeks of a deteriorating chemo mind game.
What else?
Miles misses Dani. Zaira seems great. Ian wants to walk. He appears to have a few words. Up. All done. Dada. Traitor.
Unexpected given that I'm still getting taxol, but my hair is starting to grow back. Peach fuzz, but still. Miles asked me why I had a boys hair cut. On a similar gender-focused note, we solved the "why miles won't eat grilled cheese" mystery. "It's not for boys" he told me one day. Ah, the importance of enunciation. One not girls, GRilled cheese later, he loves them.
Huge game for the Wizards tonight.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Getaway but not from it all
I remember the first time I went out without Miles. I was a plump postpartum mess. Sweaty with nerves and fears of all the things that could go wrong. No matter that I was leaving him with Jim and just going to a movie with some girlfriends. On the way to the movie, an intuitive friend realized this was first time I'd left Miles, and clucked over me and how brave I was and how fine he'd be. She was right, of course. But this pattern repeated itself the first time I left him overnight for a girls' weekend getaway.
This weekend, I started from a better spot. A little bit wiser and a more seasoned mother of two. On Saturday morning, I kissed Miles and Ian and was waiting by the door for Jim. I hustled him to the car and on our way.
Blue skies. Perfect temperature. Lattes and open road. But if you are reading this and you have cancer and you are heading out for your first trip away with your spouse, let me tell you, it won't be the trip you thought it would be. At least mine wasn't.
I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe it is because you forget, or I did, that these little junkets are how the whole thing starts. Two people who have interests, chemisty and curiosity in common. Getting to know each other. Taking little trips (in our case, to New York City after we'd known each other for about eight minutes). Talking, talking, talking. Figuring out that together the possibilities are limitless. And thats how, a few years later, life finds you married, happy, busy with jobs, mortgages, nanny-shares and sweet little bunnies who wipe their runny noses on you and you don't mind.
And then you are back in the car again. Road trip. Talking, talking, talking. But instead of which foreign city would you want to live it, it was all of the potential limited possibilities. What would Jim do: about school for the boys? about the house? about childcare? What would I do: to maximize the time? to make sure the boys knew me or had something of me? Just hashing and crying through the life without wife logistics.
Jim thinks, and he is usually right about these things, that it is the mental angst of December creeping back in again. We understand this phase of the process (chemo, surgery, radiation) but now we look ahead to the awful unknowing. Is it gone? Is it back? Did we beat it? Do we repeat it? Grief anew.
On the whole, the weekend was lovely. It is just that some aspects of our lives are a little too sad to consider and without the hectic mess of our lives, without the demands of the kids and jobs, with the time to talk and think and be together, it can be a bit overwhelming.
An example. Massages Sunday morning. Sounds lovely but after the massage, Jim complained that it was too long. Too much quiet time to think. I managed to distract myself, though I cried through a bit of mine, too.
Two funny moments from the weekend. Well, first, it really was lovely. It was a very pretty setting and a nice hotel. I am so grateful to have had the time to get away together and we did have a really nice time. We talked about other trips we had taken and reminded each other of favorite meals, hotels, rooms and funny moments along the way. The size and spector of Istanbul. The hang-gliding. The soda on the mountainside with bougenvilla. The restaruant and pool in Daliyan. The rooftop in Marrakesh. See, despite our grief, we still know how to have a good time. We lazed and read at the pool. We had cocktails and a cheese plate by the Miles' river. We had a bubble bath. We biked to dinner. We tucked into a spot for dessert. We puttered around and explored town. We got massages. We had breakfast in the sun by the water. We read the Sunday paper.
To the funny moments. First, Jim capped off our big weekend out of town with a big Saturday night watching Cspan. For real. I went to bed and he stay up watching the last few minutes of the White House Correspondents' Dinner and then spent another chunk of time watching the guests file out of the Washington Hilton like it was red carpet oscar action. Isn't that Madeleine Albright? Did you see Sofia Verga? Who is with Barbara Walters. Big night without the kids:)
Second, a different kind of funny. On the spa services form, it wanted to know all sorts of stuff that apparently would help them deliver exceptional treatments. I was debating whether I needed to or should disclose that I had cancer (which would I'm sure have lead to an uncomfortable and irrelevant conversation with a complete stranger) when I noticed that two boxes down on the form was nail fungus. I mean, seriously, are these conditions comparable in anyone's world? I laughed, ignored it all and just signed the form. The bald head and the skin might have suggested that I wasn't totally forthcoming but no one bothered to mention it.
This weekend, I started from a better spot. A little bit wiser and a more seasoned mother of two. On Saturday morning, I kissed Miles and Ian and was waiting by the door for Jim. I hustled him to the car and on our way.
Blue skies. Perfect temperature. Lattes and open road. But if you are reading this and you have cancer and you are heading out for your first trip away with your spouse, let me tell you, it won't be the trip you thought it would be. At least mine wasn't.
I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe it is because you forget, or I did, that these little junkets are how the whole thing starts. Two people who have interests, chemisty and curiosity in common. Getting to know each other. Taking little trips (in our case, to New York City after we'd known each other for about eight minutes). Talking, talking, talking. Figuring out that together the possibilities are limitless. And thats how, a few years later, life finds you married, happy, busy with jobs, mortgages, nanny-shares and sweet little bunnies who wipe their runny noses on you and you don't mind.
And then you are back in the car again. Road trip. Talking, talking, talking. But instead of which foreign city would you want to live it, it was all of the potential limited possibilities. What would Jim do: about school for the boys? about the house? about childcare? What would I do: to maximize the time? to make sure the boys knew me or had something of me? Just hashing and crying through the life without wife logistics.
Jim thinks, and he is usually right about these things, that it is the mental angst of December creeping back in again. We understand this phase of the process (chemo, surgery, radiation) but now we look ahead to the awful unknowing. Is it gone? Is it back? Did we beat it? Do we repeat it? Grief anew.
On the whole, the weekend was lovely. It is just that some aspects of our lives are a little too sad to consider and without the hectic mess of our lives, without the demands of the kids and jobs, with the time to talk and think and be together, it can be a bit overwhelming.
An example. Massages Sunday morning. Sounds lovely but after the massage, Jim complained that it was too long. Too much quiet time to think. I managed to distract myself, though I cried through a bit of mine, too.
Two funny moments from the weekend. Well, first, it really was lovely. It was a very pretty setting and a nice hotel. I am so grateful to have had the time to get away together and we did have a really nice time. We talked about other trips we had taken and reminded each other of favorite meals, hotels, rooms and funny moments along the way. The size and spector of Istanbul. The hang-gliding. The soda on the mountainside with bougenvilla. The restaruant and pool in Daliyan. The rooftop in Marrakesh. See, despite our grief, we still know how to have a good time. We lazed and read at the pool. We had cocktails and a cheese plate by the Miles' river. We had a bubble bath. We biked to dinner. We tucked into a spot for dessert. We puttered around and explored town. We got massages. We had breakfast in the sun by the water. We read the Sunday paper.
To the funny moments. First, Jim capped off our big weekend out of town with a big Saturday night watching Cspan. For real. I went to bed and he stay up watching the last few minutes of the White House Correspondents' Dinner and then spent another chunk of time watching the guests file out of the Washington Hilton like it was red carpet oscar action. Isn't that Madeleine Albright? Did you see Sofia Verga? Who is with Barbara Walters. Big night without the kids:)
Second, a different kind of funny. On the spa services form, it wanted to know all sorts of stuff that apparently would help them deliver exceptional treatments. I was debating whether I needed to or should disclose that I had cancer (which would I'm sure have lead to an uncomfortable and irrelevant conversation with a complete stranger) when I noticed that two boxes down on the form was nail fungus. I mean, seriously, are these conditions comparable in anyone's world? I laughed, ignored it all and just signed the form. The bald head and the skin might have suggested that I wasn't totally forthcoming but no one bothered to mention it.
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