tablegrace

I took a walk this morning.  I take Lucy and set off down the street.  I say hello to neighbors and wave at friends dropping their kids off at the elementary school where I’d just let Elena out of the car not long before.  It is a cool cloudy morning.  The trees and grass are still wet from the storm that swept through at about 1am and I occasionally feel raindrops that fall from the trees I’m walking under.  The air smells fresh, like it does after a good storm.  Everything looks washed clean.

I turn to walk through the park and I notice that for the first time in months, I can walk at my normal pace and I’m not winded by the time I get to the top of the hill that occurs about halfway through.  I continue up the next hill and the next and I’m doing it.  I’m walking fast and breathing hard, but I’m not panting and I’m not feeling like my heart is going to thump right out of my chest. And when I meet a friend who is out for her morning run and she asks me if I’m a runner, I say “I used to be and I’m thinking about starting up again.”  And I mean it.

I’ve been on a break from treatment.  My last chemo was given at the end of January.  After two and a half years of pretty constant treatment I was feeling pretty beat up physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  I did not share the depths of my despair with anyone except my husband and I did that only reluctantly.  Because while I appear to be the gal that will tell you anything and everything and more than you ever wanted to know, I tend to keep the really hard stuff buried deep and tightly held.

So together with Dr. Eyelashes, we all decided that I would take some months off.  There was so much coming up and I wanted to feel good for all of it.

It has been so worth it.  I had an amazing birthday celebration that was never ending.  I went on an incredible spring break trip to the beach and just had a great weekend with Elena in New York City.  And I was fully present for all of it.  I feel like my old self.  I’ve lost weight and the puffiness in my face is gone.  My hair has grown back in (a bit) and I am no longer wondering how much longer it will be til I can go back to bed after I get up.

I’ve taken a break from cancer and it has been wonderful.  Part of that break was also stepping away from writing here on this space.  I tried a couple of times, but I just wasn’t finding the words and I’ve never wanted to write just to put words on the page.

This morning I felt the urge to write well back up in me.  Thank you to those of you who have been wondering where I was and worrying about me because of my silence.  I just had to walk away from being “cancer girl” for a while.

I’ll have a scan in a couple of weeks.  Of course we are praying that even in the absence of treatment, the cancer has not come back.  If that is the case, I will continue to be on this break.  If we see activity, I will go back on the same treatment I was taking.  I feel strong enough to tackle it again and because I did not become resistant to it, believe it will continue to work just as it always has.

Another spring has come.  The third since my diagnosis.  We can hardly believe the grace that continues to abound.  It’s a time of new beginnings.

I’m so thankful.

I didn’t even know I’d been holding my breath.  But I certainly must have been, because  I could feel my lungs expand as if I’d suddenly broken the surface of the water after a mighty long swim from the bottom.

“I don’t see anything that concerns me.”

That would be Dr. Eyelashes giving me the news on my latest scan.  Usually I make an appointment to go over everything with him in his office, but this time we decided that he would just call me.  I’m not sure I’ll agree to that again.  With an appointment I know when the torture of not knowing will end.  This time I was just on pins and needles all day.  Trying to act normal at lunch with a new friend.  Trying not to check my phone every five seconds in case I’d missed his call.  I don’t know how that could have happened since I had the ring tone turned up loud enough for my friends in another state to hear it.

When the call finally came I was standing looking the vast array of cheeses at my local market.  I hope people passing by just thought I was crying over all the lovely types of brie I was contemplating, but the truth was that I just couldn’t keep the tears back.  And then all the adrenaline that I’d been carrying around all day hit and I was still shaking when I handed my credit card over to the sweet cashier who always tells me she is praying for me.  Lordy mercy.

The good doctor and have been talking about taking a treatment break if this last scan was a good one.  We will have to wait on the final read from the radiologist, but we are not expecting any news that would alter our plans.  There are a couple of nodes up near the top of my trachea and behind my thyroid that we have been keeping an eye on.  They don’t seem to be changing but they also don’t seem to be going anywhere.  They do not worry my oncologist and so I mostly choose not to let them worry me.  My sister wants them to go in and just remove them and that is certainly something I’ll talk to the doctor about.  Conventional wisdom would say that it wouldn’t make any difference in the long run, but we strayed off that path long ago.

So I’d ask for your prayers as we make some hard decisions in the next couple of weeks.

And thanks for all the good wishes.

xoxoxoxo

“Mama!  Daddy fell off the ladder and hurt his ankle!”

I’d just gone upstairs to lie down.  The chemo I took on Wednesday was taking its toll and I’d been looking forward to snuggling down under my electric blanket for an hour or so.  I get chilled easily these days and I could almost feel the warmth coming off the bed as I slipped between the sheets.

I went downstairs to find JD sitting on the couch.  He’d already gotten both shoes off and was looking at his ankles with a grimace on his face.  He was ghost white and shaking.

He’d put the ladder up against the house in the front to take the last of the Christmas decorations down.  We will never know exactly what happened but the ladder slid out from under him, he dropped about 10 feet and landed on both feet on the front stone porch.  He was able to get into the house under his own power, but now his ankles were both looking very ugly and were actually swelling right before our eyes.

“Hmmmm.  I guess we better go to the ER.”

And so we did.  Five hours and two splints later we were back home again trying to figure out how to get someone who can’t really bear much weight on either leg up the stairs and into bed. (There was lots of grunting and moaning involved).  The x-rays taken at the hospital didn’t reveal any bad fractures but we will wait on the final reading on Monday and probably see ortho sometime next week.

I’ve been reading a book about excess lately.  One of the chapters deals with the business of our lives.  The way we say we have no time but continue to add things to our calendar anyway.  We can’t find it in ourselves to say no even when it is driving us crazy.

So perhaps this is a gift.  A time that will force us to slow down.  Today we have spent the day reading the paper.  The girls are quietly doing their thing and Lucy is wondering why no one is moving around much.  We are perhaps resting on the Sabbath for the first time in a very long time.  The tv is off, a pot of soup is on the stove and snow is falling periodically outside the big picture window in our den.

We are so thankful.  It could have been a whole lot worse.  I’m sure there will be some frustrating days ahead as JD gets back on his feet, but for now we will appreciate the good that comes with the bad and enjoy a little slower pace for a few days.

We always laugh about the difference in conversations that go on between people when we are in New York visiting JD’s family and in Tennessee visiting mine.  We think we have the best of both worlds in this crazy mixed culture marriage of ours.

Case in point.

The last time we were at my house we were walking up to my brother and sister-in-law’s house along the 1/4 mile driveway that connects their house with my parent’s abode.  We were stopped in our tracks by a mound of scat (translation: poop) in the middle of the road.  Thus commenced a five to ten minute conversation on just what animal it came from.  We started off with the possibility that it was bear poop as there have been some recent sightings of black bears on the mountain.  (The children are no longer allowed to walk between the two houses after dark.)  We then decided maybe it was a smaller animal and I believe we settled on a fox as the culprit before heading on our way.

Cut to JD’s house just a couple of days ago.  We were sitting around the table playing a game with JD’s father and sister and a few of the kids when a classical piece of music came on the radio.  Either JD’s mom or dad said, “What is the name of that piece?” and without a second’s hesitation his sister named it correctly.

See what I mean?  The perfect mix.  We love our families.