Walking, Life and Vacation

At last, I have started walking on a regular basis again.  That took long enough.  I’m still struggling with finding the motivation to do it, but somehow or other I am getting out and doing it on most days.  The average goal is to walk for an hour a day; I’ve been hitting that more often than not.

Life is cruising along; when the situation calls for it I socialize and participate in whatever is happening.  I do well enough.  The rest of the time I quietly live in my little house and never tire of the beauty that surrounds me.  The green grass and trees, the blue blue sky, the birds and the animals as they play, the fields that are planted with this year’s crop and the cows grazing in the meadows of the next farm over.  All of these things thrill me, they are ever changing and they make my life a joy.

Summer is here again and once again we find ourselves trying to come up with a plan for a short vacation.  The desire is there, the destination is chosen; it comes down to finding the time to go and acquiring adequate accommodations.  If it is meant to be, we will work it out, if not I don’t mind.  We shall see.  When we begin thinking about finding the time for a vacation and look at the calendar suddenly the summer zips by and is gone before it has begun.  That is never good.  So I say let’s stop thinking about vacation for a while and enjoy the summer.

You know, for all my talk about walking, I am really not in the mood for it today.  Don’t ask me what I would rather do instead, I don’t know;  I only know that putting in a walk today sounds like so much work.  Maybe I’ll change my mind here in a little bit…

There is always hope.              

The Robin Sings

I am sitting here in the warm sunshine, being serenaded by a very happy robin.  Oh it makes me want spring to come today!  As has happened every year for as long as I can remember, it is March and I am longing for spring to come and wash away the lethargy of winter.  This year for some reason we are holding on to daytime temps in the 20’s and 30’s.  I want those temps to climb into the 40’s so I can do my walk without the restriction of a face warmer.  It is harder to breathe properly with one of those things on but I have to wear one if the temps are too cool.

I think I would like to take a trip to the ocean this year.  There is no place on earth like the ocean to bring your perspective back into alignment.  It’s even better when you can find a stretch of sand with no one else or very few others for a short while.  It gives you the space you need to feel the full impact of that beautiful water, the crashing of the waves.  If I were not so terrified of hurricanes I believe I could live by the ocean and be quite content.  So, we shall see if we can work in a trip to the ocean; if not then I think I would like to take a trip to Lake Erie.  It’s a long way from the ocean but it is pretty.

We are reading (audio CD’s) the Harry Potter books again and we are enjoying them very much.  This is after listening to The Lord of the Rings again.  We purchased the audio CD for The Hobbit as well.  I am so happy that Don is into these books with me.  It means I can have my fill of them (not that I think I will ever have my fill) with no guilt.  There seem to be many things we enjoy doing together, a good thing I say, since we are committed to the relationship at this point. 

Well I suppose I have rattled on long enough.  There is nothing else for me to do today but read, play on the computer or listen to music.  Maybe I’ll just sit here in the sunshine for a while longer and listen to the robin sing and dream about spring…

There is always hope.    

Calmer Tomorrow

It feels as if I have waited years (and perhaps I have) for the faintest inspiration to write something, anything.  The words would not come.  I cannot tell you how many hours I sat here staring at a blank screen.  I am not saying that I am suddenly overrun with ideas and words, only that for today at least, it feels as it should, as it used to.

I had wondered if I had written it all out, my story; and if I had how sad that would be to have all one’s life put into words with no possible chance of new happenings in the future.  That is what it felt like, as if anything that might happen in the future would be of so little consequence as to not merit even the passing thought of being chronicled.  It was a dismal feeling to be sure and a sad thing to think that in so short a time I could have written out my past: truly, there has to be more to me than that. 

What do I see in the time yet to come in my life that will merit taking the time to write about it?  I see life.  I am a survivor; I even have a bracelet that says as much.  I will continue as I have been with a positive outlook and the expectation that my encounters with people (both old friends and new acquaintances) will be filled with joy.  If there is one aspect of living that is missing in my life I would say it is contact with other people and yet I really have no idea what to do to change it or if I need to change it at all.  You see, I am quite content living just as I have been.  I feel no real need to change the way I live, I love it when I encounter other people and I have no problems talking to them and yet I love my life at home, quiet as it is.  I think to continue as I have been is quite the right thing to do.

Life is good.  We are making plans for a couple of road trips in March; Don is thinking of doing a couple of runs out of state.  Day by day the calendar ticks of the days of winter; soon we will have milder days more often.  Today the wind howls, tomorrow it should be calmer…

There is always hope.              

A Perfect Day For Walking

Biking, hiking, running or walking it’s the perfect day for them all; 43degrees feels wonderful!  Good for me, I actually got out there and walked 2 miles today.  Now if I could just make a habit of doing that I would be sitting pretty. 

I remember when walking was compulsory for me.  I had to do it, it just didn’t feel right to skip a day or even cut a walk short.  I can tell you that it’s much easier to get out of the habit than to get in to it.  While I’m at it (getting out of old habits) I will have to insist that I give up the candy.  Just because I received 18 boxes for my birthday does not mean I have to eat them all right away.  I think I have been working on the premise that it is better to have it all gone quickly, not I think a very wise approach.

By the way, my appointment with Dr Kahn went just about the way I thought it would.  He did examine me and ask when my next mammogram is.  I am so fortunate.  I am sure that not very many people have a cancer encounter and come out the other side unscathed as I have.  I do count my blessings.  Seeing three doctors every six months seems a fairly small price to pay.

Well, we shall see what happens with the walking thing.  It will be difficult to get in walks next weekend, my mother-in-law is having hip replacement surgery and we will be in Youngstown to be with her,  I think that she is very brave to be having the surgery and I hope she comes through it like a champ.  That little hitch in the walking works will be the only real excuse I will have not to do it.  As I say, we shall see…

There is always hope.

Doing Nothing

I can do nothing better than just about anyone you want to think of; it's what I do most of the time. I can stretch laundry day out into a three or four day event. When I clean house my to do list has one room per day on it - I'm only talking about sweeping and dusting or ordinary cleaning in the bathroom and kitchen. I am trying to decide if this habit is due to sheer laziness or boredom; it's a tossup really. The fact is that I enjoy a nice clean, orderly home and I am prepared to do whatever is necessary to keep it that way, I guess I just don't want to exert too much energy at one time and wear myself out.

I believe that most of my lethargy can be attributed to winter doldrums, though I do think that there is still a lingering tiredness left over from the radiation therapy.  Still, it’s a little difficult to justify doing nothing for any period of time; sooner or later you have to get up and do something or else go batty.  Well, there are people who would argue that I have always been batty, no news flash there.

Over the last few years I have been active on Face Book.  I enjoy seeing what friends and family are up to, though I rarely post myself.  Much like here, there isn’t much that happens on a daily basis that would be worthy of a post.  I do post, just not very often.  I just thought I’d throw that little tid-bit in there for the fun of it, a general interest thing.  With that I think I’ll call this post finished.

There is always hope.        

Winter Dreariness and Doctors

 Strange, the way time moves sometimes.  The days have all sort of run together into an endless cycle of cold wakefulness and sleeping.  I haven’t been warm in months it seems, though I am properly dressed for the cold. 

We have been keeping busy with movies; we have been to see The Hobbit eight times and we have been watching a lot of DVD’s and television.  Apparently this is our answer to winter dreariness.  The never ending battle to be warm seldom sees a victory.  And of course we have challenged ourselves to a diet at a time when instinct says to eat and don’t stop.  Don is doing very well with his running; I am a dismal failure at walking.  I really do need to motivate myself (as always).

I wonder what’s in store for me when I go to see Dr Kahn next week.  He is my medical oncologist; I have to say that if all he does is ask me how I am doing and then tells me to come back in six months, I will be a little put out.  If that’s all there is to it, we could do that by phone or by mail and save us both the time and bother.  After all, it is very difficult to get an appointment to see him; why take up precious time with something that could be handled in a time saving manor?  Oh well, it probably will go just the way I suspect and really the reason I am a little out of sorts about it is because I know there is no new cancer to worry about.  I am having none of that!  The whole thing with seeing all three of my doctors for cancer check-ups just makes me squirm.  It feels like I am asking for something to be there by checking all of the time.  Ah well, enough of that.

There really isn’t anything else to cover at the moment so I’ll go for now.

There is always hope.

My Radiation Therapy

Twenty-two radiation treatments down, eleven to go; if I weren't so tired all of the time I would hardly know anything different was happening to me. I have a little soreness in the crease under my breast and the entire breast and underarm area is pinkish red, but it doesn't hurt. After all my fretting and fears about what was going to happen to me, I feel a little silly now. I didn't find www.beyondtheshock.com until just a few days before my treatments began and I was really very afraid of radiation therapy. Thank goodness for Beyond The Shock because with the information I gleaned from there I was able to begin therapy with some semblance of dignity.

In my case I have to tell you that from the beginning I have felt that no matter what I go through I do not have the right to complain or make a fuss. My case is next to nothing, I have suffered not at all compared to other people with cancer. People who have to endure chemo and other medications and then when they have suffered everything that came down the pike, they have to tolerate weeks of radiation therapy. Those people have the right to complain; the people who endure all of that and know they are going to die anyway, those people have the right to voice their displeasure, not me. I have suffered not at all.

The simple truth is, I am tired. Nothing to be done about it, nothing else to be said, it is a fact.

Don has been a rock through this mess. He drives me to the cancer center each day and waits patiently for me to be done, we come home and he runs and then goes the cross country practice and does it all over again the next day. I don't know how he does it with such a positive attitude but he does. I try not to cause any other complications in his life; he has enough to do and then some.

I have not been walking as much as I should. I know I sound like a broken record here but there you have it, the truth. As always I keep telling myself that I will get to it and make a better job of it next week…

There is always hope.