A month later, I am blogging off

If anyone is still checking in on me (like me!) and this blog, let me just say that for now I am blogging off. I need to make it official. This is for you Rowena. The reason?  Not much to say is the real reason. Now my life is taken up with the very ordinary stage of "getting better", getting my energy back and so on. I am back at work. That's a whole other blog topic right there! Because I have decided to retire. I actually decided a year ago to accept Novalis's generous offer that would enable me to do this. Who knew then that part of that time would be dealing with cancer.

My need to focus on what I was feeling during the cancer dance was so important because  it helped me contain it in a way I could not have otherwise. It deconstructed my anxiety and helped me wrestle with my fear.

Now, and maybe only for now, that particular travail is over. And so it's time to rest. And turn my heart and mind to what lies ahead.

Maybe the day I officially retire, I'll start blogging again. Everyone keeps asking what I am going to do when I retire and I have always said, "Nothing...at least for a minute". Because I am not too good at planning the future or foreseeing what may happen. I've always wanted an ocean of freedom to swim in. Now may be that time. Plus it's always more interesting that way.  I want to be open to all possibilities and also want to believe, if I pay enough attention, I will know what less travelled road to take. The great unknown excites me.

For any of you who have followed this and are reading this last bit....of course, not my sister (hey, I was going to stop saying that!) ...thank you for being with me through this...knowing there was a little self-chosen audience encouraged me to write, to not take everything too seriously, to be open and as honest as I dared to be (even to myself!).

A la prossima!

The strife is o'er...the battle won?

Well, let's hope so.  I want to be very positive and at the same time I know I have dodged a bullet.

But joyful..I am very joyful. I am sleeping pretty much through the night for the first time in weeks, maybe months. Who knew that as much as I thought I was keeping things in check, my body was telling my psyche you are a big fat liar...or was it the other way around..my psyche was bitch (God, I do hate that word but for emphatic purposes) slappin' my body around.  Did I mention Dr. Luke asked, "WHat are you anxious about?  "Oh, because I can't breathe..take my breath?" What I really was anxious about was dying, and suffering, and pain...but I felt like a big baby saying that. So I lied..sort of.

The good news is for the last three nights I HAVE SLEPT!!! Yes, all true. No painkillers, no Adavin, no nothin'. Just getting tired, going to sleep, smiling. And sleeping through the night. Amazing.

Ding dong the (cancer) witch is dead...

Today, I don't want to say more than this. Because it would just be repetitive. I am so relieved. I was not expecting the news to be so good. Here's what I send my family first and then copied it to all those not related to me by blood but who form the "family" of my heart: 

Hi family,

> 

> Really good news today and enough for me to indulge in two bowls of Hagen

> Daz strawberry ice cream.

> 

> Today I went to the surgeon for the post op check up and pathology report.

> 

> Very good news. What they found was a low grade Stage 1 (versus previous

> reports of stage 2/3) cancer that, had they known the stage, they would not

> have needed to take the lymph nodes. Regardless, no cancer in the nodes.

> And no need for further treatment..that means no radiation or chemo. They

> basically consider me cured.

> 

> Needless to say, I am ecstatic and thrilled. Even if I won't know if the

> sleeplessness will go away right away and even though I have some leg pain

> that may be nerve related because of the surgery and that may or may not go

> away eventually. 

> 

> So, the news couldn't be better and thank you for all your love, prayers,

> support and concern through this whole process. It may also take a year to

> get back to normal but today, I feel like dancing.

> 

> But I won't, just yet. In my mind though, I am doing the tango.

> 

> Lots of love,

> Lauretta

What else is there to say? Oh,yes:  Deo gratias and Thank you Jesus! and Hail, Mary!  And, too, Dr. Luke who probably did most of the surgery. And Dr. Kupets. I did stop to thank her on my way out.  Strangely (but maybe not) I also felt the presence and care of my own cancer "angels".. Rita, Phil, Donna, Janet, Larry, Sr. Sabina, Ronnie...all those who showed me personally such great courage  and amazing grace and generosity as they faced the evil cancer witch. They died and yet the memory of who they were as they went through their journey was - is still -  a deep comfort to me. I remember them...

What a drag...but still the light shines through

It's 3:52 am. Still no sleep. Finally crawled out of bed and down to my "new" office set up in the sunroom while the everything is still up in the air, or at least pushed around. THe windows are in. Just the outside and inside trimming to do. And as is my eternal wont, I am second guessing my decisions made about the windows. Outside grills - look nice but are gonna make washing a drag. Not taking out the original posts means I basically have less window, and therefore less light because I didn't figure  out or notice that my orignal windows just have two inch frames and these have 3 1/2 stealing 3, therefore, inches from each window. Doesn't sound like much and I probably won't notice it after a while but I could still kick myself for that one. So, if you are doing windows and are replicating a house like mine where each window had at least 12 panes...ugh...don't forget to ask about the size of the frame!

The other thing is the pain in my leg. It's getting worse and feels like it's burning. In moving suddenly I felt like I'd torn a muscle.  OUCH!  So today, when I meet with the surgeon, I have to ask her about what that's all about.

But there are things still (amazingly - but not really) to be thankful for. Art Arbour who is part of CPT in Hebron where he spends his days shepherding Palestinian children through checkpoints and keeping them safe from harassment by Jewish settlers in the settlements that cut Hebron in two, called. Using his iPad2 from his rooftop at midnight in Hebron. We had the most wonderful almost langourus (Sp?) conversation. I was just so touched that he would call and he's been keeping up on what's happening through this blog.  And my dear friend Raandi called too. Another long talk. Both ended as if we were sorry to let each other go. Real conversations,  like little Visitations, rejoicing, commenting, laughing, crying at  both the big and little.  Perhaps that's just to say that life and love are so so often in the details.

One nineteen and not all is well...

If it's not one damn thing it's another... Here I thought I'd almost licked the sleep problem by getting tired. I almost fell asleep tonight at my new makeshift desk. All the furniture has been pushed to create a little cozy rectangle around the fireplace. Tomorrow aka today in six hours or so they are coming with the new windows! And all of a sudden I have a scratchy throat and am hacking and not able to sleep. I'm noteven taking the oxy and thought I'd try skipping the Adavin. But no such luck. I'm not wide awake just awake enough to be annoyed at being so.
Thank god John and Sue and Franca came over last night to help move everything away from the soon to be new windows. And as poor Sue remarked as she moved another box of books into my so called library" you have too much stuff". I do! And I am loving the bare walls, the curtains gone, the unimpeded space. I have bite the bullet and get rid of the old magazines, bits of paper etc. Why this attachment to ephemera? Maybe it's because it disguises the awful fact that we too are just that - ephemeral! It's as if our lives were being swept away by time, by the drip drip drip of daily living. Not sleeping is probably a subconscious resistance to life slipping through our fingers.

Better stop now...before I go over the edge on this one.

Saturday night fever and other ruminations

God bless Jenny who's been reading this and knows the trouble I've been having getting to sleep. Today she came to visit and brought a brilliant book/ maybe journAl called I can't Sleep: a normal for passing the time when insomnia strikes and my brain is circling in on itself, cannibalizing the trivialities of the day and exaggerating the ticking of the clock, etc etc all in increasingly smaller letters on the cover almost like a eye chart.
Well, it's good to know, I guess, that I am not alone and that there are enough of us out there to constitute a profitable little niche market for some clever publisher. it also full of funny, witty , pithy, wise and sad sayings by famous and infamous people who are all those same things. Another day I'll put some of the quotes in here.
I want to put down all the wonderful things that happened this week..like Karen visiting and bringing fabulous soup( cauliflower.. No milk) and bread. And stewed plums and frozen squash soup. That same day Marianna and Lesley B visiting bringing fabulous homemade macaroons and cookies and tabbouleh. So I unfroze the squash soup, sliced up the last of mom and dad's tomatoes and found the last bottle of wine and we had dinner.
The next day was a followup with my doctor who unfortunately wSnt there but it turnout I am heLing well anyway. Even if it feels like it is taking forever.
Now I feel my one good eye getting too tired to stAy open even enough to keep writing ESP on this iPhone.
So.. Thank you too Joanne and patti for coming to visit and make sure I was alright. Andbesides being tired and all the other et ceteras previously mentioned,I M. Mostly Ian glad for the slow steady progress to wellness. Here's hoping at any rate.
And what can one say about Bernard who came bearing a pannier of wondrous gifts a delicacies.. Homemade unbelievay delicious mushroom soup , sourdough bread and a nut cake that was just too beautiful..

Tears and frustrations after midnight...

Last night was my first time out "in public". I went to my book club. MJ picked me up with author Keith Leckie, the author of Coppermine, the book we had all read and were going to discuss. It was a wonderful evening and I was so happy to see my bookies after at least 4 or 5 months. Here's the frustrating part..I was dressed up (nice new olivy green jeans bought on sale, black turtleneck, and one of those slimming black sweaters  with long pointy front thingys (word loss may have accompanied my uterus)..but just about 20 minutes into the talk I started to get restless, and had trouble breathing, and coughing and actually got a bit panicky. I went outside to try to breathe deeper. This is an ongoing problem. So the frustration is that I am not yet ready to venture forth in crowds. I need to spend more time at home or at least in pajamas.

Tears...today, now, is my nephew Paolo's birthday. He's  seventeen. He's young and beautiful and I love him almost too much. And I remember his birth (yes, to my quite dear sister Bruna who doesn't  read my blog...I'm going to stop mentioning this now) as if it were yesterday. Because I was there with her. And just thinking about it makes me cry. We all cried then. Because it was so momentous...a new human being...part of us, part of me me even though he wasn't from my own womb. I'll never get over seeing that precious little being open his eyes for the first time. I thought then that he looked like a little lamb being born. It makes me cry now just thinking about it. Which is fine and good but frustrating because I get all stuffed up and can't breath again...even though his birth was one of the most wondrous moments of my life...

It's just gonna be one of those nights...I'm going upstairs to bed now, to breath deep and say Hail Marys until sleep finally comes...