six months

i've changed a bit in the past six months.  the day when i jumped the tracks from "doing great" to "brain met" i didn't make my bed.  this is strange for me.  i make my bed every day - i'm sure mom has something to do with this.  but that morning, i didn't.  so a couple of weeks later i came back to the condo and made my bed.  these days, more often than not i make it in a lazy kind of way, knowing i'll be back in it in due time.  there are also dishes in the sink more often than before.  i guess i've decided it takes less energy to do them all at once at the end of the day than sporadically throughout.  i've been trying to put my finger on the last one, which can best be summed up as having lost my confidence.  it was low to begin with, but it existed.  as i explained to someone today, it's not that i didn't think the cancer would ever come back.  quite the contrary.  it's that it came back with no warning signs, or at least none i had noted.  you see, i've lost my swagger.  my "i'm doing so well i'm doing handstand pushups" saunter.  i used to wonder what was worse - knowing something bad is in there after months of tests or finding out all of the sudden.  i have no clear answer.  both scenarios suck.

but there are improvements.  i am more careful about my limits.  and i find the slower pace allows me to enjoy things a bit more.  this is not a new lesson, but it is being revisited thanks to the events of past months.  each day that goes by brings me one step closer to meeting my nephew - he came into my world, so to speak, the day after the tumor manifest itself, way back in january.  and all i could think on that day, and many subsequent days, was "please let me live long enough to know this baby".  i am getting there.  i had it in my mind to re-do my extra room this winter - to get a new desk, maybe a futon, update my computer, have some items framed.  two things are finally checked off the list - a terrabyte of memory for the computer and three items in gorgeous frames and on the walls.  it feels good to be doing these things.  like i have some time ahead of me, i hope.  i still have a head of hair to grow.

and finally, last week i got to see good friends from out of town whom i'd been missing since last summer.  we were supposed to ski together in january, but alas, they enjoyed a frigid weekend and i ate my way through house and home.  it took a cross-country road trip on their part, but i learned their dog makes himself right at home, and was reminded good friends are the best medicine.  along with family - and i count my doctors and nurses as family - and even complete strangers, they have made the past six months not only bearable but possible.  i feel as though my feet never had to hit the ground - unless i wanted them to - because so many people had me on their shoulders.  maybe that's the best thing i've learned, because i needed it more this time than any other time - when people want to help, let them.  there's no need to be tough or keep up with someone else.  my recovery is different than anyone else's and my bad days and good days cannot be predicted.  the best ones, i know, are the ones when i can see my friends - like today - and  know - yes, sometime just knowing is comfort enough, more than being here in person - i'm not alone.