Moving Toward Turkey Day

It has been 15 days of smoke free here at the casa. The husband complains that nothing tastes "right". His coffee in the morning and his beer with football has left him with a bad taste in his mouth.

"It will get better." I say as I slipped looks toward him on Sunday as he spent most of the day in front of the TV watching his football games and making it through two beers for the whole day and evening.

We made it out of the house today and to the surgeon's office where the Nurse Practitioner removed the last of the staples across my chest. She assures me the nerve pain will abate but I have my doubts. I've read on the web where women continue to have the burning sensation in the arms and random phantom pain across the chest for years. I'm hoping I notice some improvement on this in the next weeks. It's only been a few weeks post op and I'm trying to be patient with this.

It will soon be time to drag all the Christmas "stuff' from the storage house. Minimal is my word for this. As I'm removing from the room the table top stuff and replacing with Christmas decor the only thing I can think about is doing this in reverse yet again on the evening of December 25th. Storing Christmas decorations take up a lot of space and I have an aversion against owning a lot of "stuff". 

The rain has arrived. Prior to the wet, the temperatures dropped and the winds rose. 40 degrees might sound like a heat wave to Northerners but here in the deep 
South, warm coats, boots and hats are appearing. I'm not complaining about the weather. We don't get snow nor ice here and for that I'm extremely grateful.

Clinical report on surgery: The staples/sutures were removed today. The surgeon stopped by to ask how I was doing. He wanted to tell me that though there were a large amount of lymph node involvement, the treatments these days were encouraging in halting the movement of cancer cells. He presented cases he has had of cases like mine, the patient 20 yrs out from her mastectomy. We also talked about a case he has tomorrow on a 25 yr. old that found a lump and is having a mastectomy. I'm always saddened to hear of the youth and especially the young mothers going through this.

My emotions took a dip and then rebounded. I don't know how to stay on an even keel all the time. I can tell myself, along with everyone else telling me, "one day at a time". Sometimes that works and sometimes it gets away from me.
I've been down that long dark road into depression and I don't ever want to go that trip again. Getting up and out of the house, involving myself with Carrie's needs and friends that call and stop by are my saviors.

My sister in law has been diagnosed with lesions on the brain from a metathesized melanoma while her husband (my brother) was just diagnosed with lymphoma and a brother in law with lung cancer. To say the least, this has not been a good year for this family. My heart aches for each one of them and their families.

My brother says to me "I'm not worried. It's in God's hands."

Oh but to be so devout as to be able to give up all your fears and worries. I've been a worrier all my life. Planning ahead, anticipating and preparing as much as possible for the future has served me well.

It is now almost 0200 hrs and I'm still awake. Sometimes my sleep hours are all out of wack. I don't fight it. I get out of bed and sprawl out on the sofa, TV remote in hand while I wait for sleep to approach. I have the luxury of being able to take a nap anytime I need to during the day.

It might be time to shut it down for the night. It's sleep time.