Tonight I was sitting outside, having a glass of wine, and thinking that I should probably write a blog post, since it has been one year now since I finished up with treatments. I probably would have just let it go, but then a friend called to ask if it was ok if she gave my blog address to a friend of hers who had recently been diagnosed, and then I decided that I really should do a post. So here I am.
It has been a good year. It took some time to heal from all the traumas of cancer treatment. I went to a physical therapist for myofascial release treatments around the surgery and radiation site and that was an amazing experience. At the time of the treatments, it seemed like he wasn't really doing much at all, but after each one I gained more range of motion and felt less pain. After 5 visits I had gained 70 degrees of mobility in my left shoulder and I was about as close to normal as I could have hoped to be (at least as far as my arm goes!)
We had a mild winter and I did plenty of hiking and cross-country skiing. I discovered that I had a blocked tear duct when tears kept streaming down my face in the cold and I also discovered that blocked tear ducts are a side effect of chemotherapy. Luckily the treatment is fairly benign - the eye doctor poked it open with a tiny probe and even though it took a few tries, that and some massage has done the trick.
Spring came early and I had the best woodcock banding season ever! Annie and I caught 74 chicks and 1 hen. The hen already had a leg band on, as she had been banded by me one year before as a one day old chick. That was quite a rush! I wish it could be spring all year long, but summer has relentlessly pushed its way in and we have put away the bands until next year.
I went out and got myself a fake boob, which surprised me by being very comfortable and natural feeling. I wasn't expecting to want to wear it every day - I guess I thought it would feel like a wig, kind of awkward and, well, fake. But it really feels like part of me and I don't even notice it, which is a pleasant surprise, and couldn't we all use more of those?
So life goes on. Every once in awhile someone will make a comment about how nice it must be to put all this behind me and forget that it ever happened. I look at them somewhat bewildered. After coming face to face with my own mortality, I have learned so much and grown in so many ways, I don't want to forget it all. I want to keep all the lessons I have learned and live life like the gift that it is. Every ache and pain that arises, every lump and bump that makes me wonder if the cancer is back, serves as a reminder that this reprieve could end tomorrow. That makes it sound like I live in fear when I really don't, but I guess I would say that there is a kind of awareness that I never had before. Everything can change in an instant, and while I hope it doesn't, I know now how it really can, and that makes the good things that I have here and now so much better. It's such a paradox to feel healthy, strong, and well; to be positive that I will stay this way; and yet to also be acutely aware that I might not. I'm not sure I could have understood it before, but it's not so bad to really get what living in the moment means.
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