Houston, We had a problem

Hi WordPress blog fans! Whew. The blog has been down, I see, since about June 14.

That’s interesting timing, as my last treatment of Chemo Round 2 was on June 4. I was too overwhelmed to do trouble shooting (sadly, as it took all of 15 minutes with my webhost this morning to get back up and running).

Then I went to Alaska.

Then I went to Chicago to spend time with my parents and this kid.

All summer I swam at two favorite places, Quarry Park and Avon Beach. Swimming was the best, helping my weak shoulder heal, restorative, just lovely. Quarry Park has a long hiking path before the rock pool, and Avon Beach has grass and shade for reading.

Then, well, hmmm. In August I got a second 3-month reprieve, meaning no treatment until at least December. That was awesome news, although I kind of struggled with it. It seemed strange to struggle with good news, but I had prepared myself for bad news. I had prepared myself for a fall of treatment, and was thinking about my options. What would I want to do when my oncologist told me the break was over, the nodules were growing, the fluid was back, it was time to act. Before the scan, I had eaten my favorite foods.

Then it turned out the pains and tiredness I was feeling were phantom, or PTSD, or scanxiety, or some combination, and that everything was stable. Everything was good. We’d check back in 3 months, after Thanksgiving…

Hmmm. What do I do now? Well, I have this personality glitch as a lifelong overachiever that said: Another month of BIG THINGS. Truly, it made me want to cry, this opportunity. This Opportunity for more life, big life.

More travel? I was actually too tired, really, for that. Instead I took on a new freelance assignment, and started working on a book proposal, and got ready to double down on some volunteer work I’d put aside, and maybe I should join a yoga studio, and even thought about taking a second little work assignment…

And so in September I had a meltdown. After one week of the new writing assignment I was in bed and in tears, exhausted, and really uncomfortable, having aggravated my shoulder from a week hunched over a computer trying to meet an impossible deadline. I resigned from the assignment– only to have them come back and cut the assignment in half for me so I could continue. It is still tough, actually, and takes almost all the energy I have on the days I’m doing it. But I am very happy to have work, to be a person who works. The alternative we’d discussed was going on disability, and I am SO not ready for that. So, for three months– for six months actually– I will work this project.

The volunteer stuff, which happens evenings, I’m just not up to, probably anymore ever. I had to realize that I did six months of chemo and will not bounce back entirely. In the crush of summer BIG THINGS, I hadn’t recalibrated. I hadn’t down shifted. I hadn’t really considered what that round cost me. I resigned the committee and the other small job. I put aside the book proposal after discussions with a subject expert showed me just how much work that would be. Maybe later.

I was left with the garden, which is in full swing in September and October. In fact, I just picked another big pail of ripening half-blighted tomatoes this morning. I didn’t can, but I did freeze, and chop, and keep cooking.

And though swimming was over even at the beginning of August, I walked. The fall has been way too wet, and way too cold, but I’ve walked, and gone to the gym some, and every day I walk the prairie paths. That has been a joy. And I’ve kept submitting my novel, am preparing for a “pitch conference.” November has some jewels in it: the conference, a Vikings game, Thanksgiving in Austin, Texas. Meanwhile, I’ve tried, really tried, to shift down. Outings to Minneapolis instead of Chicago. Mowing the lawn with my new used zero turn radius Toro mower (oh yeah). Garden. Movies. Books. Work. Prairie. Eating my anti-angiogenic foods, my green tea smoothies and yogurt breakfasts, all good things and beauty where I can find it.

And I kept writing, even though the blog has been down. I’ve been over at medium.com . I also wrote a few for Bearings Online, where I am the poetry editor. You can search my name there to find my essays. Essays are not the same as blogs. It’s been a time of essays for me. Definitely a time of Big Life, though not for as many hours a day.

But I missed posting about the garden the most. So I’m back. And I’ll keep you updated.