Extraordinary!

Tonight my feet hurt and I don’t mind. Even though I searched all year for the best hiking boots for neuropathic feet, I expected my feet would hurt some.  It was worth it.  My tolerance for what cancer and my meds are doing to my body has certainly changed over the 3.5 years in this journey.  Especially  with the neuropathy, fatigue, and “huffing and puffing”.  Funny what you can get used to. So too has my overall outlook toward expectations of myself.  I’m much more accepting of this change in abilities now, even as I continue to challenge myself to stay strong and healthy, body and mind.

In 2012 when we climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, we did so because of a documentary in which they said that climbing the tallest freestanding mountain in the world is an extraordinary thing that ordinary people can do.  It is, we are and we did! I’ve never forgotten that concept.

Today I felt like an extraordinary person doing an ordinary (for most people) thing.  The cancer in my body is found in only 1-2% of lung cancer patients.  Remarkable (definition of extraordinary).  I have lived extraordinarily happily for 2.5 years since ROS1 entered my brain meninges.  Remarkable, given the (now ancient, but considered current) statistics on leptomeningeal carcinomatosis.  This morning I took this extraordinary body of mine on a walk through the field and forest to the top of a mountain. Not up “our” side of the mountain.  But up the “other” side of the mountain, the one with views of ocean, ponds, and the village.  Blue Hill Mountain.  Remarkable!

Much thanks to my daughter Mandy for doing this slow walk with me.  It was a beautiful day in every way.  Extraordinary!  See for yourself, and thanks for reading and caring.