Lesson learned!

Living  with cancer, even when you’re feeling relatively well, is trickier than I realized.  The good news is that I’m on the mend and back to feeding goats and crafting.

On the very day that I should have been celebrating four years of LIVING with cancer, I found myself in the hospital.  Ugh.  A simple infection turned into a three day stay being observed and cared for in the Special Care Unit.  Huh?!  How could that happen?  Well, I have cancer you see, and even though it is my med that controls the cancer, it is my job to take extraordinary care of my body and mind.  I think I forgot that in all the fun of the holidays, got overtired and kept going as I always had, and the next thing I knew I was sick, really sick.  An ordinary infection that decided to creep into my bloodstream took advantage of my body focusing on making conditions optimal for my med, and being distracted by the holiday festivities.

Two ER trips, CT scans of chest and head, EKG, who knows how many bags of IV fluids, IV antibiotics, heart monitoring, chest x-ray, blood work and more blood work, and on and on. I must say that I got the VIP treatment as a stage IV cancer patient.  I hope that everyone is treated so well.  I even got to practice using my spirometer!  The happy ending to this chapter is that everything is now okay.  I expect it will take me a while to get back to where I was, but I’m confident I will.  I did get some mighty good chicken soup delivered to me, and that sure is good for whatever ails you.  And, now I know.  Just because I’m feeling pretty good, that doesn’t mean I should push myself.  And now Dan can (and did) say, “I told you so!”  (In a very kind and gentle way.) Lesson learned.

So back I go to finding joy in the everyday every day here in our winter home, cozy and warm with Dan and the dachshunds. And, in case you missed it too – I have passed the four year mark of LIVING well with stage IV lung cancer!

When I got back to playing I made this junk journal out of a 6X9″ envelope, scrap paper and cloth, a cereal bag, odds and ends of cardboard, and a few buttons.  Pretty fun!