November 28, 2010

...and giving

Good day/Bad day?: not as bad as I was anticipating

Sorry, didn't mean to make poeple wonder how I was doing. I got the chemo on Friday and the "green" hit me after a couple of hours. The green really feels like you can feel the chemicals coursing through your body--it's weird. Since then, it's been up & down, but not as big of a swing as I was prepared for. Definitely fatigue, some nausea, hot flashes. I'm hanging in there.

Thanks to Myra for some Olive time yesterday and to Julie for time today--much appreciated!

A little bit more about being thankful. This whole process has been an interesting exercise for me (and Ben) in accepting and being thankful. I hope we have been gracious about it so far. I am continually amazed by the sheer generosity of all sorts of people in our lives, those who have just anticipated what we might need and have done it, the continual sincere offers to help that haven't dropped off as time goes on. I know for a fact that I have not been that in tune with others when they are in need, so it's a wake-up call for me to do better in the future. It's been an ongoing trial in learning gratitude, too--partially because of a tendency to want to be independent, and partially from ingrained Catholic guilt. I'm not used to just accepting and not feeling like I immediately owe something back.

So in short, thank you all for all you've done to help us out.

1 comment:

Kathy said...

You've undoubtedly heard the saying "What you do for others comes back to you 100fold" and that's a wonderful thought when you're doing the fun thing, doing for others. When you're in the position of accepting and needing help, tell yourself fiercely that you KNOW in the future, when you see someone needing, you'll be generous with helping, you'll pay it forward as the movie says. It's a wonderful concept. Not very many people realize the importance of helping until they experience needing and getting help. Every so often the evil cancer manages to do something good. We're thankful too, for the smiles you smile when you're probably not really that ecstatic.