October 25, 2011

Strutting our Stuff


So for those who have asked how Olive's progressing, this is last week and she's faster this week, also running back and forth through the house regularly.  I think I made the mistake of telling her she'd have more energy after a nap and now she's proving me right!  No more limp.  (She keeps stopping in the video because she likes you to say "Ready, set, go!" a lot.)

So I'm learning to walk, too.  On a runway.  In a fashion show.  Tomorrow.  One of my friends is a designer that asked me to do it, and it's for domestic abuse intervention, so here I go...  On the plus side, I had rehearsal yesterday and was told I have a good walk.  I also take it as a plus, too, that I am no longer so self-conscious that I would say no.  I've got nothing to lose!

Had other stuff in the last week or so, mostly really good.  Busy work weeks, but the weekends have been fine, had another therapy session, went to a conference with Julie about cancer and integrative medicine that inspired me to start taking steps again to clean up my act, especially when it comes to diet.  I haven't fully started yet, for those of you who saw me with dessert today--shush.

I don't know if there will be video or photo evidence of my escapade tomorrow--well, I know there will be somewhere, but I may not try to track it down.  But I may post some for you...  Time to get my beauty sleep.

October 17, 2011

Here and gone

Hope you all had a good weekend--we did overall, just pretty ordinary and that's just fine!  Got to sneak in some family visits with Gene & Kate, Mary & Rick, Adeline, Jeri Christine & Christopher...  Olive was still feverish from the croup through Friday and a little Saturday, but she finally started sleeping better and so did we.  Back to day care today, close to good as new but worn out and tantrummy at home.  Thanks, dear.

I will be keeping it short and sweet because I have a busy week coming up--actually 2 weeks.  Sneaking in another therapy session this week, then a local cancer conference Friday.  Overall, life is feeling pretty normal right now.  I'd better knock wood.

I do have some running video of Olive--I'm too lazy to post more tonight, so I'll save it.  'Nite.

October 11, 2011

Healing

So Olive's got croup.  But it's not scary bad, like we're not worried about her being able to breathe.  Ben & she had an interrupted night, as I did the night before.  And father and daughter hung out today instead of day care.  We'll cross our fingers for sleep tonight...  Oh, and I will post some fast-walking/running video very soon.

Yesterday was ovarian cancer screening for me (every 6 months), and all is well on that front.  And today was my first therapy session.  Got an excellent referral and feel like it's the right thing for me to do at the right time.  Today was spent reviewing "the story of what brought me to therapy".  I had plenty of material for an hour!  Mostly the last year, but then reviewing the cycles of change and loss we've been through for a good five-ish years.  It's a lot.  It's weird to want confirmation/validation of that, but it helps.  So now we dive into it, and I will dare to explore self-image, beliefs, marriage, family, parenthood, career, friendships--the whole shebang.  It's all these "now what?" pieces that will probably keep me going back for a long time.  And today was a reminder that if you see me about to institute a major life change in the near future, make me take a time out...

October 7, 2011

Cleaning House

Well, progress was made.  A lot.  It was a good day!

As a testament to why I had put off sorting through a lot of my crazy piles of stuff, there were some strange moments.  Strangest was finding the very piece of paper where I wrote down my biopsy results when I got the cancer diagnosis.  It took monumental focus at work that day to write the words "invasive ductal carcinoma" all the way through without freaking out.  My body remembers that feeling well...

Olive was very funny today and mostly very agreeable until she got tired.  Her "run" is turning into an actual run!  What else... She wanted to try my mineral water and has only had carbonation one other time, so I told her the little bubbles can feel kind of funny in your mouth, so she was calling it "silly goose water" :).  And she thoroughly enjoyed a WI fish fry (as did we), especially the cole slaw.

Good night!

October 6, 2011

Action-packed

Okay, a recap of the last week-ish...

Olive:  Miss T. R. Ubble got back to walking without holding on a week after the cast was off, and is now trying to "run" (fast walking) and doing stairs.  She still has a limp at times, wears a brace similar to her cast at night and is being a very good sport about that.  With walking comes the re-discovery that she can make everything take 5 times longer than normal if she keeps moving.  Also, she feels like hitting, which brings us to her her first time-outs.  The other day I just felt like asking her why she hit me, and she answered "I'm sassy."  Yes.  Yes you are.  But even tonight was better--I think she just needed to retest her boundaries.


Whatever spell you need to cast, my darling-- suddenly I want to give you cookies for every meal, let you drive the car, move back bedtime a few hours...


Me: Oh, it's been action-packed, alright!  Had a nice long weekend enjoying the fall colors with Monica (thankyouthankyou).  We had all these grand plans of staying up late and acting like 20-yr-olds, and then we wound up going to bed early every night.  But it was very relaxing (aside from the 15-mile hike, but that wound up being good, too...).  Thanks to Kathy & Bruce for letting me get away and giving Ben a break, too!  Then medical oncology appt yesterday afternoon, which was fine--I made her walk through a hypothetical recurrence since that's where my mind jumps sometimes...  Then last night Julie took me to see Wilco--great show, nice dinner with friends before.  And then next week I have my next round of ovarian cancer screening (every 6 months), and then some OT to get back on top of my arm swelling, and then a cancer conference...  And then I am taking tomorrow off.

Which brings me to my "cleaning house" time.  For one, I am going to try therapy.  I am equipped to know myself pretty well, but not enough to be able to break out of my own thought patterns and give myself a whole new perspective.  This has been a lot to process, if I may take a moment to make you say "duh".  And then we come to my office.  I think I've 'fessed up here before about its state of disarray, and the fact that it been like that for years.  I'm coming to the realization that if I hadn't allowed myself to have that space of chaos the last 5-ish years, there is likely no way I could have kept the rest of my life orderly enough to keep functioning .  There have been a few losses of very important people to me and enough other major life events to keep me scrambling, and then throw in the cancer and you have a literal mess.  And a mess I haven't had the strength to deal with, because that also means getting rid of/letting go of some things, ascribing meaning to a lot of things... That takes a lot of psychic energy. 

We'll see how far I get tomorrow.