Quote of the Day: “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.” Henry David Thoreau
Exercise Log: Joe and I walked 3.02 miles. We made a sweet loop from our house over to Millcreek Canyon Road, down to Skyline back to overpass and up the last hill. Jen and a lot of my friends are out of town, so Joe as always, is picking up the slack! This has been an amazing summer, weather wise, the mornings are so cool and the afternoons stay in the low 90s. Perfect in my estimation.
I love the quote Sue picked and it goes so well with this day. I started thinking about all the things I want to accomplish with this drive to do so which made me realize that I haven’t felt like this for a while. With chemo and the last surgery, I just had to concentrate on the present, dealing with the pain, healing, and didn’t really have the energy to project into the future but this is the old me. I love to contemplate what next with positive thoughts. So I started thinking about my dreams and what do I have in me that I want to accomplish and to be more than “in common hours” like in Thoreau’s quote. I was tired after I got home from the plastic surgeon and laid down for a second and all I could think of was cleaning my house. I have to be careful because sometimes I have a little energy and I want to take on the big project. So cleaning the house becomes doing everything- washing all the linens, wiping every bookshelf and dresser- which really can’t be done in one afternoon. But I’m glad that I even want to take it on! That’s progress, in my mind.
Hallelujah, the drains are gone. I’m happy to say that all my scars look really good, the skin survived and I’m back in the showering club. 16 days without a shower as an adult, that’s a record for me. They had talked about freezing some of the skin last week and then stitching the healthy skin together but it’s all healed and looks great. The implants were so high at first, and they still are too high, but the doctor said that’s good because you don’t want too much weight on the bottom and they do move down. The doctor and his assistant came in to remove the drains and they both took a side and removed them so fast that I didn’t even have a chance to brace for the pain, which really isn’t much, and they were done. They said they like to do it that way, get it over fast and I’m all for that! He gave me an anti-biotic to prevent any infection.
“Aunt” Jami, she and I share the BRCA1 mutation, sent me an e-mail and I was thinking about how I would love to be in her shoes. She’s at least 10 years out from diagnosis. She wrote back with this encouragement that I so appreciate: “You just never know how strong you really are until you are faced with these struggles, and you are definitely strong!” It’s so true, I would never have pushed myself to learn what I have learned these past months but when you’re forced to confront hardships, you really do step beyond what you thought you were capable of doing.
Maggie and Joanie on boat at Jackson Lake- Me with energy- when I could clean an entire house in an afternoon. July 2010
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