Everyone who is feeling overwhelmed by holidays, family, work, life, and death raise your hand. I knew it. All of you. And because I am the one doing the typing, I am going to tell you all about my holiday stresses. There was Thanksgiving. Lots of family - minus one major member, the daughter - around for a few days. Then my mom's sister died and we went to upper New York to visit with family. Then a couple of weeks of more intense work than usual leading up to a conference in DC hosted by my organization. And throughout there have been many hours of physical therapy, doctor appointments and driving back and forth from those things. Whine, whine, whine.
Maybe because I've been busier and taking on more stuff, I have been having trouble sleeping lately. Things on my mind:
- Recurrence: I can't help it. I keep looking at the data. Scary. When I am alone I spend a mentally-ill amount of time researching this and I am alone this whole week so...
- Twitter: twitter works on the principle of egomania. I hate to break it to you, but for the most part there is nothing interesting about your 140-character thoughts, so keep them to yourself. (I know what you're thinking - people in glass houses...) On the other hand I get it for marketing purposes or important news. Things like, "a million copies of my new book are now in books stores all over the world." Or, "doctors discover a cure for cancer." Things like that people want to know about immediately. But things like, "what you are is what you have been. what you'll be is what you do now" just isn't. [ This paragraph uses 608 characters.]
- Current Health: On the decline. This horrible medicine I am taking, arimidex (which is an aromatase inhibtor that works by reducing the amount of estrogen my body makes) is wreaking havoc on my joints. When I get out of bed or out of a seat after sitting for a while, its takes a painful minute or two to straighten my back, legs, and shoulders. This I have gotten used to. However, in recent days my joint pain is interfering with sleep and exercise. My knees are up in arms, so to speak, when it comes to running, and even a long walk can cripple me for the rest of the day. When I think that I am to be on this drug for 5 years, I feel discouraged...until I remember that I should feel lucky if I am around long enough to take the stinkin' drug for 5 years...
Right now my daughter is traveling with her papa around Ghana. They are with a professional guide, but my lucky husband is also enjoying the novel experience of being guided by his own daughter. And not just any daughter, but a daughter who still uses a GPS to get around the town she grew up in. There she is, resident in a rough and tumble African country, showing her father the sights. How did that happen? My collicky, premie baby, 4.5 pounds on entering this world, nevertheless scored a 10 on the Apgar scale. She's been scoring a 10, in spite of herself, ever since. When recalling her infancy I like to say that if she was awake she was whaling. As a teen, if she was awake she was finding fault with herself. As a young adult, she is mostly just awake, struggling mightily to absorb, assimilate and write about all that she learns every day. Such a beautiful, difficult baby. Such a beautiful, challenging 21 year old who just completed a 70-page paper about the cultural and political significance of the Ghana Dance Ensemble, guiding her father through a colorful, chaotic, and lush country that appears, from a distance, to vibrate with music and stomping feet. What mother would not feel cheered by the prospect of a reunion with such a daughter?
No comments:
Post a Comment