"The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”
― Barack Obama
Today, although feeling my normal lazy and tired self, I got out and spent an hour trailing the snow blower around the driveway, out into the woods to the compost pile and let it take me far down the woodland paths--making openings for easy walking for the week ahead. I came in tired out, but filled with hope having been dazzled by the scintillating 4 inches of new fluffy snow flakes.
LIfe can be good even in small bursts.
Update on Margo: Although she says she is tired and her arm is swelling up, she is getting better. I can tell that because she starts cleaning when she feels OK. Today she went through the refrigerator,and did the laundry and dishes and made supper (things Scott and I have been doing, but not to her standards).
Her left arm needs to be wrapped and squeezed as there is lymph system problem that fills it with fluid that makes the arm skin very tight. At night she has one wrap and a different one in the daytime. A real nuisance. "I think I am losing a fingernail," she commented today showing me a chemo discolored fingernail that looks like it may be coming loose. It is a "normal" side effect of the current treatment, nicknamed "Red Devil" or "Red Death." Kills the cancer cells quite effectively and at the same time kills off other fast growing cells including hair, stomach lining, nails, and so on. Monday is the next one and then 2 weeks into January and that phase finishes and she gets a break for tests and starts surgery consultations.
The bills are minimal with Medicare and Mayo supplemental; the care wonderful; and we are quite optimistic that 6 months from now she will be clear of cancer and getting her life back to normal, well enough so I can start whining again and get some sympathy:-)