Wednesday, April 6, 2011

I'm nearly speechless …

but you know that's not going to keep me from writing today. Heh.

Thank you for your many comments, I've been reading them to my husband and he is as grateful as I am for your warm wishes.

I didn't realize how I'd been literally holding my breath the last couple weeks. It's been wonderful to take deep, lung-cleansing breaths since yesterday afternoon. I hadn't been able to do that. Tension manifests itself in many ways, and I guess it took my breath away.

We feel like we have a summer ahead of us again. We were ready to concentrate on treatment and illness, ready and willing to do whatever it takes to get him well. This change in diagnosis from (possibly) metastatic squamous cell or some kind of lymphoma to a benign parotid gland tumor has given us a new perspective on each other and on life.

I read a comment on Facebook yesterday that a cancer diagnosis makes you realize life is too short for many things. One of the commenter's things was "bad food," which I thought was really good, of course. Here's a partial list for me. I hope you'll add a thought or two in the comments.

Life is too short for

  • hanging on to what doesn't work
  • caring what others think
  • living up to others' expectations
  • clutter – in my mind and in my physical surroundings
  • being irritated over little things
  • not taking care of big things

Keep your prayers and positive thoughts coming. One of his CT scans showed a very small, irregularly shaped spot on his liver. He's following up on that today with his internist. For someone who has avoided doctors for years, my husband is suddenly becoming aware that life is, indeed, short, and he's not quite ready for it to be done. He's gone more than two weeks without smoking and is actually looking forward to having a general physical exam today.

Miracles come in many forms.

2 comments:

Debbi said...

One more: Life is too short to be stingy.

Your generous hearts and good spirits have sustained me and lifted me and I'm so, so grateful.

Anonymous said...

Yippee! What great news! It was so cool to read today's post heasline. Keep up whatever it is you're doing.

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