I'm back.
I didn't intend to keep Will and Billy and the boys at the top of the page for so long. I keep meaning to post but I never seem to get around to it. I wanted to assure those who have expressed concern that all is well.
It's time to re-commit to regular updates and to begin, please let me explain my absence:
The last round of chemo was kind of hard. I'm not sure if I was hit with an additional bug but I experienced some really gruesome side effects (I'll let you use your imagination), especially last Friday, when I should have started to feel better.
The truth is, that I am taking longer to recover every round, these days. My oncologist has suggested that I skip a treatment this summer. I plan on taking July off so I can go to BlogHer (Did I mention that I got in? I was so disappointed when I came back from Florida to find that the conference had sold out. I can't really afford this but when I learned that there was a space for me, I hesitated for only a couple of hours before taking out the credit card. After all, my book will be there, I want to be there with it!)
I'm going to ask my doc if I can take August off, as well. It can't hurt to ask, right?
When I have felt well, I have been running around a fair bit. I have had a bunch of appointments (among other things, I have returned to physio and lymphatic massage, after taking a long break), errands and other commitments.
Last week end, for example, my spouse and I took D. to the Cumberland Heritage and Power Festival. There were so many cool things there, a steam powered rock crusher, water-powered toys and little tiny steam trains on which you could ride. I wish I had brought my camera. The photos would have made a great blog post.
I blame Twitter. I find sometimes that I have begun to compose my thoughts in 140 characters. For example, I tweeted about my brain MRI results but I see that I didn't write about them here (I think this is a common problem. I remember Average Jane citing Twitter as an excuse for not blogging). They were great results, by the way with absolutely nothing suspicious in evidence, or as I reported to my spouse, "There is nothing there."
I have had
Promoting my book, while fun, has left me kind of uninspired. But I am getting past that. How many more times can I say, "Please buy my book?" or "Don't forget about the Toronto launch on June 11?"
The truth is I haven't been doing much writing of any kind lately. And I miss it. I just seem to have fallen out of the habit.
But the only way to make something a habit is to do it.
So here I am.
7 comments:
Welcome back! I'm glad to hear you're okay but sorry to hear that the chemo treatments seem to be affecting you harder each time. I'm all for taking a break - it probably won't matter if you take August off as well.
And, give yourself a break about writing. If you're uninspired and you have more interesting fun things to do, like the Power Festival, then by all means, enjoy! Writing is a good habit to get into but if it starts stressing you out because you feel like you have to write, then it seems a break is in order. But if you miss it . . . that's another story.
Anyway, I think you should enjoy life!
Glad you're back! I'm so excited that you'll be at BlogHer. See you there!
Welcome back! I've tried reading your story backwards, but I'm going to go down to Octopus and buy the book so I can read it forwards. And I've subscribed to your feed now, so I can keep reading forwards from this point onwards.
Thanks very much Laurie for the encouragement over the past few days. It has meant a lot to me, coming from your unique vantage point.
Laurie, you should know by now that the chemo builds UP in your body, so of course recovery time goes UP as well.
Rather then skip, how about half dose in half the time? It's great to have weeks and weeks off in between infusions, but maybe a little less chemo with fewer weeks off in between would be good too.
Welcome back and we look forward to reading more ;)
Glad to see you are back - I don't comment often but I have missed your posts.
Laurie,
You've made up for not writing for a while with the last two blogs; filled with information and suggestions that I, for one, will be acting on. It's hard to get back in the frame of mind necessary for WW and daily exercise; I think I'm about ready to get back into gear.
Often, you write in a self-disclosing way that inspires me to do something I've been putting off. Thanks.
B in T
Thank you. Every one of these comments here means so much to me.
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