Two Handed Again

Here are some things that are very good to have two hands to do: Style Hair, Eat, Type. Those are what I missed most, though the list could be very, very long. Things I did not miss are washing dishes and vacuuming. But that's okay. It was worth it. As of today I am finally and officially two handed. Woop! Woop! And I am dying to catch up on all the big events I mentioned in my earlier finger-pecking post, especially before the next big event of BRAND NEW GRANDBABY occurs. Which could be any second now. Could be right now in fact. Poor Jen feels the need to start every phone call with, "I'm NOT in labor." That's only cause I hung up on her this morning while I was with the doctor getting my official clearance to use my arm again, and then I freaked when I couldn't reach her. But it's okay. I'm calm now. So anyway, I'm gonna crank it out now. A day at time maybe. We'll see how it goes. First, while I'm on the subject, is this here arm surgery. It's called lymphevocenular bypass. Not really, I just don't want to look it up. But it's something like that. So here's the (trying to be) short story. They took out my lymph nodes under my arm cause they were full of cancer. Lymphatic fluid travels around your body via lymph nodes, so with those gone, the fluid gets traffic jammed in my arm and it gets all big and puffy and ugly. I posted a pic on facebook but I'm kind of regretting that now cause it's kind of freaky so I'm not gonna post it again here. But trust me it was big and ugly. So my genius doc (the same one who is doing my reconstruction) put some new channels in that connect the lympathic system with the venous system. Since the venous system is pumped via the heart, it gets all that fluid moving. (And in case you're worried, the lymph system ends up dumping its stuffing into the venous system a little further down the road anyway, so it's not mixing stuff that shouldn't be mixed. I was worried about that.) The end result, as of today, is that my arm is still a little big at the elbow, but the hand and wrist are ABSOTALUTELY normal! And the whole arm feels soft and light and amazingly wonderful. The best part is that I don't have to wear that ugly compression sleeve 24/7. So no more people asking me about my tats. That's kind of a bummer. But I'll live with it.

One-Handed Pecking

My last post was about life hitting you like an avalanche. Well I'm back to report that LIFE is still boring down in huge clouds of glorious, momentous events.

Like the event of the year: Daniel and Klea's wedding. Wow was it wonderful. Truly a heaven-made match. And you should see the pictures! Stunning!

Then there's the runner-up event of the year. THE CUTEST DRAPER IDOL JUNIOR WINNER EVER!!!! Man, what a day that was.

We also have life-changing, phenomenal surgery that I want to tell the world--or at least all lymph sufferers--about.

Finally, a fire on our mountain last night. Scary, eerie, entertaining, awe-inspiring and heart-wrenching all at the same time.

And I'm being TORTURED!!!!!

See, I have nothing but time to blog about all these things, but I am currently required to lie around full time with my arm in the air. I'm happy to do it in exchange for a skinny, light-weight arm. But like a dancer on crutches, my fingers are aching to dance across the keyboard. These few little lines of uninspired prose have taken nearly an hour of pecking, since I not only have just one hand, but the keyboard is propped above my line of sight. If you could see all the mistakes I've fixed you'd be super impressed.

So I will tell those stories eventually, in the meantime this will have to do for my story-telling fix.

The Avalanche Effect

You know how it is--if you blog or even if you journal or correspond with someone--how something cool or different happens--like maybe your child does something amazing and eventful or you just feel inspired about something or maybe you notice you have an inordinate amount of toe hair--and you think, "Hmm, I think I'll blog about that."

That's how it usually is anyway. But sometimes something amazing happens, and you decide to blog about it. But before you do something equally amazing happens. But you can't blog about that thing until you blog about the other. But then something else happens. And before you know it:



You're running from all these wonderful blogging opportunities and you can't possibly slow down and write about them because there are too many and you don't have time because life keeps coming at you and coming at you so you just run and run and run.

That's how it is with me anyway.

Eventually though, I always seem to be forced into a stop. Like today. So I'm going to do my best to tell a bunch of big long mostly wonderful stories in a nutshell.

First, my job. Which isn't any more.

I was going along quite innocently thinking all was great at work. My department was breaking records like mad. Unfortunately for us another department was breaking even more records like even more mad. So the powers that be decided to do away with my department.

So in an instant I said goodbye to my nice writing job. (Blog idea!) But no time yet.

I decided the timing was fine, since I'm (this) close to getting my new novel published. It even has a brand-spankin' new name: Extra Normal. (Which did not come easily. Another blog post!)

Unfortunately, novels don't bring in money right away, and with a bunch of college kids in the house looking for work, I went looking for something that would bring in some quicker income. I came across a business a dear friend of mine is running. Which is how a person who has never even considered owning a pair of designer jeans came to sell them. Slapped an ad on my car and off I went. (Hurry, hurry, get it started. No time to blog yet! There's so much to tell!) Got my first check yesterday. Which is cool. So if you're in the market for a great deal on designer jeans, I'll hook you up.

But literally the day after my first party I left on a wonderful retreat to Moab sponsored by WBC (Women Beyond Cancer). Oh, but wait! There's more! Minutes before leaving my son and his girl sat us down and announced their engagement! (Wowzers!! The blog is screaming at me!!!) I left for the retreat flying high. One of the happiest days of my life.

The next day I was hiking delicate arch. We got to the end of the hike and were told to climb a hill one at a time, on all fours, to see the prize at the end. At the moment that I saw this view:



(The one behind me.)


A text came through. It was from my future daughter-in-law, a picture of her new ring. (Sadly I can't figure out how to get that one off my phone to put here.) I saw the image and started crying. I called out to the crowd below "My future-daughter-in-law just sent me a picture of her ring!" I was expecting some kind of "awww!" but got blank stares instead. Yeah, they didn't quite get the vision. Oh well, it was still cool and awe-inspiring.

One of my favorite stories from the retreat. We went on a humvee tour with Tommy. I expect only his mom calls him that, but we were a bunch of moms and he was very cute. He was about to take a path and asked us if we wanted the hard or easy way. One enthusiastic (and amazing) member of our party called out, "hard! hard!" The path he took had a steep drop that caused us all to scream while our stomachs made our way up to our throats. At the next path, he asked the same question. Here's the path:

Miss Enthusiasm made the same call. The rest of us weren't so enthusiastic. But Tommy turned the Humvee around and backed it up the hill. The hard way? Get it?!!! Hysterical!!! Yeah, that's how the trip went.

The very best part was when we found ourselves in the Fiery Furnace on the very day the world was supposed to end. (You remember that day don't you? Can you imagine a more ironic place to be when the world ends?!) In case you don't know, the Fiery Furnace is this very challenging and beautiful hike that a bunch of women battling cancer have no business hiking. But we did it anyway. Talk about amazing. I admit I had a freak out moment. Maybe two. But mostly I was trying not to wet my pants from the laughter. Like when we were told to keep three points of contact while squeezing between two walls with no bottom. Yeah. That's the kind of stuff they kept making us do. "You just put your hand here and your foot here and you just scoot without looking down." And one of the members of our crew flung herself onto the wall and asked, "what about TEN points of contact?" Maybe it's not hysterical now, but while close to freaking out and trying not to die, trust me. Life doesn't get any more exhilarating than that.

Here's the group of amazing women, thrivers all:



Life changing. Incredible. Wow. Wish I could say more, but that avalanche is gaining on me!

Time to plan a wedding. Which happens to be in just a few weeks. Busy Busy Busy Busy. But first I was supposed to take trip to California, to get my mother to a family gathering. But while planning that, Brandon was selected to do a bridge solo the next week on a tour to California with his performing group.

We weren't planning on going. But he was so adorable. I just couldn't miss it. So I got my mom and my kids off to the trip to northern cali, and the next week I headed to southern cali. Here's probably my favorite performance:



The most cool thing (besides the solo) was performing on the Disney Stage. Talk about awesomeness.



And finally, here's proof that I was on the trip.



So there it is, my big bad wonderful avalanche of a month on the run. Now back to the wedding...and novel...and jeans....

An Open Letter to the Treehouse Zumba Instructors

Dear Treehouse Zumba Instructors,

While trying to convince my clumsy feet to salsa the other day, I decided I ought to write you all a letter. But since I'm always in a frantic rush (even when I'm not in your class), I thought I could maybe multi-task and write your letter as a blog post. Hope you don't mind.

First, I ought to tell you who I am. I'm sure you've noticed me. I'm the one in the back of the room wearing big baggie clothes and going right when I'm supposed to go left, forward when I should go back, and up when everyone else goes down. Oh, and I wear an ugly compression sleeve on my arm. Yeah, that's the one—I knew you'd figure it out. And that's one reason for writing—to explain the sleeve, since I'm sure you've wondered but have been too polite to ask.

To explain, I need to go back to 2009, and with apologies to those who have patiently followed this blog over the years, let me do a quick recap: September of that year I was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. Always the over-achiever, this particular cancer was super aggressive. My oncologist told me that when the team of doctors got together to discuss my treatment, they looked it over and decided I needed every treatment currently available.

And so began an intense regimen of surgeries, chemo, and radiation. After that I had a reconstructive surgery that failed. Plus I'm now on about five prescription meds that are pretty cruel to the body but hopefully will keep the cancer away.

The person I am in 2011 is vastly different from the fit and healthy person I left behind in 2009. On the upside I'm filled with gratitude and sentiment. Happy to be here. Happy to be anywhere. Loving my family, my grandbaby, my hubby, my friends. All of it.

On the downside, I've lost both boobs and gained twenty pounds, which gives me the figure of a pine tree. I have a hairstyle that's a little too long to be cool but a little too short and dark to be me. I have a stupid arm that swells up and requires that ugly compression sleeve (twelve positive lymph nodes). And overall I feel more like a grandma than the mother of a young boy (I happen to be both, but I used to feel more like a mommy than a grandma).

Despite all the bad stuff, my prognosis is good. Not great, but good. I have just another year and a half of holding my breath and hoping IT doesn't come back. After that I'll party.

So now the reason for writing. Again, those that have followed this blog know that even though I've been a Treehouse member for years, I've had issues with going during my treatment. Partly because I have restrictions with my arm. But mostly because I feel like a big fat blob when I'm there. I tried a few classes off and on, but mostly stayed home with my treadmill and hand weights.

Then one day I decided to go wild and crazy and try a Zumba class. Even took a friend. And it was . . . um . . . interesting. I kind of left half-way thru. Yeah, it was fun and all. But it wasn't for me. Too many ultra-fit ladies strutting their ultra-fit stuff; and me tripping over my very unfit feet.

But there was one thing the class had going for it: it didn't require me to put any weight on my swollen arm. Every other class I'd tried required I make modifications while the rest of the class did their pushups or planks or updogs. And since I seriously need to move my fanny to fight the effects of these fat-inducing drugs, I eventually decided to give it another shot. I can't say I enjoyed the class that time either. It wasn't until the third, maybe fourth time, that I decided I could actually do this thing. I think it was when I stopped worrying about my feet and the skinny ladies in class and just started moving to the rhythm. Yep, it was actually fun.

And would you like to know how I feel while I'm in the class? Well, let's see...I feel fat, awkward, clumsy, old and out of shape. Sorry, I know you were hoping for more.

But don't worry, it gets better. Because there's something else I feel: ALIVE. That's right—for the hour that I'm in that class trying my best to jump and bop and gyrate my hips in a way that somewhat resembles what you're doing, I feel truly alive for the first time since that awful diagnosis.

And something else: I feel hopeful. Not hopeful that I'll ever look or move like you. But that I'll eventually look and move better than I do now.

And that's why I'm writing. To thank you for giving me that.

Yours Truly,

Suzanne, from the back of the room (Zumba-Hey! Zumba-Ho!)