OMG. My backyard is only about 600sq ft. A strange, ginormous plant has taken over half of it. After six hours of hacking, digging, and swearing I took out about 25% of it. The leaves look something like rhubarb, the root goes down about a foot and spreads in all directions, and it DOES NOT WANT TO DIE. The only way to get rid of it is to dig up one plant at a time and even then I can see I am leaving roots that will probably resprout. I may have to go nuclear, pardon the expression. Except you can’t even buy weedkiller that works anymore. I may have to smuggle the deadly stuff across the border.
Also, I discovered last fall that the drainage problem is caused by the fact that there is about 4-6 inches of sod over a brick patio for most of the backyard. WHO sods over a brick patio? I am now manually removing the mud and grass to get down to the brick. Then I will pull it up, have someone regrade the yard and reuse it. Sounds so easy, doesn’t it?
If I am stooped over and moan every time I breathe come Monday you will know why.
Back on the road tonight, a 7 hour trip home. Sailorboy is flying across the country to visit his mom for a week, so I will use some of the time to deepen my thinking about life planning. I strongly believe that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the route to insanity, as Albert Einstein (supposedly) said. So where am I allowing that to happen in my life? I have some ideas, but I need to think things through more clearly.
So, Sailorboy called me the other day to find out if I wanted him to put me on his new work health care plan, for everything the provincial plan doesn’t cover. He said he would put me down as his common law wife. I asked him if this was a proposal and he almost choked. It was pretty funny.
Since our living arrangement is rather strange…I live half time in another city, in a house I rent on behalf of the company, part of the time in my house, his house, our boat in the summer…I am not sure how this will play and I am pretty sure any claim will be denied. I never worried about this before because a) I always had a job with good benefits and b) I was healthy. Both no longer true.
One of my goals for the next few weeks is to keep my anxiety tightly boxed. I can’t do anything except wait and thinking about it is too exhausting.
My eating has gone to hell, I either don’t want to eat or gorge myself on yucky food. The scale has not skyrocketed but I don’t understand why. But then half the time that number went up I didn’t understand what was happening either, so nothing new about that.
I am back working on location this week, which means walking the dog for 60-90 minutes a day. Gold star for that.
I expect this blog is going to swing wildly and unpredictably from topic to topic for the next while. My mind is unsettled.
I have spent many of my waking hours since March 31 thinking about how I am living my life. I started with the question: if I found out I was going to die a lot sooner than I planned what would I do? My family is long-lived - my grandparents (all four of them) lived well into their nineties, and I have several great-aunts and uncles who passed the 100 year mark before dying. So I have always thought that I had years and years ahead of me. Now, I am forced to accept, maybe not.
My children are grown. My parents are relatively healthy and active. Why am I not doing the things I always wanted to do?
I have no answer to that question, or at least, no satisfying answer. So, I am starting to build the life I want.
We all die. We take nothing with us and leave nothing behind. What consumes you between now and then is entirely and completely your choice.
Sailboat is in the water! Always a tense moment when you see your 26,000 pound boat being picked up by a gigantic crane and swung through the sky. It landed safely, the engine started right up - then blew the transmission. Silly me, I didn’t even know it had a transmission…guess that’s why I am not in charge. This will be a very expensive start to the season.
I am maintaining my slo-o-o-w slide down the damned scale that began with a medically-mandated fast just over a month ago. I am down about 8 lbs since then, depending on when in the day I step on the damned scale (dmd scale for short). I am still 4 pounds above my heaviest weight ever, and yes, I see the illogic in that statement but that is how I feel about it.
I started the next course - Financing the Entrepreneurial Organization. There is math and everything. So forget about free time until the end of June.
Apr 20: I am having a terrible time staying focused today. It has been 20 days since that biopsy, and I know it has all been sent to the surgeon’s office. I have called them every Fri since and each time I am told the doctor has my file, it is being ‘triaged’ and once she has decided how urgent my case is the office will call with an appointment. I am debating whether or not to call again today. I don’t know if it is harder living with the uncertainty than it will be confirming that I have an appointment with a cancer surgeon.
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Apr 23: I have an appt next week - it was supposed to be this week but there is no way I can manage that without huge disruption. I had to phone around and get the reports sent to the right place, I guess this is something I have to get used to, being on top of things and making sure things happen at the right time.
There is a huge ball of anxiety in my stomach and my hypochondria is at about 192%.
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I have been researching ‘anticipatory grief’ and I can come up with no upside to telling anyone what is happening. It turns out that although people seem to believe that preparing for a loved one’s death in advance ameliorates the grieving after, the research does not support this. In fact, for most people, this period of ‘aniticipatory grief’ is just a first, different but just as intense period of mourning. So knowing in advance creates two distinct grieving processes, and having the advanced grieving does not make the post-loss grieving any less.
I can only think that it is a better thing to not share until I absolutley have no choice.
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Apr 30: My emotions are all over the place and taking quite a toll. I slept about 20 hours this weekend, just completely fatigued and overwhelmed. So tomorrow is another day. I am building all sorts of scenarios, depending on what I learn on Wed. Not sure what will come next. This is a lesson in mindfulness and living in the moment.
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May 4 Next set of tests: June 5th. Followed by surgery. 50-50 chance it is benign. Are you a glass half empty or glass half full person?
It looks like I will be working here on site until the end of the month. I want to be home by May 3, as the boat goes in the water that first weekend rain or shine - or snow! I don’t want to miss it.
Today’s goal is to rise above the anxiety generated by the uncertainty in my life and enjoy the sunshine.
