Did You Ever Think Life Was Gonna Be This Way?

I've been neglecting you, my dedicated blog readers. I'm so sorry. Don't worry, I haven't been languishing in the hospital or crawling from bed to rocking chair and back. I haven't even been in hiding. Nope! I've been out and about, and I've been busy! I've been...SPRING CLEANING.  This is a momentous event. Long, long ago, in a world before I was diagnosed with cancer, I was a tidy person. An organized person. A person who would work all day, come home, parent and perform various household tasks, and then end the day with some reading or hanging out with my husband. And then I would get up and do it all again the next day. I had energy! I'm sort of amazed, looking back now, on all that I was able to get done. Spring cleaning was one of those things. On a somewhat regular basis, I would tear apart the closets, purge the dresser drawers, weed out the bookshelves, and all the rest. But that was a long time ago. In my post-diagnosis life, some days...

I'm getting my groove back. I can feel it. I stay awake all day (well, most days). I've been organizing up a storm. I'm enjoying cooking and baking again. The hideous acne/rash I had as a result of one of my chemo drugs is almost gone - I've actually left the house without cover-up on and not scared people. Yay for summer! Yay for recovery! Let's drink to that! June 2013, at the mountain house. God, I miss my hair. But wait. I don't have the energy I want. And I get terrible edema if I have drinks. One or two glasses of wine seems to be okay, sorta. But if I decide to have a vodka and soda, or if I have, over the course of an evening, more than two drinks, then I wake up the next morning having gained - and this is not a lie - at least 4-6 pounds. It's water weight. So then I start taking my edema drugs, which make me pee every 45 minutes all day long, for about three days. Then I am back to my regular weight, and then, sooner or later, the edema ...