The last day of an interesting year

I'm big on closure. I like wrapping it up, saying something profound at the finish, having a stirring conclusion to a story, a tidy ending, a resolution. Life isn't like that and this year won't be like that, despite the calendar changing and a new year beginning.

Eight weeks out from the mastectomy and six weeks since my last surgery, I'm starting to feel human again. I have function and some flexibility in my arms, and energy to last the day (usually without a nap). I can get deep, restful sleep for an hour or two on my sides at night before waking and having to turn onto my back again. I can breathe deeply and hike up the hills below and behind the house without collapsing. It isn't the end of the story, but it's a good beginning.

I spent most of 2007 in blissful ignorance of what was to come. I saw my children in January in TN, and again in their new home in Seattle in the summer. Friends came to visit in the spring. In the summer, I travelled almost 9,000 miles of our amazing country with faithful dog Echo, and later added husband Bill on the return journey home. I found old friends that I hadn't seen in many years and had a month in my childhood home, just being with my Mom. I had time with my brother and his family, and visited treasured family friends. I got to see Yellowstone with my husband for his first visit, and found it remarkably unchanged from my time there, almost 30 years ago.

It never occurred to me--EVER--that I would come home to find our lives changed forever in September, with a diagnosis of breast cancer. I flowed through my days thinking that everything would be the same, that we were somehow immune to the challenges and crises that others have faced or will be confronted with? My life was set, I had all the pieces in place at last. Children grown, gone, and independent, over the adjustment of the move to TN, learning the skills I needed to repair and renovate the house, getting ready to develop the acreage, and learning how to be a "just a couple" with my husband. I'm thinking now that life has a way of smacking us around when we are that complacent!

I've been deeply shaken by this awfulness, and feel rather fragile right now. I put on a good show of bluster and confidence, but some days I still just can't believe how quickly and profoundly my former life got smashed to pieces. The feelings of loss for that simple happy ignorance and the rage at my body betraying me at this point in my life are still there, and probably always will be there in the background.

The only resolution is this: None of us gets to choose what happens to us. All we get is the decision on how we are going to deal with whatever gets handed to us.

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Things are going to start happening again next week. Test results will start coming in again, and decisions will have to be made about what comes next. I have posted the Schedule box up top again so you will know where I am and what is happening. No tidy conclusions, just a continuation of the process. That's what life is about, for now, and I'll just keep marching onward.