nothing is falling

It has been an awfully long time since I've written anything here. It turned into a space to air my negativity, which, in turn, made it a space that fueled my negativity. I didn't need any help in that arena, so it seemed best to leave it alone for a while.

A lot of things have happened. There is a spot on my liver and another on my lung. We don't know what they are, but in six months they haven't changed. Maybe that's something, and maybe it isn't. In another six months, and every six months for the foreseeable future, we will keep looking.

I started and finished a course of radiation. It was hard and painful and exhausting. My skin burst and I got terribly sad.

I started new meds. One is a monthly injection that stops my ovaries from working. Another is a tiny pill that stops estrogen from being produced in other parts of my body. One treats the side-effects of the other two, which initially gave me terrible hot flashes and wreaked havoc on my sleep.

A mass has been removed from my right breast. The surgeon is confident that it is a cyst. The official pathology report hasn't come in. I've spent months in fear of this little bump, hours lightly prodding it, as if I could will it away or coax some sort of confession out of it. And now it's gone. There is relief in its absence, and in the doctor's confidence in its harmlessness. Official word is due by Tuesday.

This morning Jason when on vacation. There have been a lot of times over the course of the past two years when I would have asked him not to go, when my anxiety that the other shoe had reached its precipice was too big, my need for him too pressing. But I've been working hard on planning for life even if we're waiting to hear that there may be more cancer and so, fuck the other shoe. I'm sick of waiting for disaster to befall me and sick of not making plans because another disaster may be just around the corner and because I haven't really gotten  break from searching for the next catastrophe. Jason going on vacation is an important part of this business of not waiting. He's tired of waiting, too. I'll spare you the details of our discussion--part totally rational adult, part pep-talk.

I bought myself a plane ticket to visit friends I see too rarely. I called DHS to talk with them about adoption, and I called an agency we may work with. I have a fun plan every weekend for the next month and a half. I'm joining the Y with one of my dearest friends. We're making plans to fix up the house. The snow is melting. Jason is nearly done with his degrees. I'm probably cancer-free. Life, it would seem, is good. Shoes or no shoes.