Little Things I'm Getting Used to

Now that I don't have to go to the hospital or clinic on a daily basis, I am not sure how much writing I intend to do here in the blog. It's been a great way to keep my family and friends abreast of my daily events, but I don't have much to report these days now that my treatments are completed. Your comments and emails have been very helpful and uplifting, especially when I had to stay here to avoid infection or take chemo for 5 days in the hospital. Soon my life will be getting back to normal and I won't have much out of the ordinary to report.

Recently, I received my job paperwork from Piedmont making January 5th my official restart date. That was the last piece to complete before heading back to work at the Drew Community Health Center, where I worked previously. I was always a little nervous about the whole job situation. In June, I took Family Medical Leave which guaranteed my job for 12 weeks. That put me to September when I had to resign my position. I still had 2 more chemo treatments to go, the economy was tanking, and I worried about whether my non-profit, indigent care clinic would even have a place for me in 2009. I really didn't want to have to find a new job, interview and explain this baby bird hair. I know that primary care doctors are hard to come by, but they might be hesitant to hire someone who has had not one but two cancers, finishing treatment only a month earlier.
But I don't have to worry about any of that. Piedmont is taking me back, at my former center. The staff there is terrific, and I have a lovely supervisor and colleagues. I'll try to shake out all of the cobwebs for them before I get back there on January 5th.

There are some things I am still getting used to with my health and body. They include this baby bird hair, that seems to curl and frizz in its grayness. I'm still waiting on my MaMa hair. Maybe it will be brown & thick again eventually and maybe it won't. My eyesight is worse again-the readers are now 1.75, and I seem to need some distance correction too. Gotta get that checked in a few months once the chemo effects are completely out of my system-they say I should wait 6 months. I'm still having chemo-induced hot flashes at night. I tried to sleep w/o medication last night, but I was up at least 6-7 times between 10pm and 2:30am. Thankfully I have more of the sleeping pills they gave me, but who likes to take those? And like every other woman in menopause, I forget words just moments before I have to use them. I can't wait to see how bad it is when I'm speaking spanish all day because even the english is halting at times. I thought it was my own special chemo brain thing, but Gail says she has it too. Whew, I'll rest easier.

Photo: Me in the Asheville garden this past w-e