Whatever I Want
9.13.2023
I’m not sure if you know this about me. I’ve been homeschooling with some combination of our children for the past ten years. It has been everything you might imagine it to be, everything most life experiences have the potential to be. It has been deeply challenging and wildly joyful. It has been good. But, all good things must come to an end.
I have been absent from this place for around a year. I just had to stop. After years of keeping all the balls in the air I just didn’t feel I could keep kids coming and going from school, homeschooling, household management, cancer treatment, and blogging about cancer treatment going. It was too much!
The past year of treatment has amounted to a parade of targeted chemotherapy infusions. Targeted chemotherapy works in special ways meant to be less bad (that’s my description, not the cancer people’s). The length of each treatment has varied but this summer they have gotten ridiculously short. Ironically, this has probably been the best summer I’ve had in 3-5 years and it has been filled with failed treatments! (Yikes! What does that say about cancer treatment?) Anyway, we’re moving beyond targeted treatments back into carpet-bomb, knock-down, drag-out, hard core chemo again.
After only a month on the last targeted chemo I was hit with the worst pain in my life. For a metastatic breast cancer patient, new pain = check it out. Unfortunately, the cancer has moved into my abdomen. The pain is under control now. I am super grateful. We did a procedure on Friday that should prevent that pain going forward. And, I started a new chemo, too.
As we wrapped up the school year last spring, Paul and I speculated at what in the world I would do with myself once homeschooling ends. My main idea was this: whatever I want! Paul chuckled and suggested I do whatever I want for far longer than any stretch I had in mind. (I suspect he thinks I deserve it.)
In the meantime, it has occurred to me that these are not ideal conditions for doing whatever I want. After a busy morning Thursday of getting everyone off to school, a lovely, quick visit from a friend and an appointment I came home feeling cold. I thought I want soup and a hot bath. Then, I realized, I could have it! I quickly threw some garden vegetables in a pan to saute, added some broth and left it while I took the hottest, nicest bath I’ve had in years. There was no one home to use up my hot water or call my name. I only had the scent of simmering soup to lure me out of the steamy bathroom.
Despite it all, I’m doing whatever I want and it feels good!