Missy Diggs

Anyone who actually reads this blog, or even just checks in on it to see what is up with me, is probably wondering what the @#$% happened. Well, I went to Houston for radiation treatment and I fell off the face of the earth.

There were a few reasons for it, of course. I had very limited computer access, for one. And I was getting radiated (by some very nice people, by the way) twice a day, every weekday (except Labor Day, which cancer gets off: who knew?), and I had to get up every morning and be at the clinic by 6 am for the first blast, then back by 3 or so for the second.

And, I didn’t really realize it until I got home, but I was sort of pretending that none of that was happening to me.

I spent a lot of time watching TV. Really a lot of time. And since I don’t have TV at home, I had a lot of TV watching to catch up on. I can safely say I’m caught up now.

And I spent a lot of time thinking I should be doing something with myself. Writing a novel! Sewing a quilt! Preparing all the things I want to be able to leave for my young daughter if something should happen to me!

And somehow I just couldn’t get myself to do any of that. I spent all my energy on getting myself to appointments, keeping myself fed, and maintaining a cheerful attitude in the face of cancer. So I was pretty busy after all.

Now I’m back and I’m still peeling and healing. The worst part of being radiated, ironically, came after all the treatments were over and I was back home and away from the clinic and the supportive knowledgeable people I had been seeing eleven times a week. My skin is a wreck. And healing always takes longer than I think it should. And next week I start back on chemo and hormone therapy.

So I am still giving my body a big rest, while my brain keeps pointing out all the things I should be doing with my time. So I am adding things back, one at a time, and hoping that soon I will be once again living a full life.