Saturday, April 4, 2009

The Doldrums

On the one hand, there’s a good reason when I cannot do all that I hope to do. On the other, it gets old, frustrating, and so, so discouraging when I simply run out of energy. Today, the stress and pace of the last two weeks took their toll, and while I was up and working in the early morning, I soon simply ran out of energy to stay awake, to resist the headache of every recent morning, to keep going. After more hours of the day spent sleeping than is comfortable to tote up, things got going again, but my reservoir has been depleted and isn’t yet refilled. That’s both in the general case and in the specific one of the last two weeks. The coming week requires even more careful management than this week did, as I’m traveling and that’s a tricky balancing act in this post-surgical reality.

Feeling around on my skull tonight, the dents and valleys are more pronounced than ever. As Pollyanna AKA Michael points out, this is the good news: the swelling continues to recede. Also, the weird area of my scalp has shrunk in size and in its sensitivity. Exercises I used to fear because they triggered headaches no longer present any except a barrier of anxiety/trepidation, which always takes some time to pinpoint: oh yes, that used to cause big headaches, and it doesn’t any more, so it’s ok to keep going even as all my instincts are screaming “don’t do that!”

I miss reading.

I miss going about my life without planning and anticipating every single expenditure of energy.

I don’t miss the constant headaches. I don’t miss the general greyness of last summer, and I don’t miss feeling like a total klutz from falling down regularly.

I’m happy to be alive and still part of my family’s life with most, if not all, of my personality intact.

I miss being funny. I have still a large repertoire of laugh lines left over that come out at the right moments, but I’m not sure I’ve made any new or interesting observations about the world in quite some time. Is this still me?

Whatever it is, making the best of it is the best choice there is, so I’ll pull up my socks again and go with it. It will be nice, one day, not to have to think about this unremittingly, just as I no longer scheme about how to get down a flight of stairs, sleep on my left side, or write on a blackboard. It would be nice if not having a tumor recurrence would have made everything better. Only now is it clear I’d pinned a lot on that, and that it didn’t carry any magic, except the biggest, best and invisible kind.

Bleah. Taking a deep breath and trying to look at the bigger picture, here’s back to regularly scheduled life, where there’s so much to appreciate and enjoy.

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