We'll All Float On. Good News is On Its Way

I got a little scrape on my shin from riding a cyclocross course this weekend. Finally...

 I guess I should do another update here, since I met with the radiation oncologist last Friday. I am done with treatment. Hooray! I talked with Dr Sun and her entourage. Basically, they said that my chance of having a recurrence was about the same as my chance from getting cancer from the radiation treatments, so, to me, it didn't make sense to do possible damage to my heart or lungs and I said, "No thanks!". I'm also not doing the anti-hormone therapy. So, unless my cancer comes back, I will do a breast exam every 6 months and a mammogram every year. It feels so good not to have any of that hanging over my head and not knowing how to plan because I wasn't sure how the radiation would impact my life for the month it was going on.

Here's me with my beer and in my jammies at 7 pm on a Friday night, because I am awesome.

 In order to celebrate, I went to the store after my doctor's appointment on Friday, John set-up our new fire pit, I made veggie black bean chili and corn bread for dinner and we each got a beer and we sat out in front of the fire for exactly 15 minutes before the storm unloaded and started pouring on us.

A sign on the wall of the little diner we went to for breakfast in Knoxville.

 This weekend we went to Knoxville/Pella for a cyclocross race at Lake Red Rocks. It was a pretty nice weekend. We stayed at a little hotel in Knoxville and for a few dollars more, we got a room with a jacuzzi in it. Just last week, I was finally able to take a bath or soak in water without having to worry about maceration of my skin at the incision site, so it was perfect timing.

Not only did we go to Peace Tree Brewery this weekend, we had free beer tickets.

I also got on my bike and tried to ride the cyclocross course at the race venue. The first day, I did one lap and then was exhausted the rest of the day. The next day, I was able to do three laps (5 miles), but not very fast and on the last lap every part of my body felt like it was on fire. I'm glad I made myself do it, though. I figure, the only way I'll get stronger is by going hard and then recovering and then going hard, and then recovering. We'll see how that works for me.

I also had a little bit of a let-down this weekend. I think part of it, was that I was on what John calls "crisis mode" for so long and now that things are looking up, I have more time to think about things, instead of just taking things as they were getting hurled at me. All this thinking seems to make me a little melancholy. I've also been feeling overwhelmed lately - both socially and physically. As I've said, I'm trying to get stronger, and it's hard and it makes me tired, but I hope it will also help me recover faster. The social part, I'm trying to fix. We've been gone the last two weekends and been surrounded by people and then gone out with friends for dinner a lot more than normal lately, and man oh man, do I miss that blessed 2 and a half weeks of FMLA leave after the surgery, where I got to take things slow and easy and just do the things I loved to do and not talk on the phone or answer emails all day at work. Sigh.

So, I took an evening to myself last night to read and cook pasta Primavera and watch cheesy House Hunters shows and it was the best thing I could have done for myself. Tonight I'll cook veggie fajitas and rice and black beans for dinner, sit on my porch and read for a bit and then start packing for our trip to Madison this weekend. Thankfully, it will be our last out of town weekend for a while, and we have a cute little Air BnB to stay at on Willy Street. If I have to go out of town, I am happy that it's Madison and the bike race at the Trek headquarters is always fun too.

I feel like I'm swimming up from my little funk now, and I'll just keep trying to take better care of myself.