Friday, July 13, 2007

It's a Good Day

I couldn't fall asleep last night. Once I finally did, I slept in until 10am or so. My back was sore from contorting around the 3 dogs and one of the cats (Biddy-named after my mom who was named after a chicken). When I finally rolled out of bed, I decided to make this a day to take care of myself. I worked out for about 40 minutes, then I went and worked in the garden for a couple of hours.

I pulled lots of weeds, and planted yet more tomatoes. I know it's way too late to plant tomatoes, but the garden got started late this year and I have all these seedlings that have been waiting patiently to get into the ground. I planted an entire bed of Brandywines and another of Jubilees, both are heirloom tomatoes that taste delicious. The volunteer tomatoes of unknown variety that are popping up in the middle of my gravel walkway are doing great. A couple of them already have yellow blossoms on them, along with the tomatoes that did get into the ground mostly on time. One of my eggplants also has a huge purple blossom. It is so pretty with it's big leaves and purple blossom.

Even though we didn't have as many grubs this year, we certainly have our share of Japanese beetles. They are stripping the leaves from our grapevines, and I even saw them in the mulberry and apple trees this morning. I have never seen them there before. I knocked between 100 and 200 of them into a bucket of water to drown them. It will take a couple of days before they die. There were thousands that I didn't get. They are so beautiful, but so deadly to my plants.

Then, after coming back in to the air conditioning, a friend brought over some skin care products that have very few chemicals in them so that I can use them while going through the cancer treatments to try to minimize the radiation damag. Since the chemo will be poison enough, I don't need to add poison by using impure cleansers, shampoo and conditioner. I'll post more about those after I try them out.

Three friends in a reiki group came over today to do a reiki treatment on me, as they have been doing a few times a week since I got diagnosed with cancer. These treatments help to keep me centered and grounded and present in the moment. Between Terri bringing me natural products, Deb making sure to go to all my appointments with me and helping to explain the medical stuff to me, and the reiki treatments, I am learning to accept support from other people. Having people near me who I know care that much about me is helping me to regain some of the sanity that I lost after feeling violated by the doctor who was verbally aggressive, humiliating and openly homophobic. The reiki treatments are helping me to remember that my body is not a traitor. My body does miraculous things every day, like breathe, eat, move, see, create new cells (healthy ones), and feel the loving touch of my partner and pets.

My dad is in Michigan, visiting from Baltimore. He will be singing and playing guitar at Blissfest this weekend, up north. I may drive up there to spend some time bonding with him as father/daughter and as two new cancer patients. Don't know yet.

Today has been a good day so far. I'm trying to focus on the good things in my life again instead of constantly brooding over the cancer, although that does still color much of what I do, think and say, I'm trying not to become my diagnosis.

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