It’s Friday afternoon as I write this. Ellie and I are
wrapping up our two-week Creative Writing session, our fourth such session
teaching at MITY. It’s been a good session with good people all around, and it
has been unexpectedly taxing, as always. For my part, I’ve been taxed
physically. I had the second surgery on May 30th, just before the
end of the CDH school year, and have not yet been able to re-start my EPO shots
that boost my red blood cell count, which still floats in the 7s. Between those
and a rigorous MITY session, I’ve explored new ways of being tired day by
day. I’ve discovered head-ache tired,
nauseous tired, can’t-eat-can’t-sleep tired, and ‘remember to breathe’ tired.
As expected, the surgery went as smoothly as before, though
I hereby recommend not eating avocado the night before surgery, as I am
convinced that it caused my post-op nausea and constipation, neither of which
was much fun. Other than that, easy-peasy. I told my work that I was having a
‘minor medical procedure’ and that’s what it felt like. C and I were treated
incredibly well by our Oregon family who sent us Green Fork food, by visits
from friends and family including lunches walks and Mariokarting. Definitely
nicer to recover in the summer than January.
The second kidney proved to have no cancer in it (yay!). Two
days ago I had a CT scan to see if anything had spread beyond the kidneys and
yesterday we heard that it was clear as well (yay!). C and I celebrated with a
deluxe (insane) ice cream cone from Izzy’s and by having our basement drain
roto rootered. I am waiting on a hematology visit to see what can be done about
the low hemoglobin, but the summer continues. Last weekend we spent the weekend
at C’s family cabin near Nisswa with the whole nuclear fam – the first time
we’ve all been in the same room, much less a weekend at a cabin, for several
years. Today marks week four after surgery. Tomorrow C and I leave to visit
some Fourre relatives in Maine. And lots of World Cup throughout.
After sharing about the last surgery (and this one being a
straight repeat) I’ve not felt very inspired to write about the goings on. Part
of that can certainly be attributed to being over-tired and full of good life
things. This entry feels a little perfunctory to me, but it covers the recent
news, and is about what I feel like managing at the moment. I’m reminded of
rushing through my travel entries from places like Egypt and India and Turkey.
While the location feels less cosmopolitan, the stories of my life continue to
feel vibrant and new, at least to me. Thanks for reading!
