Crack The Champagne

It's official enough to crack the champagne- an incredibly delicious bottle of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, compliments of Terry Halpin. He gave it to me when the cancer-thing began and said it was for celebrating once I reached the other end of the situation. And I think I've done that! I'm still a little tired after I exert myself, like on Sunday when Sandi and I ran our usual 40 minutes through Houston or today when I swam at the pool. These excursions are usually followed by a mandatory nap as I can barely stay awake for the day if I don't. The side scars from the lymph node removal and the drainage tube still bother me. Its like I have a second armpit; the indent is quite pronounced. I saw my massage therapist who manipulated the skin around the scar to loosen the sticking fascia. It feels better but still aches after a day of skiing and jarring myself on the moguls or reaching for the next stroke in the pool. The nerve endings are repairing from the shoulder to the elbow joint so I can feel a lot more now. But the greatest thing is the past month of semi-depression seems to be lifting. It's difficult when you get spit out at the end of your treatments. You now have time to face everything that happened. You have to look at yourself- at what now faces you in the mirror-and re-evaluate. You have to forgive your old self, accept your new self and face the fact that this might not be the end of "that" side-road. That there might be a re-lapse, a different cancer pop up after all that radiation, a side-effect might appear from the chemo drugs, from the new drugs, from fate itself. You tell yourself you can take whatever comes and you mostly mean it. You've come so far already. OMG. Look at how far I HAVE come. Did I really go through that Hell and survive? And that's why you get depressed. It's an emotional process of shedding off the old skin and trying to get comfortable in this new, cut-up and re-sewn, blasted and poisoned short-haired body that remains. Just add a little eyeshadow, pencil in some eyebrows and set the alarm clock. No napping ALL day for this girl!