Resting Makes Me Nervous

Today I had another reflexology appointment at the Cancer Connection. Marianne is the most calming and encouraging person I have ever encountered. She worked her magic and during the session I actually imagined that she had taken my feet and taught them to fly. It was very cool. She concentrated on helping me make more white blood cells and told me to go home and spend a few hours resting.

I am not very good at resting. Just hearing those words made me anxious, as if there is something wrong with me. How long will it take me to to realize that I actually do have something wrong with me. I refuse to be defined as sick or ill. I refuse to believe that this cancer, a most uninvited guest, is going to kill me. I am still myself, exactly as I was with the additional scheduling responsibilities of chemo, meds every eight hours, and a daughter who is stressed out and hitting at daycare. Yeah, and I cry way more than I used to.

So maybe having a low white cell count finally gives me enough evidence that I cannot just carry on blindly, but that I need to listen to Marianne and Dr. B. when they say to participate to my comfort level.  This, I know, is hard for me to ascertain. My wonderful, fabulous, famous to my friends former-therapist, Karen Rowe, would often tell me that I needed to redefine what a person should be able to get done in one day. I would tell her what I did in a day, and she would laugh and say the for the average person that would be a week's worth of stuff. I felt super lazy today, and in the spirit or Karen Rowe, I will tell you what I did today and we will see if it was a lazy day or not. Bank, reflexology, oil change, made cookie dough (too hot to bake), sat around trying to rest for a couple of hours, picked up B, went the grocery store and came home and watched Christmas videos with B. I am pretty sure Marianne had something different in mind.

I don't want to forget to post about Lynch Syndrome. This is a genetic syndrome that can explain some colon cancers in youngsters like me. Dr. B and I talked about doing the test on the tumor matter harvested from the liver biopsy, but there is so little Dr. B. wants to save it in case other tests have to be done. He also said based on my family history, it is very unlikely to be Lynch Syndrome. Well, thank God for that. I didn't look it up (and if you do, please feel free to keep it to not tell me), but I am relieved to hear this for my sisters, brother and their kids and their kids' kids.

And thank God that for the time being I don't have to get another liver biopsy. It's like having someone kick a lead pipe between your ribs and into your liver with their jackboot and you are not allowed to breathe.  Enough said.

I can feel the white cells multiplying! Now I really need to go rest.