Sunday Morning. Wow, it has been a week already! No news is good news in this case, I am fine. In fact I have begun to paint again! I never know what they will be when they are finished but this is a large canvas and it begins with my Trumpet Vine! The point being it is paint, it is colorful, it is wet and messy and after a seven month hiatus, I am at it again! I am already thinking of another one! The pain in my hands remains the same. I just no longer dwell on it.
Saturday Morning and I am pondering how wealthy I am! I am been in excellent health most of my life and except for this little bought with cancer, I haven't seen a doctor six times in my entire life. I am sitting in my warm office of my little welding/art studio, drinking Starbucks Coffee and have the shop kitty on my lap. What makes me think all this is a fellow artist from the Chicago area has just lost her home! For me this personalizes the recession we are in. More people are without work and more people have lost their homes than during the Great Depression! There is no mass migration because there is no place to go! No California Grapes of Wrath this time. She and her husband will be living in their car. Their children are grown and gone. They had two dogs and a cat they had to find homes for. They lost their art studio; they don't have a bed. I suppose there are thousands like them, maybe millions, but I know these people. I am not sure whether we will ever get "back on tract" to a booming economy and I am not sure we want to. It was a pretty destructive system in a lot of ways. We have lost our safety net for a lot of people and I think it is ironic that I am drinking Starbucks while friends are living in their cars!
Wednesday Morning. Vicodine is so easy to borrow! I ran out of Vicodine on Saturday and called the perscription in to the drug store. They had to call the doctor for his approval and it was the weekend, a 3-day Holiday weekend at that! I won't get them until this afternoon! I discovered that this is not a problem at all. The next door neighbor gave me 4 pills and another friend has a perscription where he gets 150 pills at a time! He gave me 10. It is the new version of "mother's little helper". Got a pain? Need to keep going? No time to relax and let the pain go away? Take a pill. The doctors don't seem to be able to fix my hands so I am thankful I can get the pills so easily!
Tuesday Morning, a week has gone by! I am so normal, not much has changed! I can eat whatever I want and have put the leftover "Ensures" to the back of the pantry! A whole week goes by and really7 nothing has happened! I am finally getting tomatoes from my garden and enjoying them in wonderful sandwhiches and salads! That is huge progress! My hands are still very bad but helped with viciodine. I can walk around the block but not much further, but that is better than last month. This healing process will take months but finally I am going in the right direction, just not as fast as I would like to! My moustache is returning!
Monday Morning, August is ending. The cancer is gone and I am going to talk about the weather! You have no idea how exciting that is to me! It is a wonderful change. Can you believe it? It is raining! Not the cleansing and refreshing Summer rain that often comes with lightning, thunder and sometimes hail, but the drizzle of Fall kind of rain that will bring damp-off and destruction to my frail tomato plants! It is about 62 degrees f. and this is the predicted weather for the week! Strange, huh? I could not have chosen a better Summer to go through this cancer experience! It was cold and wet through June and we didn't see 80 degrees until mid-July. Maybe the shortest and wetest Summer on record!
Tuesday, after doctor's visit. "Take two asprin and call me in the morning". Well, it was almost like that. My doctor doesn't want to see me until October! No tests, no cat scans, no nothing until then! My hands will continue to hurt, that is normal. My shortness of breath is normal. I have gained FIVE pounds and that made him happy. All my blood counts are "normal"! Basically healing is a slow process, get used to it. I am a survivor! But I would never say this was easy!
Monday Morning. Progress comes in little steps and I will just have to get use to this. Tomorrow I will see my Voodoo doctor and he will be pleased at the return of my appetite. Still, I am short of breath and my energy level is so low! A five minute task wears me out. My painting just sits. I am no inspiration for it and can't really hold a brush...So far there is no improvement in my hands and that bothers me. I am greatful to be eating and I sleep well, so that is all a plus. My garden is full of weeds!! Tomorrow I will tell you what the doctor says!
Wednesday Morning! I get news headlines flashed across the top of my computer screen. One of today's says "cancer is the world's most costly disease" this is probably true but could have said "the world's most profitable disease" Lots of people make a lot of money from this. Just wondering. Today I had a great breakfast: a huge sausage and mushroom omelette, hashbrowns and gravy and rye toast! Couldn't eat it all but I ate most of it. My painting is gessoed and some background colors added and maybe today I will figure out what it wants to become?
Monday Morning! Tomorrow my daughter is off to Washington DC to practice law!!! I will lose my Chili Relleno meals that have been so wonderful. Yesterday I cleaned off my welding table and spread a canvass, about three feet by five feet over it. Today I will "gesso" the canvass. That means to prepare it with a base coat, like a primer. This coat is often white but can be any color or mix of colors. I use lots of colors, lots of techniques in placing them and think as I am doing this what the painting will be? Often this gesso process will determine the focus of the painting. In a way it is like a prejudice we take to a conversation that determines everything we hear. My hands are the same, I am learning to deal with them!
