First day of radiation

Hello from the desk of the Calico Pen. I sit here with a bulletin board on the wall that is covered with email greetings that I have received from many of you during the last few days. What a treat! The nights have been long, not hard, just a lot of introspection and thoughts and then each morning I check the emails and it is so good to know that I was not alone that night.

So....here's how it started. I noticed I had been a little more tired than usual. Not tired, but weary. I thought, "well, maybe I am working too much and maybe I am showing signs of old age," but Sandy reminded me that I was not old just a few weeks ago. Also I had a strange tingling in my right jaw a few times. Kinda felt like a carpal tunnel sensation. Then a week ago I was on the phone chatting with my friend Kathy and I suddenly lost the ability to make words. I could think them, but I couldn't say them. So, on her advice, I took a pill and went down stairs to tell Sydney I needed a ride to the hospital. By then the words were back. I'm thinking TIA, (little warnings of a stroke to come). Beuford, our bad beagle, escaped when we were getting into the truck, so Sydney had to run around the street to catch him while I waited in the truck for the BIG stroke!

At the hospital I had a CT and x-rays and after about three hours a very uncomfortable nurse said she had some very bad new for me. A mass in my brain and also my lung.

"O" I said, "that is bad news." There was a few minutes of feeling tearful, but being a private crier I didn't have any solitude until that night in the hospital. I watched the most beautiful full moon pass across my window and the morning sun turn the Rocky Mountain front into a pink heaven and I accepted the possibilities.

Of course, we go through life looking at death much the way we do the sun. Just a peek, or a glimpse, because it is too much all at once. When the time comes for me to say goodbye, I don't think I will be too sad at leaving those I love but the hard thing for me to contemplate is the loss of ME..

Last night I thought about all the millions of people who are here on earth now and who have passed through here and wondered what possible significance any one of us can have to the maker we call God. Then my thoughts went on to Universes and cosmos and DNA etc. Think of all the millions of cells in my body that make up this structure called Carol! Then extrapolate that to the universal matters...

So...this morning I woke early, worked on my book club reading, threw the bedspread in the washer and decided to tackle my spring cleaning before the puking begins. Yesterday I threw away every piece of clothing that did not flatter me. And last Friday I bought a skull cap, red with skulls on it, and some huge red hoop earrings. I think I might like not having hair, but maybe the eyebrows need to be a tatto.