If you are going to have to be recuperating from something, I have to say this was the best week I know to have done so. I didn’t have to get out in the freezing cold or worry about slipping and sliding on the roads. One night, I knew I didn’t want out in that wind, either.
As you know, my week was spent recuperating from the effects of chemotherapy. I did my usual routine that I have written about before, which I won’t burden you with now.
Anyway, I am feeling much better as I write this. I feel I still accomplished some things while I was feeling rather low. On one night when sleep did not come and I never went to bed (the day of chemo), I painted all night long. I painted a nativity scene. In my picture, I painted Mary and Joseph holding baby Jesus, two turtle doves, two camels (that didn’t want to look like camels), a manger, three wise men, a shepherd boy, a lamb, a huge star and an angel looking over the scene. Now I have never used painting as my therapy before but I liked it. Besides that, I learned I can paint a pretty good Joseph. The camels, after some work, finally began to resemble camels.
Now my artwork didn’t end there. The snow began to fall and I wanted to get in it. I decided to paint a huge snowman since my grandson Hayden and I couldn’t get out to make Frosty V for fear of my catching the flu or something. When I asked Hayden what his favorite of my four works of art was, he picked the snowman. He and I have a bond on snowmen. When I tried to get him to go out to make a snowman on his own, he told me he would wait until I could go with him. To be truthful, I was glad since this is our thing to do together.
This week, I have put pictures in albums and read magazines that have piled up just for this week. Luckily for me, I have felt like reading this time. As usual I have thought how blessed I am that if I had to get cancer, it was not a time in my life when I had little children to have to see to their needs. My heart goes out to these people. If you know of someone in this situation, don’t ask what you can do for them, just do something. Send a card, take a dish to them, or maybe you could just take their child to the movies or invite them over for an hour or two to give that person a chance to rest. Taking some new coloring books or toys to keep them quiet might help.
I am always reminded of a lady we knew when I was a child and my mom had three back surgeries after getting hurt at work. The work and the preparation of food for weeks on end was done only by my sister, myself and my three brothers. People at church would ask if they could do anything, but one lady who didn’t go to our church always came and brought us a dish she had made. Once. she came and spent the day with us, helping us get caught up. That meant as much to us as anything to have a mother figure to support us. She was always jolly and could get us out of our doldrums.
I don’t need this type of attention at this point in my life. However, I have a friend, Mary Ann, who always brings me a meal during my week of chemo and it is so appreciated. She puts the food in my grill out back and gives me a call to let me know it is there.
Yesterday, my daughter brought me Chinese noodles and spent the afternoon with me. This was a dish I taught her to make as a child, but somehow her Chinese noodles tasted so much better to me than mine do. There are some days after chemo though, that the last thing I want to see is someone coming to my house because I am simply not up to it or don’t want others seeing me in that way. I got a call from my cousin, Rena Toole, who lives in Florida and reads my articles online, to check in with me. It was good getting to talk to her. She knows how to get a laugh from you. Rena took care of me when I was a little girl with rheumatic fever. She has been supportive of others in her lifetime.
One of the people she has supported is up for a Grammy at the present time. He is her nephew on her husband’s side and his name is John Fleenor. Rena and her husband owned and operated the wax museum in Orlando and they also owned an ice cream truck that they let John Fleenor manage during college. I told her she should feel proud in being a part of his life. I found it interesting that someone she helped out in college is now up for a Grammy. Isn’t life something else! You never know how your life can affect or have an effect on someone else’s life.
I would like to end this once again to those of you who called, sent a card, a dish, a beautiful hand crocheted scarf and others who prayed for my recovery this week. All of you know who you are and just for the record you mean the world to me.
