Blink

On a hot July afternoon, I look out the kitchen window to see raindrops the size of golf balls covering the flagstone in the garden. How odd, it’s been a clear hot 93 degree day and it’s raining now? I go to the front porch and see heavy dark clouds sailing in from the west. I sit to enjoy the lovely smell of summer rain, when suddenly a fierce wind blows in causing the rain to fall horizontal. I roll up the flapping sun shade on the front porch, which is almost impossible with the strong wind and then I hear a banging sound in the distance getting louder and louder, like drummers walking towards me. The wind is now strong enough to bend trees, breaking a big branch off of one down the street. Is this a tornado? My dogs are circling my legs and I take them to the basement. The banging sound is louder, almost deafening now above the house and I envision our solar panels shattering, one by one. Outside the basement window I see grape size hail covering the ground like fallen snow. Hail! Oh no, my garden! I run outside to cover plants, but it’s too late, everything is taking a beating and I will too if I go out into the hailstorm. The gutters and french drains are overflowing causing a pond to form outside the back door. I panic to think of the basement flooding and begin to move yard furniture, dog pillows and dig a trench diverting the water away from the house. There’s nothing more I can do but stand drenched under the back porch and watch as my garden and trees take a pounding. Hail and leaves are raining all around me. As quickly as it came, it was gone; the wind, the rain, the hail. Leaving behind battered trees, potted plants and garden. This all happened in the blink of an eye.

It’s been over a month since my last blog entry and some folks have wondered how I’m doing. During the month of July my white blood count bottomed out and I couldn’t recover from it. As a result of the low count, I couldn’t receive my weekly chemo infusion which in a way was a blessing, because it gave me a month off from chemo. I started to feel normal, full of energy and hopeful. Friends and family said that except for my hair, you wouldn’t even know I was going through chemo. I started to feel back to my ants in the pants self, always moving never sitting still. It was an effort to make myself rest throughout the day. I was continually getting chastised for trying to work in the garden, or sweep the flagstone; my low blood count had me in continual nadir and it was a dangerous time to be exposed to a potential infection. This little chemo vacation was a blessing and a curse. Every chemo missed extended the end date (now to September 2) and it was twice as hard to recover from the double dose of carbo/taxol infusions that now puts me down for four days or more. I started meds that stimulate my bone marrow to produce white blood cells and it has worked getting me back on schedule with 5 more rounds of chemo left. I continue to walk 4 to 7 miles, 5 days a week, even when I’m feeling my worst. When this began it seemed like it would take forever to get this close to the end. This journey started in the blink of an eye and looking back it has been another blink of time gone by.

With the amazing outpouring of love and support from Scott, friends and family I am now at a place of acceptance and peace with my journey of cancer and chemo. After the hailstorm passed and I was left drenched looking at my garden, our beloved friends Leslie and Rob arrived to stay a few nights. They assured me, “The garden will bounce back and we’ll clean it up, don’t you worry!”  The next morning, they wasted no time and cleaned up the leaf covered yard. I walked through the garden, sad to see the bee balm looking naked with stripped leaves, the red bud tree’s opulent heart shaped leaves shredded and all the beautiful pots my sister planted beaten and wilted. I was as unhappy as all the plants in my garden. Oh well, such is life. If this journey has taught me anything it is that in the blink of an eye everything can change: your health, your life, your garden. I kept faith the garden would bounce back, and it has. Just like I have with all the love and support from Scott, family and friends. I’m doing well folks, I continue to fight this battle and I will beat cancer!

Leslie assessing the mess

Sadie in a leaf bed

Naked bee balm, now in naked bloom