Insane in the Membrane

My last cancer blog was 28 days ago. Here is a run down of what happened in the last 28 days:

☑️ Two chemo treatments

☑️ Closed the fiscal year for my employer

☑️ Processed transactions for > 1000 patronage, stock dividend and equity retirement

☑️ Produced the booklet for the Annual Shareholder’s Meeting

☑️ Accompanied my friend’s flute solo at a community hymn sing and sang in the choir

☑️ Experienced a 1000 – Year rain in my community which put 2 inches of water throughout my basement and ruined some things, including my Christmas tree and a teepee my mom had made for my kids when they were toddlers. But all of this was minor compared to the devastating floods in other parts of the community. The lower 2 levels of my mom’s house were destroyed. People and pets had to be rescued by boats in my community that doesn’t normally have any bodies of water. We received 11 inches of rain in about 5 hours.

☑️ Organized the clean up effort at my mom’s. Thanks to my husband and my sons and my brother, along with tens of other volunteers, we removed the ruined items from the house along with the flooring, drywall and insulation.

☑️ Cleaned up my own basement all by myself after we finished my mom’s house.

☑️ Spent 28 hours in the emergency room with one of my children.

☑️ Made an appearance at the wedding of my cousin’s daughter – an event I had so looked forward to for months. It was during the flood cleanup so our time was limited and I was utterly exhausted.

☑️ Experienced a mental health crisis and ran away from home for a day.

☑️ Watched my kids experience their own mental health crises, caused by the stress of the flood and some horrific parenting mistakes I made in the past.

☑️ Dusted myself off and attended the Annual Shareholder’s Meeting and the Board Reorganization Meeting immediately following where, for the first time ever in 52 years, I failed to meet a deadline. I’m slowly getting caught up on work. Slowly.

☑️ Processed payroll twice

☑️ Had CT-guided injections in my cervical spine for pain relief.

☑️ Played for a funeral.

☑️ Received my first dose of the shingles vaccine because science is cool.

☑️ Moved two kids to college.

☑️ Bought a computer for my mom and recreated her business and financial records that were all destroyed in the flood. (Kinda handy that I’m a CPA for that one.)

On the Flip Side – aka How this Restored my Faith in Humanity

💜 Was blessed by so many family and friends who came to help us at my mom’s. They worked in the muck with us. They brought food. They washed things up that had been in the muck. They donated fans and boxes and dehumidifiers.

💜 Was able to spend time with my favorite brother, who I hadn’t seen in almost 2 years.

💜 Was able to really help my mom out – after all the years of her taking care of me.

💜 Have a friend who will take me in and put me into a quiet bedroom to sleep when I show up unannounced at her door in the middle of the night.

💜 Learned my daughter is amazing and efficient at packing for college on her own, since I was dealing with the flood. Seriously – call her if you need that kind of assistance.

💜 Watched in awe as my 3 guys worked tirelessly to help my mom.

💜 Feeling so blessed to see my 2 college kids loving life. And me.

I’m tired. Physically and mentally and emotionally spent. I think anyone would be, but then you add that pesky stage 4 cancer to the mix and it seems like too much. But I know that as I’m writing this at 2 am, I will be in a church I love in a few hours with one of my sons who has the softest heart and amazing smile. We will enjoy our coffee together (yes – I introduced him to the heavenly beverage). My other son will help me with a small project at home later in the day. And it is highly likely my daughter and I will exchange some funny memes and cat photos with lots of heart emojis throughout the day. I guess I really am living the good life after all.