Updates On Health…and Talking Some Dirt
I had my last systemic chemotherapy yesterday! I still have to continue taking the Herceptin every three weeks at least until September, but everyone tells me the Herceptin has little or no side effects. Herceptin is specifically targeted genetically at the cancer cells, and prevents them from sending out messages to grow, so it doesn’t attack my body in general. It looks like I will have one more week of sickness and misery, and then I will be able to start getting my energy back to near-normal levels, and maybe start having something like a life again. Believe it or not, I miss cooking and I miss cleaning up the house. I have not enjoyed being confined to bed or to the recliner by exhaustion. I have an appointment in three weeks with my surgeon to talk about scheduling the mastectomy. I’m hoping we can set it up for after February 27. The Indiana Horror Writers are having their annual Winter Retreat that weekend, and since I’m in charge of it, I want to be at my best. Everyone seems to think that is a reasonable request, so I’m hoping Dr. Longmeir-Cook will think so too. After all, she’s the one who said, “You have to go on living your life through the cancer treatment.” After the mastectomy, I will do radiation, so I hope to be done with it all by this Halloween. I may be put on an oral drug as well, but I don’t think that will be a big deal, either. NOTHING can be as bad as chemotherapy. So that’s where my health is at the moment. I still have no intentions of dying, no matter what they tell me. People worse off than I have beaten this thing.
On to the dirt…
As some of you have already heard, the seed catalogues have arrived. Woo-hoo! I’m suffering from spring fever in the worst way. At this point, I’d rather buy seeds than shoes. I’ve reached the point where I’m ready to rototill the entire yard and plant it. Where the dogs would do their business, I have no idea, but think of the tomatoes. One of the big aggravations of this whole cancer business is that it came on just at the time I was needed in a most crucial way in the garden and didn’t have the strength to get out there.
I turn the pages of the catalogues, slavering in a most undignified way over the pictures of all those gorgeous vegetables. Especially the heirloom tomatoes. It must be the Hoosier in me. I’m equally tempted over all the other things I have no room for, like asparagus beds and dwarf fruit trees. Ambitious much? You betcha.
Last year, some friends of ours bought a house out in the country with lots of land. They invited us out to see the new place and I wasn’t in the yard five minutes before I was hit over the head with a big envy stick. To have all that space! By the time we were sitting in lawn chairs drinking lemonade, my brain whirled. “I’d put the asparagus beds over there, and that’s the perfect place to plant a dwarf fruit grove, and I’d put blueberries all along the fence row there. And what an awesome garden spot! You could put fifteen tomato plants as well as a good ten varieties of peppers.” Of course, I’m not taking in to account chickens, boys, and goats, all of which were already living there and needing some space. Wow, what a yard!
Once again, my New Year’s resolution is to have a good garden in my back yard. I’ve promised myself that if I can take really good care of my tiny 16 X 16 space for two years straight, then I can think about renting a plot at one of the community gardens. So I’m going to keep my mind on three kinds of tomato plants, three peppers, beans, radishes, lettuce, carrots, squash, cucumbers, and herbs. A nice salad garden, with enough beans and squash for grilling. If there are no more life interruptions, that should be manageable.
But those awesome heirloom tomatoes might find a space or two in there somewhere.