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Lakeshore - [cancer|personal] Updatery of various sorts, miscellaneous and elsewise
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Jay Lake
Date: 2010-09-30 05:52
Subject: [cancer|personal] Updatery of various sorts, miscellaneous and elsewise
Security: Public
Tags:calendula, cancer, child, family, health, personal, portland
As mentioned in this morning's Link Salad, calendula_witch recaps the last couple of years. She's covering the story of our relationship, cancer and her move to Oregon. Reading that, which I lived through every minute of with her, was sobering. We really have been through the shredder, she and I.

And the shredder got me yesterday. Had a very bad day emotionally. Retreated into some ancient, destructive behavior patterns commingling depression, passive-aggression and rank stupidity. Once again, calendula_witch and I made the save before day's end, but damn this is hard. Somehow it's gotten a lot harder right here at the end. The aforementioned prison riot syndrome.

One danger point is that this is not over. I haven't yet beaten cancer, merely escaped this particular round of treatments due to some arrant good luck. Every single scan is a potential brick wall on the path of our ambitions for life, love, writing and relationship. I am really working hard on living in the now. The future is uncertain country.

calendula_witch has family coming to town this weekend, which means I do. (That is kind of a nice thing to say and think.) What with all the chemo visits and last June's relocation, she's gotten to know my family pretty well. My mom, dad, step-mom, sister and niece all live in Portland, most of them within a couple of miles of Nuevo Rancho Lake. Only my brother is far away. So calendula_witch has experienced the Lakes at full bore for a while. I have met the Witches before, but look forward very much to knowing them better.

In other news, I walked again this morning. And I kept a good, solid pace for the first time since last November, before the lung resectioning. Distance was nothing to shout about, a bit over a mile, but heart rate was up, breathing was deep, and I moved. With any luck, I'll be fit to hike the Gorge trails soon. It's almost the time of year where one doesn't hike the mountain trails unless one is a serious winter sports die-hard, so I'll have to wait til next spring for altitude.

Been a long time since I've been hiking.

Finally, in the proud parent department, I report that the_child joined her school's track team two weeks ago. She is a hell of a sprinter, so of course they put her in a three-kilometer distance event. Kid's never run for distance in her life. Yesterday was her first track meet, mixed-age girls her grade year and the year above. Her school's four-person team all placed in the top 10 of a field of 50, including the_child her own self, who came in 10th competing against girls mostly older and more experienced than her. I am so very proud of her.

Life, maybe, is returning to normal.

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biomekanic
User: biomekanic
Date: 2010-09-30 14:05 (UTC)
Subject: (no subject)
Good to hear the the_child did well.

Maybe they'll give her a chance as a sprinter.
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Jay Lake
User: jaylake
Date: 2010-09-30 14:09 (UTC)
Subject: (no subject)
She is the bomb.

And it was sort of funny seeing her adapting to distance running. The coach had to work at talking her out of just going flat out full tilt boogie, which is so much her style.
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