Friday, November 21, 2008

Pleases

Dori had lunch yesterday with her friend Chuck, a fellow leukemia survivor. They didn't recognize each other because they had hair. Once they did, they moved past the humorous moment and reconnected as you would expect.

Speaking of hair, this has been a tough week for my girl. Dori's haircut earlier this week was emotional. Women can have a hair thing, which I understand, and Dori's feisty hair post-chemo reminds her how she's changed physically. After her battle to survive, she weighs less, still has some stiffness in her joints and deals with the hair thing. Her healing is ongoing, both physically and mentally. Most of the physical recovery has occurred, but there's still more water to paddle.

Understandably, Dori has some leftover anger, resentment and moments of sadness, like many cancer survivors. My only response is to tell her I love her and for her to keep venting positively. I concur her feelings are normal and remind her of all the things at which she excels. There are so many things.

Cancer is a physical battle, but it's also quite cerebral. The brain must process much. Just visit any cancer blog, and you know what I'm talking about.

As I ran yesterday morning in the cold, I thought of little. It was cold, but I was warm, in a good place as I found my pace. I realized after a few miles I was thinking about "pleases" to various entities, some of which were serious, some not. The requests included:

Please don't put up any more Christmas trees or lights until after Thanksgiving.
Please don't bail out any more failed businesses with our tax money.
Please be with my girl as she fights to be convinced she is our George Bailey.

As always, thank you for listening.

3 comments:

ChuckEastNashville said...

I get bummed out about my hair (or lack thereof) sometimes. Mine is not returning. Ah, to be cursed with a receding hair line, ha ha. Dori, stay positive and on the track to full recovery.

I got an ironic laugh from your federal bailout post. Before Wall Street bailout I sent email to our two U.S. senators, requesting they vote against any bailout and use of taxpayer money. Senator Alexander's office explained his yes vote with an analogy. I paraphrase, but some of the words used were "getting the broken car known as our financial markets to the side of the highway so we can recover."

Congress is now debating a $25 billion bailout, in the name of a broken car industry. Our two presidential candidates and two Tennessee senators took less than a week and passed a sketchy $810B Wall Street bailout. Oh, but the same legislators must dissect and analyze a comparably paltry $25B automaker industry bailout bill.

Earlier this month our senator and two presidential candidates did not get my vote. Let these industries and markets go where they will. Mismanagement has its own reward: market obsolesence.

Now to complete the hat trick, NO to anything Christmas before Thanksgiving.

Jim said...

Love the fire, Chuck. Maybe that's why our hair is falling out.

Ronni Gordon said...

Hi
Please tell Dori I understand completely about the hair. I wrote a tiny bit about my hair dilemma in my post about Monday's counts. It was sort of an aside to the checkup report, but it's so emotional that I think I'll give it a full post soon. As you said, it's an issue for most everyone. And I totally agree about the Christmas lights. Also Christmas music.