Remember the Beachcombers? The show Canadians of a certain age have all heard of and never watched. Well that’s where I am, on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. Just up the road from Gibsons, in Roberts Creek. I’m watching huge cruise ships heading up to Alaska, and tiny tug boats pulling massive log flotillas back towards Vancouver. I have a thing for salt water. I’m reintroducing caffeine into my diet because a recent American study says that not only is coffee NOT bad for you, but it might actually be good.

There’s not a globally agreed upon definition of back on the horse. Well perhaps among the horsey set, but not in my circles. You could get back on it just once. But the expression implies more than that and sets up an expectation of things to come. Weekly things to come. I imagine friends, “friends” and strangers eagerly scanning the net and facebook pages over toast and coffee, or other delicious items they have photographed and shared, wondering what the hell I did over the last week and when they might expect to know.

In all its wisdom - and we know its wisdom to be vast because stuff you googled in private, like "Converse running shoes" or "chocolate fountains", shows up there for days after -  Facebook kindly generated “iconic” personal images to represent each of our 2014.

Someone was outside raking leaves at 6:00 am this morning. On the continuum of noise, raking leaves is not as loud as say, blowing them, or a car alarm, or an electric saw, or hammering, but when sleep has become a huge issue, anything can be a problem. And those leaves are dry and noisy. In the middle of the day maybe my brain could package that sound as classic fall, but at 6:00 am all I can come up with is thoughtless fucker.

Yesterday was Halloween. It was cold and rainy and lots of kids came by. Not that I would know how many kids have ever come by before. I’ve always halloweened elsewhere. Before I had kids, I’d turn off the lights and hide in the basement – a total party pooper.

I ran out for candy in the afternoon. Since my porch light is broken and I “forgot” to get a pumpkin, I lit a bunch of candles in my front window. Very Shabbat meets Hannukah, meets haunted house.

Week 2 of mindfulness meditation.

I think it’s working.

I didn’t watch any “TV” shows during the day this week. (Now that I have a number of unnamed sources for small screen activity, I’m simply going to refer to anything I watch in my home as TV, regardless of where it comes from.) Ok, I did jump on my mini trampoline with Mindy Kaling. But that was exercise.

This weekend was my first maintenance chemo. Shabbas chemo. That would never happen at Mt Sinai. When we arrived the place was locked because who does chemo on Saturday? Even the staff hadn’t thought to open the doors to serve their weekend cocktail brunch.

I have never spent so much time with my hand on my forehead as I have over the past four days – some combination of fever-checking and despair. 

It’s Tuesday at Mt Sinai hospital. I’ve been here since last Thursday. I feel grateful that every morning until today (dark, mood-fitting rain), I’ve opened the blinds to bright sunshine, and that it took this long to get a nurse that really pisses me off.

I’ve come across the ocean to the island of Brac, Croatia on the Adriatic with my dear friend Kathy.

I DON’T HAVE TO GET RADIATION!!!!!

While the second opinion was brighter than the first, everything I go through in Lymphomaland opens new windows of insight I’d have been happy to keep closed. It’s getting drafty in here. There’s that always-look-on-the-bright-side saying - Whenever God (or whoever) closes a door, he/she/they opens a window. Why do we think a bunch of open doors and windows is a good thing? Bugs and rodents wander in, kids slip out. It’s like disguising problems as opportunities.

A week that starts with a really shitty radiation oncologist appointment - hope you weren’t too attached to your hair or your current vagina - followed by a CT scan, and concluding with my regular Dr. B & Dr. J, oncology appointment could, I suppose, have had a happy ending. But it didn’t.

I put on a new pair of underpants today.

Yesterday I went to the Bay. They were having a big sale on bedding, and I wanted new pillows. But I bought underwear instead. For months, I’ve barely shopped for anything other than food, light bulbs and pavement salt. I haven't been able to focus enough for anything else. When you can’t focus, you go shopping for pillows, end up with underwear, and it really doesn’t matter.

Day 2 of the last round of the 6 chemo treatments:

The combo of chemo and anxiety is a lethal one. Not drop dead lethal. Mini-lethal. Cry-just-because lethal. I was never going to OD with one extra Ondansetron anti-nausea pill, but things can go wrong when you get all worked up.

My permanent part time job is to worry. I’ve held this position for over 30 years. On my resumé, I describe it as progressively responsible. I’ve moved up to management, and have an ever-growing number of people to be concerned about – two of whom I built myself, with worry in mind. Even people for whom I have no direct accountability have made it onto my roster.

This was not the plan for today’s observations from Lymphomaland. I wasn’t going to be pissed off. I had worried and anxious lined up. But now, I’ll save those for tomorrow.

When things are really annoying and unfair, they need to be vented immediately. Im-mediately.

LIKE THIS FUCKING LEAF BLOWER across the street. (Writerly aside: how do you handle the conflict between saving the surprise for last, and burying your lead?)

The first time around, I worried incessantly about the incidental finding on the image of my brain, and what it might turn up: the unexpected dead mouse.

How many months ago was it that I was worried about a little radiation in the form of chest x-rays, CT scans and mammograms? Then how long before that was I anxious about simple x-rays at the dentist?