For one thing I am older. This is what I look like now or at least on Jan 1, 2022.
yes, 69 years old.
I moved once.
I started a coaching service for people who are out of cults called Stronger After. I am now on hiatus.
I became a great-grandmother. Lots of knitting to do for a baby girl.
I didn't get covid.
One very peculiar thing has happened. Many of you know I have used a wheelchair for the last 20 years. I had two problems with my feet. One is metatarsalgia. That is an inflammation of the pad under your foot that covers and protects all those bones. The metatarsalgia was so bad it caused severe nerve damage in all my toes and the front of my feet. Both feet. That made walking extremely painful which is why I used a wheelchair to get out. On most days I could manage in the house as long as I wasn't on my feet too long.
I have colon cancer that has spread to my lungs.
They put me on chemo after I had the first surgery. The side effect of this drug was Hand and Foot Syndrome. Basically it peels the skin off your hands and feet layer by layer. It is ugly and distressing and painful. One doctor said in 35 years it was the worst case she had ever seen. Because the Hand/Foot Syndrome was so bad they would stop and restart the chemo. They switched me from pills to an infusion (bottle with a tube that goes into my vein in my neck and stops close to my heart). Once a week I would have to go for a new bottle. But again I had severe Hand/Foot syndrome so they would stop and start and stop and start. After 4/8 sessions they quit. It was clearly too much for my body. There is nothing else they could give me.
But here is the thing. As the layers of skin peeled off it my feet and hands it was replaced by healthy tissue.
I can walk again!!!!!
My friend drove me to the grocery store and I walked through it (masked of course). I haven't been able to do that in over 20 years!
I still have to go slow. Cancer is definitely slowing me down but I can do it. It is just so amazing to be able to do simple things that we take for granted. If I do too much I suffer at night. The metatarsalgia is greatly improved but the nerve damage it caused is permanent. So for many things or who knows how this cancer makes feel, I still need the wheelchair.
You just never know what good things can come out of the bad.
And I still have a baby great-granddaughter to meet.