Puppy time

Jerry has curled himself into my blanket and made himself very comfortable, as you can see.  He’s arranged my legs into a backrest for himself, and, well, that ends any hope of me stretching out my legs for the night!  He’s pretending to be chilly, but his real interest is taking up a remarkable amount of bed space for a small dog!  I continue to be amazed at how much space he can occupy on a queen bed that’s otherwise unusable by the other adults!  Don is happily watching baseball again, and I will try to climb back into bed after I’m done writing.  I can either lie down or write, not both with the little monster in play!

It warmed up to a beautiful sunny day today.  I tried going for a short walk today, but my back — which sort of behaved — decided that giving me 5 minutes of comfort was all I’d be allowed and it flared into dreadful pain so that ended that.  It’s awful, feeling that burning knowing that it will make me have to sit and recuperate before I can do anything.  The other annoyance is that often I can’t sleep because of the pain, so I lie awake for hours and drift off when I’m ready to wake up (and the sun is hitting me square in the eyes early in the morning!) Instead, I doze off in my chair in the afternoon, until I relocate to bed, where I’m suddenly wide awake again… never fear, I’m good, and I’m catching up on my sleep in segments.

I’m mentally preparing myself to break the news to my dad that I will be doing chemotherapy at the end of May.  I hate making him worry, and I would prefer to keep the news from him as long as possible.  By the same token, I don’t want to let my aunt know, either.  It would be easier on me if I could avoid having to share that news with them, but that would be worse in several ways.  I think it’s something of a small blessing that the covid situation in Trinidad is what it is, so I’m effectively barred from travelling (I’ll save my breath from the cussin’ that I’m seriously tempted to unleash for that.  I need my energy for better things).  That aside, though, it would be much easier for me to deal with my assorted treatments and everything else if it didn’t affect the people that I love and who love me.  I don’t want to worry them.  I don’t want them fighting even the smallest of the fears that I have about my diagnosis.  But I can’t stop that, and the least that I can do is wear a brave face, smile and be cheerful.  I do try not to dump my concerns on others, because I feel dreadful for causing distress.  I haven’t told them that I did radiation therapy last week, either, because I was able to do the treatments without interfering with my routine of daily phone calls — chemo, though, would be different as the intention is that I’ll be hospitalized during the actual sessions, so that would make a difference.   As far as they are aware, I’m just going through daily living, with no major changes  and nothing planned.  It’s a withholding of information, and I’ve justified it to myself as an acceptable way of dealing with my situation.  If anyone has a suggestion on how to gently share the information without causing them stress or worry I’d appreciate hearing it!  

OK, I’m drifting off and struggling to keep my eyes open, so I’ll leave you for this evening.  Good night!