sleep is the best medicine

thank-you so much for your encouraging comments on my last post. i really was feeling so awful last week. things started turning around over the weekend, when i started sleeping again. after one good night, i was much brighter in spirit. by nights two and three, my body was feeling more like someplace i wanted to live.

a huge factor in my awful week was simple hormones. how much they run our bodies! the normal swelling and breast tenderness of pms last week was a first class ten-fold wammy on my healing chest. as these things do, the whole thing crested and then passed in a few days.

you all know i am a huge fan of herbs and such. but sometimes, nothing works better than the big old heavy hammer of medicine from the pharmacy. the wonderful physician's assistant at my naturpath's office writes the prescription for any meds and her inspired combo worked like a charm. you see, she herself had a double mastectomy last summer. she nodded knowingly when she saw my stricken face and heard my story of pain, chest muscles tight in spasm. thank heavens for muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatories.

thank heavens for women who have walked this road before me.

a few lifestyle adjustments have gone a long way as well. turn the tv off at 9pm. don't look at a single thing on paper or online about jobs or money or anything heavy after dinner. clock out from those things i know stress me out, for at least 4 hours before snuggling into bed.

so, i am sleeping again. it feels amazingly good.

i also had a very reassuring visit with my plastic surgeon today. he was able to explain the science, (and shed a little light on the magic) of the healing before me in the next few months. he asked me to have faith in him and this process, which i admit, does not come easily. nothing personal to him, he is a wonderful doctor. i just don't trust easily.

so my healing is progressing just as it should. all is well, he says. i simply must accept that as truth and today, i do feel good. i see the progress and i feel sane enough, rested enough, to trust that i am exactly where i am supposed to be. healing on schedule.

as if the body can be on a schedule!

another piece of excellent news -the pathology and the tissue they removed came back as clear of any cancer. no irregular cells at all. i didn't have any specific reason to suspect there would be cancer cells lurking about, yet it's always good to get the lab work to support your hopes.

2009: a year without cancer in this body. i pray for 42 more years cancer free, but i will start with just one.