December 2nd

Hi all,
My family was in town last week for a few days post-thanksgiving and it was great to see them and spend time with them. It was a welcome treat since they don't make it down here that often.
As for how I'm feeling, I continue to be surprised that recovery is challenging. I guess that's what it's called recovery and not normalcy. Just when I think I get a glimpse of feeling like myself again, it it just that - a glimpse -I think I had this idea that after some of the main treatment events were finished that there would be just as dramatic a curve upward to health as there was downward during treatment. The curve is slower on the upward side than it is on the downward, which of course, only makes sense if you think about it fromthe perspective of gravity, but I guess my assumption was that the recovery arm of the curve would match the downward arm of the curve, parabolically speaking, but it doesn't. My body continues to be a challenge and I'm so glad that I can go to physical therapy to help it out. Last week, I worked out each day other than yesterday and one of the days I was feeling so good that I did a lot of cardio. Again, it was too much too soon - is this sounding like a broken record to you?- the challenge is to allow myself to be slow in the healing process because my mind thinks "Okay, most of the treatment stuff is over so why cant I get back to normal?" Well, duh, after five or six months of a chemical assault followed by significant surgery, that's just not possible. Some days I wake up and I'm just wiped out. I feel that way this morning actually, but I'm so glad that I can just concentrate on recovery rather than more chemical assaults at this point, and it's going to take some time before I'm really feeling like myself again. Of course, I have another surgery at the end of January so there will be recovery from that, too, so I'm doing all that I can to help the recovery process along now to help me be in a good position for the next surgery, which shouldn't be as major but I still have general anesthesia etc. Anyway, I guess this is all to say that it really is one day at a time. Some days I feel great and others just wiped out, and that's okay. Rest is a good thing, God did it after he labored, so I can do it. God is in control of all of the pieces of this event anyway and I just want to, whatever I do, live my life in a manner worthy of the gospel whether it is in treatment or recovery, in health or health challenges.
Bless you,
Julie