Cancer Patient Holiday

I’m up again, early. It’s 3 am. The 10 mg of ambient I took and a mg of ativan to sleep soundly through the entire night did not work exactly as I planned.
Those are”knock-out” (or narc-out, as I would say) doses of medication for sleep and anxiety.
They were taken with the goal that I would wake around 7 am after a dreamless night of sleeping like a baby.
That didn’t happen, I’m awake, but it’s okay.
I think I’m . . . . .I’m excited.
It’s a hard emotion to identify. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this way. It’s a mix of kid in a candy shop (or me in a Banana Republic Outlet store on a clearance day) and the morning of Christmas.
I think it is definitely excitement, though I can’t quite put my finger on it, that I am now entering a phase of my life where I can once again participate at a minimum functioning level in the world, with the world.
“Excitement” was the word Brynn used after reading yesterday’s post. She teaches elementary school, so I think she can adequately determine what excitement looks and sounds like.
I’m giddy. I’m going on a mini-vacation. I went out to eat for pizza at Ramuntos with my family sans mask and only mild paranoid fears of infection last night.
I did errands.
I have a renewed joi de vivre that I realized had gone missing, but didn’t realize how much I missed it.
I am getting my grove back.
The stars are aligning for one major comeback kid, at least in personality, if not in health.
Today, in these early waking moments, I’m happy to start my day and accomplish the little things that, not only do people take for granted, but they moan and groan about doing as a chore.
I have to wrap Grace’s graduation present, which is large and will be difficult to travel with, but will be so worth doing for the look on her face. And yes, it needs to be wrapped.
I need to pack appropriate clothes for Xander and I for the weekend, taking into account that the weather is iffy and may rain. It’s Maine. I’ve never had much luck with the weather in Maine.
I need to load up the car with juice, munchies, and an okay amount of electronics, such as X’s DVD player and Nintendo DS, to keep him from screaming and whining “when are we going to get there?,” but to still force him to look at the scenery.
I need to pack his new favorite things: math books. Yes, math books. He loves to quiz people on math and do workbooks for fun. Lucky I bought those spiderman math workbooks and flashcards when I did. It’s exciting he’s is so motivated to learn, but hours of “MOM, I know 2+2, 10+10, & 200+200!” and “Mom, what is 7+8?” gets a little tiring, even as a parent whose pride and joy wants to talk numbers.
All this is exciting. I hadn’t been out to eat at Ramuntos since early September. Ramuntos was the site where one of my very first postings began. Check out “I’m a very bad patient.” It was the scene of one of my final party night good times prior to my transplant.
Trust me, yesterday was more low key, just the family and me after karate class.
Xander was on cloud nine after winning a couple games of “ninja ball” at the dojo.
The Sensei told Jon he definitely can spot a competitive kid, Xander’s got the edge in him.
Xander was concerned this was a bad thing. He had never heard himself described as “competitive” before.
Jon and I don’t think it’s bad. This characteristic certainly needs to be harnessed and guided like any budding personality trait, but it was to be expected, look at us as parents.
We’re both extremely competitive, whether it’s nature or nurture the streak has been passed down.
That’s my excitement for the day, at least, my excitement as of 3:26 am.
I’m going to crawl back into my warm soft bed and see if I can steal those last 3 hours at least of sleep I want.