Fountain of Youth

Today is my mom’s official birthday! It’s June 11th. Everybody who reads this who knows and loves her please inundate her with emails and jokes.
She is still not quite recouped from her surgery, and she had lasik surgery done on her eyes recently, so she continues to loiter around the house.
She is well on her way to being an entirely new woman after her recovery, sans uterus and with eyes she can see with.
I think she found the fountain of youth, no uterus equals a flat tummy and freedome from her “monthly friend” she hasn’t experienced since the teen years. Now, she can also see, except for those pesky times when she’ll need to read something, but no more switching glasses to glasses to bifocal to prescription sunglasses. Those days are over.
She’s turning 29 years old today.
Xander is recovering smoothly.
He is still a little confused about what happened to him. He is not at all impressed with the people at the hospital, who I am choosing to blame everything on.
It’s best f he thinks I had no idea he would be suffering and in pain.
Thanks guys, you all have strong shoulders. I’m placing the blame.
I am here to make him feel better, and he is doing well with lots of lounging, tv, video game time, but not as much as I expected.
X wants to be active. If he is not completely miserable we are playing games: board games, puzzles, cards, counting, math, etc. We are doing projects. Of course, we are playing soccer and basketball, but taking it slow.
X and I played a game of “wall ball” yesterday where he had a lot of fun making me be “goalie” and laughed as I just about hid for my life when he began rocketing shots at me.
That kid has a shot on him, but now I’m beginning to wonder if I really need to place myself in front of it to harness it.
Somebody else can be goalie. I know X is having way to much fun kicking things at me with his strength.
He was able to have some friends over for a little bit for some low key fun. He also decided he wanted to run out for errands my mom and I had to run.
He’s a trooper.
We are going to start scheduling our big upcoming plans!
Summer is almost officially here. School is out June 18 for Fall Mountain School District.
Xander is looking forward to Field Day June 18. I think he’ll be healed enough to go, and I plan on chaperoning, just in case.
I am so excited I can chaperone. It’s awesome to have the option to participate in my son’s events.
I certainly want to.
My restrictions have begun to ease up.
I was just officially cleared yesterday to take a road trip!!!
Brynn and I have been casually talking about taking a drive down the East Side of America to visit mom, Colleen, in Alabama.
These discussions started in December when I was homebound and realized a plane for any plans was out of the question.
The plan fizzled and faded when we realized Brynn will have to work until June 25th from all the snowdays (she’s a third grade teacher), but now it’s on.
I’m not so good with making advanced plans.
My body kind of directs what I will be doing and when I will be doing it.
It is a little difficult to plan a holiday and meanwhile wonder if you’re gong to need to be hospitalized for pneumonia or gastroenteritis or if your GVHD is going to have a massive flare-up.
Thankfully, we (my healthcare team and I) have gotten myself to a point where I have a. . . .wait for it. . . quality of life.
I am able to enjoy myself. I am able to do activities I haven’t been able to do for the past three years.
I feel refreshed.
I am officially “living in the now.”
I do recognize that what I am taking to achieve this quality of life (large doses of longterm prednisone) does come at a cost.
However, I’m willing to pay it. There are things I want to do, like take a roadtrip down South.
/after a major fling with "transcendentalism." I read most of the accounts from the 1960s of the self defining road trips across America and Rte 66. I read Jack Kerouac.
I also was a big fan of Hunter S. Thompson and his specific style of “Gonzo journalism.”
I’m still a fan of his writing. Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas is an all-time favorite, but I am thoroughly unimpressed that he shot himself in the head in fear of illness and old age.
He was poised to start the greatest journey of his life, transcending into illness, and he shot himself!
That’s no way to go out.
If you think you are seeing a theme here in the writing I enjoy, you are right. Since moving past Gonzo-journalism I found a love for modern non-fictional accounts of American social welfare, like Jonathan kozol, who was instrumental in introducing me to the S. Bronx originally through "Amazing Grace."
These books also inspire my writing.
As far as the offer for the book club, check the comments peoples, I am in to read "The Last Lecture." I have it. I've been meaning to read it, but I haven't not due to its simplicity.
I am a book snob, but the last lecture has been on the New York Bestseller List for a year.
That's somewhere I have always wanted to be.
My next book is a toss-up between Michael J. Fox's "Always Looking Up" or Elizabeth Edwards' "Resilience."
I'm leaning toward Mrs. Edwards' memorior. It's just the mood I'm in, and she fascinates me.
I do think we are at a comparable point in history to the 1960s as a period of cultural change in America.
As far as health care reform is concerned, the government has a TIMELINE for reform.
I’m smiling. I’m excited. Something is coming, and it is posed to come quickly, and I am going to be around and alive to experience it all!