Day 8 - 40DOW - gratitude

I've been sick the past few days. Fever and runny nose, you know that route, right? 

The thing is that when you're one week post op, you shouldn't take risks, especially as I move on. Couple this with a change is what I will call discharge. I called my super awesome GYN. He had me come in to make sure everything was ok.

He was not with a patient when I walked into the back office area. And he must have seen me stepping on the scale. I heard him say, the good news is that you look good. I smiled and told him that I was indeed feeling better, but we had different ideas on what good meant. We laughed. He came over and said that he was really glad I called, that most patients would just dismiss the fever as being the cold, and that he was really, really glad I called.

When he came in to see me, I got to ask the big pressing question in my head which, ironically has nothing to do with cancer.

Can we take out that IUD you fought so hard to preserve at my last biopsy, and if you do, can I keep it?

When I go back next week we will remove my IUD and I will get to keep it. I figure that since I actually kept my cerclage (it is a link to a link, so if you don't want to see the knot that held me shut, you don't have to click all the way through and just stop at my picture of Squink) that I wanted to keep my IUD as well. Symbols, if you will, of the two times my cervix failed me... or rather, of when we failed each other.

This exchange actually led to a very interesting discussion of complementary medicine. I really have a wonderful gyn.

So, gratitude... yes. Aside from whomever is coming to see this blog (and it averages about 1 person per post (which may be me since I am writing this) I haven't really told many people in the grand scheme of things. I have told my family, not all of them just the close and a few extended (a couple of cousins, though not all... I suppose I should do that tonight... though if truth be told the cousins I haven't told are part of the group that thought letting me know that my grandmother had passed away via a public Facebook post was appropriate... so, I figured I could return the favor in some way). 

Anyway, I sent out a bcc email to some folks who mean the world to me and who did not know. While I did not hear back from everyone I emailed, I was delighted with who did respond and what they said. I did send it out to a few males, I heard back from two. That was a surprise, they wrote these sweet gentle notes and considering that they are not sweet gentle men, I was touched. 

I also told my fellow board members of an agency I serve on the board for, they were amazing and supportive. One bought me what she called her Catholic cancer kit; a statuette and booklets/cards of Saint Peregrine, some chamomile tea, and Holy water from Lourdes. 

People who have chosen to reach out with messages of support and love have been so treasured. Phone calls, emails, letters, notes, offers of lunch or dinner and other... I feel so much comfort in their messages and offers of time and help.  One (one of my guy friends) even saucily wrote that they would rather look at pictures of food than hear the news I had just given...

For you k...

I am so very lucky that I am not alone on this experience.