coasting

Only 3 more weeks of school after this one.  I have literally no new lessons to plan -- just review sessions next week, then finals, then it's the last week of school when we'll just do fun things.  Tonight, with all my lessons prepped through the week and all my grades up-to-date, I realized I didn't actually have to do anything school-related, and it was a nice surprise.

It's odd how something you already know can be a surprise, but it was, nevertheless.  I'm so used to plopping down on the couch with my laptop and putting in at least an hour or two (if not 3 or 4) hours of work, just to keep up and make sure my weekends had some free time.  That's not going to be a problem for the foreseeable future.

Eating has been exceptionally good in one way and bad in another, lately.  The weekend before last, DH and I had a lovely dinner al fresco at Postino, consisting entirely of a bottle of good zinfandel and various bruschettas and meats and cheeses and other things to nibble on.  Plus, really good coffee to finish.  It was all so delicious, I wanted to re-create it at home, and have, twice, brought home really good bread and sliced it up and had bruschetta for dinner again, out on our patio.  Delightful.  Except after Easter's eating many things I know I shouldn't, I'm paying for it.

Yesterday my wedding rings sliced open my finger, so I can't wear them on my left hand anymore until it heals.  (Too much cleaning and cooking, and washing dishes, without wearing gloves, which I hate...)  This morning I couldn't even get the rings on my right hand, so I wore them on a chain instead.  If swollen hands were the worst of it, it wouldn't be so bad, but the swelling has companions that are more painful, like creaky joints and aching muscles and overall fatigue even though I've been getting decent sleep.

Here's hoping a few days of clean eating will tamp down this flare.  I hate being reminded I have arthritis. I can cheat for a day, or maybe 2, but I can't ever be the person who eats wheat and dairy every day without major consequences.

Segue... I also hate being reminded that I have cancer, but that didn't stop me from signing up for a research study involving patients with metastatic thyroid cancer.  My "homework assignment" was to create a timeline of significant events and describe how I felt at each step, which was excruciating.  I felt like I had to unpack everything that had ever happened and try to make a coherent story out of it.  By this point, it seems both interminably boring and utterly weird to me.  The actual study was an hour interview (well, we went 90 minutes) about my experience.  It was easy for me to talk about it because I have a lot of practice at it.  I hope it's helpful.

In a way, it's good that I don't have much after school work these days, because we have many, many after school and evening events scheduled.  It's a bit crazy, but good.  I was a bit wound up (actually, depressed) by the work I had to for the research study, but now that it's over, and I had a massively productive Easter weekend, I am better. 

I know what caused that little tail-spin, and I'm glad I was able to get out of it once the study was finished.  I have been so anxious about this latest recurrence that I think it helped to wade deeply into the thyroid cancer swamp and live there for a while.  Now I can wade out again, thinking, that has nothing to do with me right now.   I'll go for my whole body scan in October, and we'll see what's up.

A couple of things to mention here, just to have some way to keep track of them.  I had a random nosebleed on April 8, and ever since then, I've felt that sinus passage is congested or partially blocked.  I've done sinus rinses but they don't make a difference.  I'm thinking I should probably get that looked at, if it doesn't resolve soon.  Also, I'm having my usual ovarian cyst symptoms, and have been for at least a month now, but I'm so irritated by the process -- go to the gyn, get a referral, get an ultrasound, wait a week, get the results, by which time my symptoms have been resolved for 3 weeks -- grrrr.  So I'll just wait it out, even though I feel bloated and have several other classic symptoms of ovarian cancer.  I don't have the time or energy to pursue it now, so if it's still bothering me in 3 weeks when school is out, then I'll make some calls.

Other than that?  My biggest problem is that my laptop usually doesn't connect to the internet when I wake it up, which fades to such insignificance that it is not a problem at all.