Our Health
DAY 10: Breast Cancer Journal
Hmmm, food used to be a big diversion for me, it was my friend and support but with cancer it no longer gives me the comfort it once did.
Music, ah yes, I love music and I do listen but pick out the instruments, the beat and get more involved in dissecting than listening.
Reading that would be it, reading has always filled me with support, comfort, words of encouragement and laughter as well as tears, no I cannot focus — the words slide in and out.
What was that last chapter about, who is the character?
I am lucky if I can concentrate long enough to laugh at a joke in the Reader’s Digest.
A dear friend comes over and since I am to be a new grandmother, she feels that it would be good for me to knit a pair of baby socks.
Now that is diversion!
Have you tried to knit with four needles about the size of toothpicks?
My friend would patiently sit beside me and say the next few steps to do and I would complete one and look back with the blank stare and ask her to repeat it — again, and again, and again until nausea would set in.
The harder I tired the worse it got and I felt so stupid as to not be able to retain those directions for the seconds it took to put them into practice.
We worked on several different occasions to make this dream come true and for a diversion during this period of my life.
I even became so brave at one time as to attempt some of the sock on my own. With mounting frustration after a period of futility, I sat the knitting down.
MY MISTAKE!
When I came back the next day, I could see I had dropped stitches and in my feeble attempt to fix it, had made the whole thing worse.
In total frustration, I sat it down and walked away crying, vowing to never attempt this project again and whatever I had completed I would put in a frame and send it down as a gift as Grandma’s efforts for the baby.
My friend came to the rescue and finished the sock and even went on to make the matching sock. (SHOW OFF.)
I just couldn’t pass it off as my work though and admitted that the chemo brain had done its best to undo me with the sock effort. I have since had another grandchild and I promised myself and my sanity to never attempt to do that again ... ever!
It has become somewhat of a joke between the two of us and at this point I have nothing to hide, I can’t knit baby socks and I can go to any store and for a nominal amount can pay to have a lovely pair that if one is lost, then it is not such a loss as to send us rooting through every nook and cranny and into the dryer and vent and anywhere else you can think to find that one lone sock that decides to walk off without its partner.
(Can you tell, I have had that hunt?)
I have now added yet another grandchild and due to my love for my kids and family and my need for sanity, I have remained true to my commitment. I will never make another sock. AMEN!
- Our Health
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- LOCAL COLUMN: Want to lose weight in 2010? EAT MORE
- LOCAL COLUMN: Paying for cancer
- Find balance this holiday season
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November is Diabetes Month
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DAY 31: Breast Cancer Journal
Final personal thoughts by Sue Kilburn, whose Breast Cancer Journal ran each day this month.
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DAY 30: Breast Cancer Journal
Life will never feel or look the same. I often talk to patients that have cancer at various stages: just diagnosed, in the midst of treatment, returning for follow-up, recurrence. There is an overriding theme for all of us: The journey is never over!
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DAY 29: Breast Cancer Journal
Life will never be the same
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AUDIO SLIDESHOW: Surviving Breast Cancer
Sue Kilburn of Meadville was diagnosed in 2005 with Breast Cancer. A lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiation was the treatment dor her and approaching five years later, she is still cancer - free. Kilburn has shared her story here and will each day this month with a short story on her life with and after cancer. See that story in the Our health section of our website.
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DAY 28: Breast Cancer Journal
Well, I have been in my new position for two months now and for everything I start I expand on and develop 10 more areas that I want to work with, for and learn.
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DAY 27: Breast Cancer Journal
Once I was a listener and now I am involved.
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