spending time on a white sandy beach in hawaii...

the first night in seattle with the girls i couldn’t fall asleep because all their voices were echoing in my head. i could literally hear all of them. all of their beautiful voices. and now that we are once again across a state across a coast across a country across an ocean from one another i am wishing we were all back in one room laughing and talking and changing the world. i miss you all and wish you were here.

i am still synthesizing the weekend and all the beautiful, the painful, the joyful, the silly, the difficult, the real, the gorgeous moments.

for the last few days though, my focus has been on my health. i started feeling a bit under the weather Sunday but thought it was nothing (and if i am really honest with myself i have been exhausted for weeks but blamed it on myself and continued to play the game of i am woman i can do anything). by Tuesday evening, after i was back with jon, i was able to finally listen to my body and be honest that something was amiss.

and this is that part where i am wondering how much you share on your blog with people who are kind of strangers yet not at all strangers and important people in your life…i have had a week where i have been told i might have cancer yet probably don’t have cancer yet i need surgery yet i probably don’t need surgery yet i might still need a biopsy yet the doctor i need to see is on vacation so just sit tight until Monday but the doctor is a surgeon so you connect the dots…i have had a cat scan and a reaction to the dye used in the cat scan. i have learned that some nurses can find my veins and some can’t really so now i have to ask them to “cook me” with a heating pad before they even try. i have slept and learned how to stay on top of pain. i have found that you really can catch up on abc shows on abc.com and watched two episodes of ugly betty and caught up on grey’s anatomy all from the comfort of my bed with millie napping against my legs. and even though i had a fever of 101, i have learned i wasn’t going crazy that the democrats really did take the house and the senate. it was nice to have anderson cooper confirm that after my fever went down (yippee). i have learned once again that i am the luckiest “stay at home” editor in the world because my boss is amazing and has made it clear that i am to rest until we know more information. [to have your boss (who is really a friend) say that she wants you rested in case you have to have surgery (instead of thinking i better get all i can out of her before she has surgery) is a gift. and even though it is hard to just let the laptop sit there, i do know that codeine is probably not an asset when looking for comma splices and subject/verb agreement.] i have learned that when the nurse offers you a wheelchair you should take it (or you might bite it in the parking garage). i have realized that having my brother nearby so he could come spend the day is more important to me than i might have admitted. i have seen that i am never alone because my husband, my partner, is with me every step in every minute. a lesson i was starting to realize last weekend and finally have had to see because when i called to tell him i had to have the cat scan right away and was scared he sent an email to the faculty at his school and said he had to leave and that someone still needed to cover one of his classes and the tests were on the desk. just like that. (thank goodness he came because i could have never driven myself home.) i have finally started talking to my grandmother – as i was in the cat scan machine i just started talking to her – knowing that she had several of these before she died…hoping she could help me stay calm. it wasn’t the x-ray that scared me, it was the contrast dye that went through my veins. but now i am talking to her. haven’t heard anything back yet but still, this is one step several people have invited me to try. i have also found that singing IZ’s song about a white sandy beach in Hawaii in my head does help me go to that very place and sit on the beach watching for whales…so go ahead and poke me and x-ray me and prod me. i will be hanging out with the humpbacks.

i will know more Monday. until then i am resting and taking pain meds to stay on top of the pain (my new favorite past time). and drinking mug after mug of tea. and snuggling on the couch in flannel pjs.

(to read more about the incredible long weekend seven bloggers had in seattle last week, check out the blogs of the women i linked to in my last post.)