Week Off

I've been off for a week. The whole plant closed for a week - a "furlough", they called it, but it amounts to everyone being laid off for a week. Which is fine, I guess; I had plenty of advance warning and saved money for the unpaid week.

And in truth it was nice to have a week off. Now that I feel pretty good (for the first time in a few years) it's nice to get around to fixing all the things I'd been sort of neglecting. The lawn tractor wouldn't start. The big tractor had a flat tire. The garage was full of junk that needed to be sorted through and, for the most part, chucked. I had shelves to build, a barbecue to fix, rubber mats to move around. The essence of the matter is that for the first time in about three years I feel "normal", whatever that means, and it's such a hoot to do things again.

It's so much fun I actually manage to forget for days in a row that I had cancer, and may still have it. The thing that keeps reminding me of the real situation is my PET scan, scheduled for Wednesday. I'll be having PET scans for a long time to come, and I have no reason to believe that they'll actually find anything, but I still kind of tighten up at the thought. The worst stress is when I'm waiting for the results. The test itself is next to painless and I almost always fall asleep inside the machine, but the week-plus of waiting for the results isn't always a lot of fun.

But, I have no reason to believe I have cancer. No lumps, no bumps, no weird B-symptoms, no unexplained pain, no sudden fatigue. If anything, I keep feeling better, not worse. So I'm hopeful. I feel good enough, actually, that I think it's time to start thinking seriously about some kind of exercise program. I think I've regained all the strength and energy I'm ever going to by pursuing daily activities, and now it's time to move up to the next level.

I believe I'll start with a single 12-ounce curl, and see how that goes.