This was a big week for me – I went back to work on Wednesday.  I had a bit of a scare early in the week with a sharp pain in my abdomen.  It started over the weekend and by Tuesday it was bad enough that I figured I should probably check in with my doctor.  She thought that I had probably just overdone it in my preparation to be ready to go back to work (what?  I shouldn’t be lifting weights yet?!?) but ordered an abdominal CT scan just to be sure that it wasn’t something else like fluid collection or (please Lord, NO!) another abscess.  So, my first day back at work also included a delicious vanilla smoothie bottle of barium for “breakfast”, a little contrast for good viewing and no alcohol or caffeine the rest of the day/evening to celebrate my first day back.  Thankfully, the CT scan came back clear and I just need to be a bit more careful as I ease back into daily duties.  I am allowed to lift 15 pounds and I have tested this with three of my 5 lb. dumbbells so I know how much 15 pounds feels like.  One of my co-workers even double-checked my estimating ability with a package she thought exceeded my weight limit and it came in at 14 lbs!  I am very fortunate to have such incredible co-workers that are helping me gently work my way back into work.  The days were busy and went by so very fast.  I’m glad my first week was only three days long and I’m feeling ready for a full 5 days next week.

Abscess update:  The initial opening is getting very small but its still about an inch deep so the daily packing continues.  Tom  gives me an update as he’s working on it and he feels that its getting smaller and smaller every day.  We have decreased from 5 feet of 1″ gauze to about 12 inches of 1/4″ gauze with each packing – so that’s a great improvement!  We will definitely have to have a big fun celebration when its all healed and sealed!

Some of you have met or know of our dog Angel.  The girls and I brought her home from the local shelter over Labor Day weekend back in 2002.  We are her rescue family (as in, she rescued us!) – and like all angels, she was literally a gift from heaven.  They thought she was about 6 months old when we brought her home.  She had been abused, but we didn’t know that until we got her home.  She was terrified of men, didn’t bark and didn’t know how to play.  Over time, she learned that not all men will hurt her, found her voice and discovered how to prance around with invisible fairies and jump high fences (so the thousand bucks I spent to install a fence around our yard to keep her in and “safe” was pretty much a waste of money!)  She made many trips back and forth to Minnesota with us during the winter of 2002 and into late summer of 2003, in my Mom’s last year of battling lung cancer (could also be referred to one of the best years my family experienced together, along with many good friends who visited and shared in my amazing Mother’s last months).  Ok, back to the dog………Angel took to my Mom right away and Mom definitely took to Angel, too.  Any conversation with Mom before we were heading home to be with her included Mom saying, “Now Tracy, you bring that dog with you.”  Angel carefully walked over Mom’s oxygen tubing and not on top of it.  The tubing traveled down a hallway and through two rooms from the concentrator to Mom’s nose, so it was pretty cool that Angel just instinctively knew that it was something not to be messed with.  She would lay down behind Mom’s chair and then under her upstairs hospital style bed when Mom could no longer make the trip downstairs.  One time we even went into Mom’s room and Angel was on top of the bed at her feet.  We were told that she had been invited there because Mom wanted the dog to be closer.  That connection to my Mom alone makes this a special dog to me.  She went through that with us.  Over the last 13 years, Angel has been through everything with us.  She was 5 years old when Tom and I started dating and now my husband has discovered what it is like to fall in love with a dog (no ugly comments about his wife, please. That would so take me back to junior high mean boys).  Angel turned 13 this Spring and the senior years are now upon her.  Her hearing slowly eroded and now she is completely deaf.  Nope, she’s not just ignoring us!  She moves slowly and steps are pretty much impossible, so Tom built her a ramp over our deck stairs so she can get down to the yard.  She started developing tumors and growths and now has so many that anywhere we pet her, we feel a lump.  She was diagnosed with Cushing’s disease last fall.  It is likely from a tumor pushing on her pituitary gland which then causes the adrenal glands to produce too much cortisol.  We have been treating her with a chemo pill since last year.  She is a very special dog and she now requires very special and tender care.  I have had dogs all of my life but this is the first one that has lived into these older “senior” years.  It is both beautiful and very sad at the same time.  She does not show signs of suffering.  She never cries or whines.  She can still get up and has an appetite and great thirst.  She even chased the marmot for about 10 feet the other day and I’m certain I saw her laughing!  The reason I bring all of this up is that with everything she has been through and continues to go through, she still “smiles” and enjoys every bit of life the day brings to her.  She inspires me daily.  Yes, my dog is one of my greatest inspirations.  An animal that can neither speak or hear, yet she knows more about me than most people do.  I know she hurts and I know she’s starting to forget things, yet she is aging so gracefully and is dealing with a serious disease in such an amazing way.  I realize that she is ignorant to all of this information and doesn’t process it the same way as we emotional humans do.  Maybe in this situation, ignorance really is bliss.  Although I have never thought to consider a dog as ignorant.  Mainly they have an even keener awareness of their surroundings and what is important.  Love.  Unconditional Love.  Our Angel is still a happy dog and she always brings a smile to my face no matter what the day brings.  I’m just very thankful for her and the time we continue to have with her.  It seemed worthy of mention.

I read several books while I was on my medical leave.  I love to read and it was wonderful to have the time to soak up the stories.  I also started reading some poetry.  I’m really not all that fond of all poetry but I am impressed by a poet’s ability to use few words to describe a grand visual or idea.  Actually, I’m in awe of it since I use many words to describe the very small and simple.  Lately, I have been reading the poetry of Mary Oliver.  Her words stir my emotions and my mind is filled with the visuals that her words describe.  I discovered her quite by chance when a portion of one of her poems was shared by another author that I have as a Facebook friend.

So, today I end my ramblings with the clear words of poet Mary Oliver.  This one is a four part poem called, “The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac” from her book “Blue Horses”.

The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac
by Mary Oliver

1.
Why should I have been surprised?
Hunters walk the forest
without a sound.
The hunter, strapped to his rifle,
the fox on his feet of silk,
the serpent on his empire of muscles—
all move in a stillness,
hungry, careful, intent.
Just as the cancer
entered the forest of my body,
without a sound.

2.
The question is,
what will it be like
after the last day?
Will I float
into the sky
or will I fray
within the earth or a river—
remembering nothing?
How desperate I would be
if I couldn’t remember
the sun rising, if I couldn’t
remember trees, rivers; if I couldn’t
even remember, beloved,
your beloved name.

3.
I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.

so why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.

4.
Late yesterday afternoon, in the heat,
all the fragile blue flowers in bloom
in the shrubs in the yard next door had
tumbled from the shrubs and lay
wrinkled and fading in the grass. But
this morning the shrubs were full of
the blue flowers again. There wasn’t
a single one on the grass. How, I
wondered, did they roll back up to
the branches, that fiercely wanting,
as we all do, just a little more of
life?