Today is the First Day of the Rest of My Life

I have for the past year been on life's roller coaster. I have accepted all that has come and gone with as much "chutzpah" as I possibly could manage. Coming out the other side of cancer is not the best way to come to some life realization, and I can honestly say my life realizations came long before the day I found a lump.

The funny thing about life is that is keeps on happening. And each day something happens that makes you realize that once again you have to make a choice, to go forward and be better, or to fall back and let life roll over you. Each day some of us recognize the persistent wake up calls.

I got another of those wake up calls last Friday. It was my internist Dr. Phillip Malpass. This dedicated man called me at 4 pm on a Friday afternoon to discuss my bone density scan. Um...usually no news is good news and getting a call from "Phil" is usually a discussion that resembles the morning alarm clock.

Now over the last year I have had to Google many things and this phenomenon doesn't seem to be letting up. So as I sat with my ear to the phone and listened to a description of how the chemo has effected my bones and how the drug I'm on now will increase bone density...blah blah blah. By the end of the conversation I made choices about my health care and the results of the bone density that both he and I agreed were for the best and a notation on my chart that I would see him in two years. Well i don't know about him, but I was left with more concern after than before. I'm sitting here at 47 years old, tossed into menopause and I have a bone density of -3.35. Not good. I turned to Google.

And this is what I learned:

So what was my results again...-3.35. As you can see anything lower than -2.50 is not good. Can you hear the alarm ringing from where you sit? All weekend I digested what was said to me. Realizing that my life choices have had me arriving at this moment, and not just at this moment, but the next moment right after this one. And it went on like this all weekend.

I had other parts of the conversation going through my head as I took this revelation on. Of course the chemo was intensive, and it shut down my ovaries and now I had less estrogen so that makes my bones lose mineralization. That the feeling of being in discomfort all the time (I feel for those with fibromyalgia) is part and parcel due to the last year of cancer treatment. But one thing kept nagging at me. That as busy a women as I am, exercise has not been a big part of my life. I'm curvy and soft. I can and at times do enjoy exercise, but it always falls by the wayside when life gets busy.

This has resulted in the low in bone density. Life catches up with.

So...to the point of this whole babbling blog.

I'm running. Well "I ran" is more like it. I have a great pair of shoes bought a long time ago and a trail behind my house. Today was the first day of a 13 week running program I am adopting. It starts slow and gains momentum over the 13 weeks resulting in a 10 K run.

Having a program will help me stay on tract. It will help guide me to what I have to do and all I have to do is follow it (Just like when I did P90X). I want to kick butt this summer.

Exercise is no longer about a lower number on the scale, or less jiggle on my thighs. It is all about getting that bone density number up. I want to ski next year, but broken bones from a light tumble is not on my menu. So I'm running.

This is the place where I'll chart my progress.  September 19th, 2011 is 13 weeks from now.

This is me today:





Thanks for joining me. Come back soon now ya hear.

Pssssssst....can I tell you a secret?

I'm having an affair....

Oh...did that catch your attention?

Good. Because that is what I intended.
It's true.

Now for many, jealousy enters when their loved one begins to pay attention to another. Attention that brings their partner joy that they themselves can not create. They feel left out, and spurned. The type of affair I'm involved in has been the down fall of many relationships.

But my affair is not with flesh and blood. It is with a more powerful force.

I'm having an affair with my computer.

My computer is my friend. It gives me joy. Why? Well I guess it began long ago when when the children where young (very young, as in I would go days without hearing one intelligent word all day until my husband came home and said "hello").

My computer was my lifeline to the outside world of adults. I could chat with people that had the same interests as me. I could post on the iVillage discussion board and get real responses from real people. And I did not have to let them see the chaos swirling around me as I tried to maintain order in a home that had toddlers. I could sit back and relax be a "grown up".

Now I'll make it clear now that I did have "real" people in my life. But that happened in the way of a moms' group. Where we gathered with our children and discussed motherly things. And I loved it. I was a mother and for near 16 years I've embraced all that has came with motherhood. I embraced the shirt that was constantly lifted by a nursing toddler, or the numerous accidents that occurred during potty training and all the while knowing I had a diaper pail about to explode, and the last 3 baskets of laundry haven't been folded, right up to buying acne products for my teens and trying to explain why too much X-box will rot their brain.

I love it all. But I loved the time when I was not a mom. I love being just me, a female, the female that I remember before motherhood.

My computer allowed me to find the grown up world that existed outside of motherhood. It allowed me to be "me". To joke and tease and flirt.

How does one begin to explain this relationship to a partner that does not partake in such a venue of socialization. Where you delve into a world that is foreign to them. Like going to a pub that they have never been to and they don't understand the language.

I know the on-line world I live in is not completely understood. This love affair I have with the world wide web is more than I ever expected. This highway to a world of socializing and learning and communicating. Who could not love it.

I've made my mistakes and trusted, when I should have been cautious. But we all learn in the way we need to. Now I laugh at the things I fell prey to, and I enjoy myself (maybe a bit too much ;)). But over all, I've had fun and I'll continue to have fun.

First and foremost though is to make sure that reality stays real and that the dive into the "virtual life" stays there. Nothing can replace life, but just as I do not play Wednesday night hockey or watch sports on TV and get all pumped up, I hope that my choice of entertainment is accepted.

So pass the beer hunny while you snuggle up to a night of hockey, I'm just gonna check out Talk City and go hang with my buddies at ~The Penthouse~.