March 28, 2022 Monday--1:45pm 71 years old today!

Good afternoon!

Yup--definitely into my 70s now.  Thank you for the cards and letters.  And thank you Janie Junebug for the beautiful miniature rose plant!  OMGosh!

I am having a quiet day with Annie.  Been a very low gear most of this past week so I am better off resting up.  You know it's low gear when I passed on an invitation to go over to visit McFamily this weekend for my birthday.  I'm not really feeling badly...just tired and a little weak.  So have been taking it easy and getting some extra sleep.  Did get a lot of letters written, though.  Had a stack of 13 set up last Monday and am down to two left on that batch.  :)  Now I need to set up the pile that's accumulated on my desk this week.  ;)  

I am SOOO glad my snail mail friends have not forgotten me!  :)

I am mainly so tired from working on the patio five days in a row.  I didn't overdo it...or I wouldn't have been able to do five days in a row...but it wore me out nonetheless.  Absolutely worth it, though!!  

Here's Annie observing before my last day of sweeping.

I've been putting out some seed on the little table and saw my second sign of spring--a robin!  (First was a grackle.)

I started watching Sketchbook Revival videos last Monday.  They do two weeks of two videos a day for free and give you some extra time to finish watching them (two more weeks till April 18).  I haven't been up to actually participating in any of the sessions but most of them are fun to watch anyways.  Some give you new ideas and techniques.  Some don't interest me so I pass on those.  This is the second week now starting today.

On Friday I had a regular checkup with my primary physician, Dr. Kessler.  Leah dropped me off and did some errands.  I made sure to thank Kessler for doing that cancer test "just in case".  I've thanked her before but I wanted to really let her know again how much that has meant to me.  I really like her.  So glad I switched to her...for so many reasons.

My blood pressure has been running on the high side.  I was on the lowest dose so she doubled that (next size dose).  I may have to go in for a quick BP check with the nurse in three weeks.  Kessler will look and see what my BP is after I go in for my infusion this Friday.  But she does want to see me in three months regardless to review how the BP medication is doing and how I am doing.  :)

We discussed Keytruda a bit.  I told her I have looked online and Keytruda only works on 15-20% of the population, so that is lucky for me.  It is a "rare miracle" for a few but the average survival rate is 26 months and some as much as 36 months.  But I told her that I don't feel like I fit into the usual people who are taking it.  My impression is that by the time people are getting immunotherapy they have been on chemo for a long time and it isn't working for them anymore...and then (in probably pretty bad shape) they start Keytruda just as a last ditch effort to keep them alive longer.  They actually call it a palliative treatment.  Well, Kessler readily agreed.  She doesn't think I fit the profile of who is on Keytruda, either.  I was so glad she agreed.  Not that I don't stay optimistic and positive, but it helps to have someone see it like you do, you know?  :)  We couldn't hug so we did elbow bumps.

Leah came in after the appointment and did the trash and such for me.  I was too tired to want to work on bookcards yet so we just had a really good chin wag as the British say.  Was marvelous!  Leah is truly a soul sister.  

One of the things I was talking to her about that I am thinking more about today on my birthday is how with the cancer I believe I am in a win-win situation.  If I don't make it...if I die sooner than expected (as so many in the family live to be in the 90s)...well, I am still old enough (lol!) and have lived truly, truly a full life.  I have learned a lot and I think I am a better person for the time I have put in here on this beautiful, crazy planet.  I have always done what I felt deep down was right for me to do--even when other people thought I was nuts, to be honest.  When situations didn't work out in the long run...well, I learned a whole lot of positive spiritual lessons from them that I couldn't have learned probably any other way.  Don't they say the lord works in mysterious ways--lol!  Things worked out in the way they were supposed to and I have no regrets.  I have always tried to very consciously make decisions--big and small.  

If I didn't and slid into something--well, then that's my own fault and I certainly learned something from that, too.  No one else to blame.  I am not a "what if" type person at all.  Always have tried to take the bigger picture into consideration...accept my life's path and my choices as my responsibility...no one else's.  The things one has no control over...like Dagan having severe heart defects or my having chronic health issues for over two decades and now cancer...well, I have no control over those things happening.  Life is absolutely a crap shoot with no promises or guarantees.  I only have control over how I live through those things.  I am not unrealistic, but I also do believe in miracles and think it is a waste of precious time to give up or be negative about it and ruin today, you know?  Don't borrow trouble.  If the worst is going to happen it will happen without fretting over it and not appreciating the time you do have, you know?  

Any of us could be gone tomorrow.  What is important is who you are--right now--this day--this moment.  Who are you?  Who do you want to be?  How are you effecting the people around you?  Have you let the people you love know how much they mean to you?  Can you change whatever is making you fearful, unhappy, or stressed in your life?  If you absolutely can't--then focus on how to live through it and remain true to yourself and be something positive in this world. Find it inside of you.  It is there.  And if you can change things (often we actually can but it is a scary leap of faith to do so)--do it!  Think it through--make plans--find a way to change things.

When you live your life as best you can...like you could die tomorrow...then you are okay to die tomorrow. 

I'm not perfect.  None of us are.  I've always given it my best shot.  I have failed or steered off my inner path here and there along the way, but it is never too late to jump back on...or crawl and claw your way back on--LOL!  I always got back on that path and did my best as the flawed, slow-to-learn human being I am.  It is never too late.

I am good to go.    

And if the Keytruda does shrink the tumors and I become cancer free--that is a win!  A huge win!  Being allowed to have more days on this precious beautiful ugly world...that's an obvious win.

So see?  I'm in a win-win situation.  I cannot lose.  Happy birthday to me.  I made it 71 years so far.  I may have to make myself some Keto brownies--LOL!  ;)

Love and hugs to you all!!