cry havoc...

it's been forever since i posted anything here. so very, very much has happened...

we bought our house. moved in with our cats, henry and emma. traveled to Vegas, DC, Ireland, Belgium, Slovenia, Germany. now have 6 nieces and 4 nephews. dan's changed jobs a bunch. i was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. henry passed, other loved ones passed, friends and family moved about emotionally and physically.

this last year in particular has been crazy. we got back from Ocktoberfest in Munich last fall, i developed a DVT in my left leg; this was accompanied by a pulmonary embolism in each lung, too. will always be in recovery, it feels like, because i have to keep taking xarelto (an anti-coagulant) because having an inflammatory disease makes me more prone to blood clots.

anyway during that process, a CT of my chest revealed nodules on my thyroid. thus, the month of march went as follows:

Week 1: Laid off from work, effective May 7th.
Week 2: After 4 biopsies, confirmation that the nodules are cancer.
Week 3: Our 25th anniversary party at Big Wood Brewery, which has been planned for months. Three days before the party, we organize a wedding, since i'll be unemployed and full of cancer. We get hitched.

april was a month of scheduling: follow ups with various doctors, getting me onto dan's health insurance, counting down the days to surgery. we flew to Mexico City for my beloved Nathan's wedding to his beloved Carlos. my surgery was scheduled for May 7th, which was also the last day of my employment.

my entire thyroid was removed, along with 21 lymph nodes; of these, it was determined that 11 were actual malignant, so following surgery, i immediately went on the low/no iodine diet in preparation for radiation.

thyroid cancer, my endocrinologist maintains, is the easy cancer to have: you take out the thyroid and replace thyroid hormones with a pill. the surgery was not bad; i was out for 5 hours, and woke up to a neat incision that has healed quite nicely. you really have to look to see the scar, to be frank.

radiation consisted of me swallowing a little pill, and then driving home to stay away from Dan for a solid week. i couldn't go into the kitchen, had to use a separate bathroom. dan had to do all my cooking for me. but i'm officially cancer-free. or at least as cancer free as anyone can be, i suppose. i'm sure there's some straggler hanging about just waiting to be found again. who knows.

i started looking for work about a month ago now, when i was finally able to sit upright for any length of time without falling asleep. i'll never know what narcolepsy feels like, but dang, i came close: i could drink 3 cups of coffee and then immediately take a 4 hour nap. wake up, lunch, back to sleep until dinner...and then an early bedtime.

i probably should have started looking for work sooner, but recovery was more exhausting than i had anticipated. and now that i am looking, finally, i am once again in the boat i have always been in, the good ship All Grown Up but No Idea of What to Do With My Life.

i'm sure i'll figure it out. severance only lasts for a bit longer; i have an end date. it's hard to transition, but in reading through what i have written here, just today, i find that this last twelve months has been a lesson in change and acceptance, another in a long and unending line of such lessons.

chaos, i find, is the only constant.