Thursday, August 4, 2011

sleep, i miss you so

i am really, really tired. i have not got much sleep this week, when i have been able to fall asleep, i have nightmares. i have had stretches of nightmares throughout treatment, they tend to come in batches around scans and appointments or other stressful times. i had already planned to have yesterday off to go to my oncologist appointment and then go to the mariner's day game. the plan for the m's game changed when i heard about jim, so after my oncologist appt, i came home and wrote my blog and hunkered down with my sadness. i took today off too, i was just not in shape to pull myself together and be around people. i felt proud i made that decision because i typically would have got it together and gone in to work. but, i have learned over the last year that work continues without me, i work with good and talented people. they can handle it. taking care of work is not as important as taking care of myself. i don't make that decision every time, but i am working on it and am better at taking time than i was a year ago. i plan to go back tomorrow to catch up a little bit and it is a friday so that typically lends itself to a little slower pace. i probably just jinxed myself by writing that.

this afternoon i ran a couple of errands on my way to get malena. after i took my shower, i forgot to put on my ointment and bandaids over my stitches (which i didn't realize when i left the house) and bruises. i had to run in to bartell's to drop off a prescription and picked up a couple of other things. as i was checking out, the cashier asked me what happened to my arms. it jarred me a bit because i am so use to having my bandaids on that i don't get questions typically and didn't realize until that moment that i forgot to cover my stitches. i told her that i had some moles removed, and she said that her husband has wanted her to have some moles looked at for over a year. she said it is just one of those things that she says she will do but never does. i felt my stomach do a complete somersault. i then immediately felt tears coming as i was barely holding it together to begin with. i am sure that it was just a second, but a ton of thoughts went through my head that i wanted to say to her - the primary one being run, don't walk, to the derm's office. listen to your husband, he sounds pretty smart. you don't want to go through what i have gone through. you could die. all i could get out was to tell her that she should really go and have those looked at. a very surreal moment. made me feel like i should create a pamphlet that i can whip out in similar situations - maybe like alli's 10 top ten list of reasons that you should go your derm asap. go. now. please.

i am going to take a couple days off from updates so the next update will probably show up on monday. btw, for those of you that get the updates via email, in most cases i have posted the blog the day before. i know that can make it confusing as to which day i am talking about when i refer to "today" or "tomorrow" in the updates, but you can see the date that i posted it at the top of the email. there may be a way to figure out how to have the emails hit on the same day that i post them, but let's face it, that might be just a little too techie for me to figure out;)

take care all, have a good weekend. wear your sunscreen.

1 comment:

  1. I'm proud of you for taking time from work to take care of yourself too Alli! You're so right, work does go on without you and you are smart to put your trust into those talented, hard working people you work with. I'm sure they all care for you deeply and would much rather see that you take care of yourself than stress about work. I'm sure they are more than willing to take on that stress for you if it means you get just a little more time to rest (and especially at this time grieve) to get yourself back to healthy. They can handle it! Love you!

    ReplyDelete