virus

so all has been quiet in this space since last week because i came down with a virus that kicked me in the you-know-what for five loooooooooong straight days.

brutal.

i will spare you the details (you are welcome) but let me just say that i was a little ball of misery that could not move unless i had to and i got to take not one -- but yes two - trips to the emergency room. hence the super awesome picture above.

yep, good times.

today was my first day finding my way back to normalcy, and it is such a better place to be -- even if i am only barely crossing over the boundary into it.

but here is what i will be damn happy to put behind me (hopefully i didn't just jinx myself into round two with the mother of all viruses)...

feeling so sick that you start to lose hope that a moment will come when you will actually start to feel like a human being again.

laying on the couch for five days and being reminded that the last time you did that you were recovering from the surgery on your lung. that is not a comforting thought and your mind starts to play all kinds of pretty mean mental tricks on you about what really might be wrong with you.

you love making the most of each day and filling it with life, and when you can't move and are basically exiled to a couch, you feel like wasted days are passing by when you can't even move enough to send an i love you text, get a hug and kiss from your kid, shoot an email off to say i am thinking of you, call a friend, send some happy mail, etc. i do not like feeling like i have wasted days -- in fact, i hate that feeling quite a bit. it is hard for me to waste a day which is why i tend to be in constant motion most of the time. but it is also because idle time makes dark thoughts creep in and i can keep them at bay a hell of lot easier if i have other things on my mind. down time is typically not my friend.

you trying your very best to not make painful faces that your daughter can see as she sits by you in the room you are in the ER while the nurses have a hell of a time getting your IVs in your arm. and they try, and they try, and they try - and it hurts like absolute hell as they keep moving the needle around in your arm. but you don't show that on your face because you don't want the entire experience to be any more scary for her than it already has to be as her mom has three people around her and tubes and needles all over the place.

you won't miss answering questions like "yes, stage iv melanoma" and "yes, to remove a cancer tumor" and "yes, on my collarbone" and "yes, my last scans were clean" while she sits next to you. because although they are simply words, they are the hardest words to say and they feel like they weigh about 1000 pounds each as they come tumbling out of your mouth.

so as i start to return to the land of the living, i am pretty happy to say goodbye to virus land.

not a lot of good comes from that place (with maybe the exception of an unexpected visit from my parents to help us out, my mom making me toast and my favorite fruit salad and helping with laundry, and my dad being the best errand runner of all time. thanks parental team, you rock).

i am looking forward to getting back to this place, i missed it.

happy wednesday peeps, we are at the halfway point - and i for one am pretty happy to be moving forward.

+++ judy is starting her radiation this week and so please send tons of love, mojo, prayers and good thoughts to her and her entire family as she starts this 6 week process and works through the info her doctors provided on the long term effects. we love you judy -- xoxo