A Blessing or A Curse?

I am Six weeks post op and this week was going to be my first week back at work. I really miss work!! I miss my co workers and all the Laughs we would have everyday and I miss my patients!  Six weeks seemed pretty overkill  when De Cassivi said That was how long it would take to recover, but he was spot on. It took close to five weeks just to have energy and stamina to complete daily tasks. I am no where close to having half the strength I did before Christmas. (Yikes and now its Easter😳) Now that I am able to move freely and exercise again I am working on regaining strength and flexibility.  Its sure isn't easy........ seems unfair that it takes so much training to be able to run for miles and miles, to touch your toes or  hold yoga poses, yet it takes no time at all to lose it all. Good thing I have all the time in the world right now to work on getting it back.

Last night I couldn't sleep, my mind runs all the time. I started thinking, Things just do not always turn out like we plan, do they! I mean really, It is not everyday someone goes through chemo and radiation 1200 miles from home during a global pandemic is it?!?  What the shit! Who could have imagined this?  Certainly not I.
I wonder if its a blessing or a curse.  The universe seems to be standing still as my world gets a little jolted and jared. When I first got the news about having to return to Mayo for follow-up, consults and initiating treatment  I immediately thought about everything I would miss. Dylans first few High School baseball games, his confirmation, his 16th birthday. I thought about how I would miss getting Rylie ready for her Philadelphia field trip and all the exciting events as 8th grade came to a close. Not to mention just the everyday life of teenagers and the laughs we have together as a family. (Although hectic on a daily basis, it truly is what I live for!) I  had  already been struggling with Dylan and Rylie growing up too fast, with only having Dylan around for two more years. I felt like time was slipping away and every moment needed to be cherished.  So I can't help but wonder, is it a blessing that everything has been shut down, that the baseball season has been cancelled, that the field trip was scrapped? Is it a blessing that the world is standing still almost as if it is waiting for me to get better so life can resume? Maybe! Maybe I am the lucky one in this.

Or is it a curse? A curse that I am missing all these bonus precious days with my kids home from school. And what about from an education stand point. A blessing or curse? The math that Dylan is learning right now is what the SATs are based on, without a strong foundation/understanding what will his scores look like? A curse, for sure! But maybe not- MAYBE this is the the time for him to learn more important life lessons that 16 year old's should learn.

 Listen, I get it, I understand everyones kids are driving them bat shit crazy and that facilitating education on a daily basis  is enough to make many drink at noon..... but what if we look at all this differently. How many of us have said that there is a real problem with todays kids? That they are so disconnected from reality while completely connected electronically? How kids today do not even know how to talk to one another. How we watch them sit next to each other and spend more time looking at their phones than the faces of their friends. I know personally I had wondered how the world as I knew it growing up could evolve into a more greater place for my children when so many teenagers lacked some of the basic principles of humanity. I know that sounds harsh and like I do not love my children and their peers but I think we all know what I am getting at here. Perhaps being forced through social distancing to be without real personal connections will make Dylan and Rylie realize just how precious sitting with friends at lunch is. How important social relationships are. How the world truly is a better place because of the people we surround ourselves with. Hopefully they will remember the time when they couldn't hug their friends and they will never take that for granted. Hopefully they learn a little more about their faith and the strength they can get from prayer.  SO I choose to believe it is all a blessing and not a curse. That this is a giant reset button on the world and I am actually "lucky" enough to deal with all the bull shit of cancer treatments and not miss baseball games and field trips at home. I have to believe that the real blessing in all of this is that I am far away from them now so that I can be even closer to them later and that I will be blessed enough to have all the "bonus" days then.