Back in the saddle again…

Marvina returned to work today.  She had been off work on short term disability since early September, just about two months total.  A lot happened in that time which I’ve talked about in previous posts.  Suffice it to say Marvina is acting out her own personal Phoenix rising from the flames…okay, maybe a bit overly dramatic but a surprisingly accurate analogy.  She crashed, she burned, she rises again.  That’s my baby.

I can’t begin to explain how good she appears now.  She had a bit of anxiety this morning which rolled her out of bed early.  “I was anxious” she said.  First day back at work after an extended time off would make anybody anxious.  I know it would me.  Yet even then she proudly held up an empty package of cigarettes and announced that she had reduced her consumption to half a pack per day and was close to quitting.  Of course that puts me on the spot since I plan to quit with her except that I will do it cold turkey, as they say.

“Wait!” you say, “You smoke?!?  What about the cancer???”

Yes, I smoke.  I could be glib and shrug your question off with “What’s it going to do?  Give me cancer?”  But seriously yes, I do smoke and yes, I am going to quit.  I suppose quitting now would be something akin to buying car insurance after the wreck.  I can’t offer any excuse for smoking and freely admit that I began, at age 18, for the dumbest of reasons which I won’t go into here.  That being said I can assure you that I don’t like smoking anymore.  I am addicted to them yes, but I find no pleasure in them like I used to.  They have become a habit that I plan to loose, side-by-side with Marvina and even though I’m still fighting cancer I know that quitting will be nothing but good for me.  Along with a lot of other changes that are about to land or re-land in our life.

One significant change is with Marvina and the effect her health has on me and my own.  I worry a lot about her.  She is not far from my thoughts constantly throughout the day.  I was particularly concerned with the medications she was gobbling down at the direction of her (former) doctor.  That all changed when she had her brush with Serotonin Toxicity.  Traumatic it was yet it was a life changing moment for her and I.  Most importantly it helped her change direction in a good way.  Yes, she still has all the worries and concerns swirling around in her pretty head that she’s always had but she’s taken a big step at governing them rather than letting them govern her.

Her feeling better in turn makes me feel better, sort of.  A big weight has been lifted off me.  I still worry about her but the intensity of the worry lessons each day in which I see improvement in her.  She feels better, I feel better.  Conversely when I feel better she feels better.  This is a good circle to be caught in.  We might simply explode from feeling so good.

Yet as my worries of her dissipate worries about myself return.  I hurt.  I hadn’t noticed it in the past, but I have a mostly very low level of constant pain.  Right now the pain is centered in my shoulders and neck.  There is also pain in my right hip and down the outside of my right leg.  That particular pain can be quite intense and feels as though the muscle, particularly my thigh muscle, is sheering away from my thigh bone.

I suspect a lot of this pain is the result of bad posture, particularly while sitting and sleeping.  I think we need new furniture for the living room (sitting) and a new bed (laying down).  I expect that a lot of my pain will go away with new stuff.  At least that’s my hope.  Of course if the pain remains after that then I will probably really start worrying and I will likely give my doctor a call.

In the meantime I’m going to enjoy the good feeling I’m having from watching Marvina get better and I’ll do whatever I can to help her continue improving.  She’s important to me.  She has my heart after all.