I love massages. I like my massages to be a chocolate brownie with chocolate chips. I want it deep, I want it to hurt in the way that makes me feel better for days. I want to groan with pleasure and a bit of distress. I’m good with the therapist using an elbow, full pressure please. I scheduled a Chemo massage. The therapist comes wonderfully recommended, I checked with my doctor’s office and my platelets are in a good range, I’m not going to bruise. I told her that and she said “I was taught that chemo massage needed to be…” Actually I’m not sure of her words but the answer was basically “like it needs to be not like you want it to be”. So I tried and it was nice. It was angel food cake. Light airy, a brief scent of strawberry, maybe even a sliver of strawberry, but a million miles from a rich deep brownie. A million miles. And I liked her and will see her again and will try to remain open to the experience she offers.
Chatting with the therapist afterward she said “this is the new normal”. I bristled, who is anyone to define my new normal but me? No I’m an energetic person who gets things done and loves to do a lot. I’m working to become a minister, and going through that process with all I have. I’m currently a person with treatments and a disease that make me tired and sometimes I feel ill. I’m currently not doing much toward ministry. Maybe this will last I hope not, but this is TODAY not “my new normal”. Ken also used this expression and I also took him to task for it. After a pause he let me know it was for his ease, and that he hadn’t thought through what it might sound like to me. His new normal may be driving me everywhere, being so incredibly helpful, wonderful loving always present and caring. And I deeply appreciate those blessed offerings, but to me that is all today, not a new normal.
I have not received permission from the Doc. to take the trip to Saint Thomas that Ken and I just booked. We got cancellation insurance, and I think the nurse was hinting that the doc. might not let me go. And I may go anyway. We need this trip to the sun and blue waters. We need this trip to where I spent most of my spring breaks through my childhood. There is a color of water in this part of the world I haven’t found anywhere else and I need it, It will heal me in some important way, even if it isn’t a medical way. And Ken has never been there, so it will be very special to sea that see with him.
Dear Creative force – Sick people need hope. It is hard to hold onto hope in the mists of sickness and medical treatments and really sad news. And defining sickness as for today is important for hope. Please grant Alexa, Ken and Nathan hope, even if it is just in vistas of blue unseen for years. A special color of blue.