Four months "out"

Yesterday marked four months out from my transplant.

It was a beautiful day here. Katie and I put Maddie in the car, drove to the lake and walked around it -- one mile. It was the second time I did it. The trees were lush, the water sparkling and a light wind was blowing. Because Maddie had run away, I didn't totally trust her to be off-leash, but I know she needs to run around. So I took a bag of bribes (leftover chicken) and let her off. Every time I called to her, she ran right back. She dashed into the water, splashed around, ran circles around us and then sat in front of me for her treat. She made us laugh.

On the way to the parking lot there is a little incline. We swung our arms, Katie urging me on. When I did that walk about a week ago with my friend Ellen, I slept on the couch for at least an hour afterwards. I must be getting stronger, but sometimes I can't stop myself from whining about how weak I feel compared to my "old" self, and how it pains me to see the joggers running by me on the lake path and to look up at the tennis courts and watch the players thwack the ball.

But this is a long slow recovery I am on and I'm grateful to now be able to walk around the lake. I need to remember that just a few weeks ago, I could only walk to the corner and back...and that not too long ago I couldn't walk at all.

Last night I decided to take my "bed" exercises onto the floor. (Stretching, leg lifts and some yoga poses.) I rolled my yoga mat out and figured that I could call one of the kids if I couldn't get up. It's harder on the floor! While I was down there I found myself eye-to-eye with a big bag on the floor next to my dresser. Obviously I see it every day, but I hadn't looked inside it, figuring it was stuff left over from my tag sale. I didn't want to deal with it, so I just kind of stopped seeing it.

I inched over and looked inside. It was full of gifts, cards and miscellaneous things that Diane had packed up and sent home with the kids over the winter. One box contained a beautiful garnet bracelet that I had bought for myself when a friend had a jewelry party with items from the Silpada catalogue. I don't usually buy jewelry from a catalogue. I shouldn't buy any at all; my mother was a jewelry designer and showered us with jewelry. But this bracelet really caught my eye.

I had been looking for that bracelet ever since my discharge, when I was at Diane's and realized I hadn't seen it for a while. She said she was sorry, but it was probably misplaced in my rushed move in the hospital from 6C to the ICU and then to 6A, the section with the most intensive care. I liked the bracelet so much, I was about to order another from the catalogue.

And there it was, right under my nose. It's always tempting to look for morals, and one presented itself to me right away: When you stop trying so hard to find something, whether it's simple like a "lost" bracelet or complicated like the answers to life's big questions (such as why did I get sick?), that's when you find, if not answers, then at least peace of mind.