Stepping forward and (mentally) stepping back

Friday's endoscopy went off without a hitch. I asked to be really knocked out, so knock me out they did. Joe brought me and drove me home; I slept in the car on the way back and then, back home, crawled into bed and slept for hours, waking up well into the night to stumble downstairs and eat some of the granola Margaret had made me.

My platelets were 21 – good  but not high enough for a procedure. So I had to get a bag of platelets. Margaret came and sat with me and brought me the jar of granola. It was actually from my recipe when I did such things as make granola and grow sprouts in a jar. Margaret also brought the recipe, which I had long ago lost. Who knows, maybe I'll make some someday.

The early report from the endoscopy showed everything was normal. The full report, with biopsy results, will be available later this week.

I've been getting out and about more. It's really hard to get going. As I wrote before, sometimes I stay in bed for a long time, so that I'm taking my morning pills at noon and my noon pills in the afternoon. As soon as I put my legs on the floor, I often climb back into bed. My legs are so stiff, and I feel a little light-headed and nauseous, and I think I just can't do it. So sometimes I lie there for hours while a voice says, "Get up, get up, get up!"

Once I get going, I'm mostly fine, and I often stay up as late as 12:30. This could explain my late sleeping routine. hat is the cycle I have gotten into.

I managed to get going to drive with my friend Barry to the Montague Book Mill, which promotes itself as "Books You Don't Need in a Place You Can't Find." It sells used books in an old gristmill, and sits next to the Sawmill River, which you can hear while you wander through the over-stuffed rooms. I didn't see anything for myself, but I bought two books from Katie's summer reading list, for about half the price in a regular bookstore.

We drank coffee from the adjoining cafe and drank it at a table along the river. It was very peaceful. The drive there is beautiful, and we stopped for strawberries and biscuits. A nice outing.

On Sunday – after much prodding of myself to get out of bed – I put on nice earrings  and going-out-of-the-house clothes and went to Meryl and Danny's for brunch. I enjoyed talking to them and to the other friends they had over. Danny's cooking is always great, and the two blueberry pancakes and the eggs (and Meryl's fruit salad) went down easily. I probably ate more than I would have at home.

In the afternoon, I went to see Ellen and Mike's beautiful new house, and then took a walk around the lake with Mike and their two daughters (in a stoller), Maeve, 2, and Mairead, an infant whose exact age I can't remember. Maddie stole an empty container out of the back of the stroller and ran around with it, but eventually she dropped it and there was no more misbehaving.

I even had leftover energy to do some yoga, stretching and strength exercises when I got home. I put down my mat and felt pretty good going through a series. Then I lay down, closed my eyes, and tried to go through some affirmations. I have misplaced the CD where you get led through it, and it's not as easy doing it on your own. Instead, I kind of drifted off, and negative thoughts churned through my head. I imagined Dr. Alyea telling me I had relapsed again and there was nothing else to do. I pictured my friends crowding around my death-bed. I yanked myself out of it and kind of grumbled, "What's the point of doing all this good stuff when the nightmarish thoughts push through?"

"You are pretty melodramatic," I said to myself. Also I guess I still have to come to terms with the thought that the dark and light side will always be there. So when the dark side pushes through, accept it and try not to get caught in in for very long. When the bright side emerges, enjoy it.