Hanging in there...by a thread

Road all to myself on cloudy day run

When I got worried during cancer treatment @danafarber, my nurse, Vytas, wld call me a Nervous Nellie & say "They'll figure it out." Believing him, I relaxed a little. Without the same confidence in our great leader, there is no such balm w/ #coronavirus.

I'm not a big tweeter but I did want to share this thought. I remember Vytas sitting on the edge of my bed and saying "They'll figure it out." Vytas was a cancer survivor himself (lymphoma) and was one of us. He followed me wherever I went, starting from my diagnosis in 2003. I can't believe he has been gone for 10 years. He died not from lymphoma but from a heart problem resulting from the radiation he received. In looking him up to spark my memory about the year of his death, I came upon something I wrote. It was on Brigham and Women's Hospital's newsletter for nurses. The remembrance said,

A Newton resident, Mr. Durickas dedicated himself to patients, even when he struggled with his own health issues. His caring personality often made an impact on patients. One of those former patients is Ronni Gordon, a writer who blogs about running and battling with leukemia. She recently wrote of her memories of Mr. Durickas.

“Over many years and through four bone marrow transplants, he always took that extra step. His kindness and sense of humor helped me get through many tough spots,” she wrote. “I’d panic over some new detour on the road to recovery, and he’d calm me down with a mix of knowledge, a talent for putting things in perspective, and, always, something funny.”

The nation needs a Vytas, and we don't have one. Couldn't we even have someone with at least a voice that isn't grating, someone with a calm tone, such as I heard in the message that my Congressman, Richie Neal, left on my answering machine in giving a heads-up to an upcoming informational call that he would be giving? This article in The Atlantic, "No Empathy, Only Anger," , lays out the tone and substance of the administration's failure. The news is so all around bad, from two Republican senators dumping their stocks before the economy went bad, to mismanagement and missed opportunities, that following the news is sickening, but not following it is not in my nature. I am trying to limit as much as I can. For example, last night I didn't read or watch one bit of news, instead catching up on Grace and Frankie.

Is it lunch time?

Given absence of guidance from the top, states, localities, communities, and individuals and friends and family are trying to fill in the gap. Kudos to Serenity Yoga (and others) for setting up a virtual studio. I did my first class this morning via my laptop and enjoyed connecting with others and keeping up my practice. Afterwards, I had a FaceTime coffee chat with a fellow yogini. Last week four friends and I tried to share a virtual cocktail hour. There were some technical difficulties, but I guess we'll have to learn.

I've been to the supermarket twice and hope to not go again until this clears up. I wore a mask and gloves, but the mask kept slipping, and as I tried to fix it behind my ear, I thought about how I should not be touching my hair. My friend the pharmacist said he thought I was OK, but the concern afterwards really dragged me down. I'm either going to use online means or go to River Valley Coop, which has started curbside pickup. THEN you read about how you have to wipe your groceries down (which I didn't do) because who knows who has touched what.

Also why are people hoarding Hellman's mayonnaise?

My kitchen is ready to be painted, but I'm not sure if I should let the painter in. As of this writing I have said to put a pause on all of the house repairs. It's not finished but it's good enough. I do go back and forth on the kitchen. I would like to have the kitchen back...

It has been pointed out to me that being quarantined is nothing new to me; I learned how to live with limitations after each of my four stem cell transplants. But at least then I knew what the enemy was. In the case of the virus there is so much uncertainty.

There is still dog walking and following the dog around the house taking photos of her or getting a hug. On one of the nice days this week, I played singles with the BF. I evened out the playing field by making up rules as we went along, such as if he hit a serve that I couldn't return, I got a mulligan. (I gave him some second chances too!)

Absent tennis at the club, I am trying to do a little more running. The other day, I ran four (up and down hills) and walked two. It's not easy to get out the door like it was in the old days, but it's doable, and once I get going I'm grateful for it. I can almost forget what a mess we're in.

Two-hour yoga, tennis slice, and other fun stuff

For New Year's Day, I first checked Serenity Yoga to see if there were any classes – there weren't – so I tried Yoga Center Amherst  and saw that they had a two-hour class combining music, chanting, and asanas.

So I signed up and went. It felt like the right place to be. Apparently a lot of other people felt so too. We were packed in. That was OK. It created a good energy inviting you to talk to your neighbor and go with the flow.

At one point when we were left to do our own thing and it got a little confusing, I got into one of my favorite and most calming poses, legs up the wall, supported by a block, only legs in the air, without a wall, like this image from Gaia. (I read someplace that you should do legs up the wall every day. It's a great way to get your thoughts to take a nap.)

I had vowed to take the day off from writing, but that didn't happen. I walked over to the Black Sheep Deli and got a coffee and a treat and sat in a favorite window seat. My resolution of staying calm got hijacked by the the caffeine. I guess going with the flow meant going and getting a coffee and writing.

Next I went to the Hadley Target and found it packed, like the yoga studio, only with a different vibe. It seemed like everyone who wasn't at yoga was shopping.

I had called Monday for my ride to Boston (for the light therapy, or ECP) but everyone had left early. I waited on hold early Tuesday morning for about 45 minutes, and when someone finally picked up, they said they couldn't do same-day service. I remembered to book ahead through February, but in the meantime I drove myself.

Due to accumulating scar tissue in my left arm, the nurse has had to jiggle the needle around. This is not a good feeling. Once in, it stung and then hurt, but some Tylenol took the edge off. Since I have been using two needles, the process goes much faster, around two hours instead of three.

Three sessions ago, I was curious about why my hematocrit was a little low, a little over 29. The curiosity bordered on concern. But two weeks ago it was 32, and yesterday it was 33. (Normal range for women is 34.9 to 44.5.) The doctor who visited me said that the lower count resulted from loss of blood in the procedure.

I slept at Diane and David's and then got up early enough to get to Bay Road on time for my tennis contract at 10. The traffic leaving Newton made me a little nervous. But it cleared up and I made it. We had some good games, but I don't understand what's up with one of the women. Sometimes she's friendly, at other times prickly.

She doesn't like the way I slice when we warm up at the net (says it isn't a good warmup because she can't hit it back), so today I hit it flat. The last time she said it, I said that's how I play, and I continued to do it, but in the interests of a good warmup, I did it differently today.

One of the players in George's summer group said that when she goes to Florida, her slicing gets everyone mad, so it must be the same effect. It's hard to change, because when we're with George, we hear about it when we DON'T slice. By the way, it works pretty well in a game.

Roger's backhand slice

Then, when she was at the net warming up, she didn't think I got enough to her, and she complained that she wasn't getting a good warmup. THEN when, in between points, I hit the ball over to her and said "heads up," or "coming," (one of the two) it didn't come near her, but she said something in an annoyed tone because she didn't like the way I sent it back. I'm still not sure what the problem was. I think maybe she wanted me to throw it instead of hit it. If I had thrown it, it wouldn't have gone very far.

Geez Louise.

I've been on the verge of saying something to her, and some day I might, but it hasn't come to that. Some day when we're warming up, maybe I'll ask to either be with her or hit opposite someone else and say that the reason for it is that she doesn't like the way I hit. Maybe that will get the point across that I've paid George and The Enfield Tennis Club a lot for that slice and I'm not going to give it up.

Terrific day at the Open, bad night in my dreams

Donna, me, and Lori

I had a fantastic day at the US Open yesterday, my third year on the bus from the Enfield Tennis Club with my friend Donna Young and the second in which our former teammate Lori Chase was also on board.

All those years living in New York, I never once went to the Open. I don't regret that, because our family had our own tradition of watching it in the comfort of our house in Atlantic Beach, with the breeze coming in from the ocean and my mother making tuna fish and egg salad sandwiches that we ate on stack tables in front of the TV.

Donna and I have gotten it down to a science. Instead of making a last-minute decision to watch a match in the general-admission Armstrong seats as we did the first year, when the line was too long for us to wait, we went straight there yesterday to watch defending champion Marin Cilic. We had no idea the match would be so riveting.

Our seats were so close that we could hear the balls on the racquets; we must have been the envy of many who came in later looking for seats as the stadium filled up.

We didn't mean to stay as long as we did – more than three hours – but we got so into this intense, rollercoaster five-setter that we couldn't possibly leave. After lunch, we sat closer to the court than our assigned nose-bleed seats in Arthur Ashe, which you can do this early, and saw Novak Djokovic beat Andreas Seppi in three sets.

We got our own exercise sprinting to our bus, having gotten stuck in the crowd exiting the stadium. We probably should have left earlier, but we wanted see Djokovic do his victory dance. The traditional US Open bus trip brownies were the usual treat.

After such a fun day you would think tennis balls would dance in my head all night, but instead, the flip side of the shiny coin revealed itself.

In my nightmare, I was diagnosed with kidney or stomach cancer, I can't remember which. My doctors said I had only three or four months to live. It was so advanced they could not offer any treatment. I didn't know how to tell my children. I thought maybe they had it wrong, but just in case they didn't, I had to figure out how to face my own death. This obviously stems from the real life issues that thankfully have not done me in.

But in the dream I realized that if I died, I would probably see my parents.

I don't know if this is a good dream or a bad dream.

Well, at least I woke up to find out that none of that was true. I had Donna to call on the phone to go over our day and things to do that were all good, including Justine's class at Serenity Yoga, which was a good balance to yesterday's hectic pace.

I skipped my own tennis today to give my skin a break, following the strongly worded advice of Ellen, the physician's assistant at ECP, who, when I pointed out to her suspicious spots on my skin, reminded me that the procedure makes your sun super sensitive.

It would have taken more than heat and humidity for us to relinquish our seats, reminding me of that feeling you have when you find a perfect parking place in New York and you don't want to leave.

It was fun to watch Cilic play the crowd afterwards when hitting balls into the stands. He looked so fearsome doing his job, but when he went out to hit the balls he had a big smile on his face as he turned to each section to see which one would clap loudest, therefore earning a ball.

Sadly, we did not prevail.