Following on from a recent post on the Newly Diagnosed forum about things you wish you’d done before diagnosis, left me pondering…i have posted this on the Everyday forum also.
The things I wish I’d done before diagnosis…?
I try to turn it around. On a good day, I think of the things I have done.
I’d never been abroad until I was 49. Late starter. My sister in law invited me to her home in Cyprus. Hubby has no interest in foreign travel and can’t take the sun, so off I went on my own. It was the beginning of an amazing six years for me. I was hooked and wanted to travel the world. (On a shoestring I hasten to add). My wonderful husband was happy to let me pursue this longing of mine. He was either very confident in our love for each other and knew I would always return home, or he was glad of the rest from my incessant chatter and planning!
I travelled solo to Cyprus, twice. Turkey, Crete/Santorini, Canada, Gran Canaria too many times to count, Lanzarote, Tenerife, for weeks at a time. Using public transport and making friends along the way, who I’m still in contact with now. I was filled with energy and a Joie de Vivre.
I had been making plans for walking the Camino de Santiago for my next adventure. However,my diagnosis was sudden and my progression was swift. My declining mobility gathered speed, and I knew my Camino journey wasn’t going to happen. I remind myself how lucky I am to have done the travel I had done. I am also extremely grateful we can manage a week in the sun 2/3 times a year,only with airport assistance and hubby’s patience. No longer my adventures, but still getting “out there”.
I’m glad I was dxd aged 55 and had raised my two daughters. I don’t know how people manage with young children and they have my total admiration. My lack of stamina would not allow that today.
I’m sad I can’t drive anymore. So I have to be grateful my husband can drive me wherever I want to go. Grateful that I was given a motorised chair and we were able to buy a used vehicle with a ramp, to get it into.
I re trained as a Massage therapist, a mature student, aged 50. That was fun. As the oldest in the group where the youngest was 17 and the next oldest 28, I was again rejuvenated. The energy they brought with them was infectious. I could never manage to be up, dressed and in a workplace for office hours now, and complete a days work. Not to mind staying upright and on my feet all day! Sad I can’t work as a Mortician anymore, so I have to be glad I am able to finish my work contract as clerical assistant from home. My contract ends this Autumn. We are going to miss that small, extra income.
Sad I can no longer work in my acre of garden, that was our life-long goal and retirement dream. So I have to be grateful we can manage to pay the pittance a lovely local man charges me for keeping it tidy, because he likes me and feels sorry for me I guess.
So my conclusions are, buy those shoes, wear that dress, go on that journey, eat the cake! Who knows what tomorrow brings?
Well now, feeling very virtuous on this beautiful sunny Monday, I shall go and tell Hubby he’s wonderful and that I love him then make us some lunch. I’m not going to say Grace before it though. [wink]
I should probably add another thing I am grateful for. Diagnosed with breast cancer before Christmas, I had surgery, a lumpectomy, in January, on my birthday. Six weeks of daily radiotherapy followed, involving a four hour round trip to the city hospital.
I’m incredibly grateful it was discovered early on a random mammogram. Lumpectomy had a clear margin and a lynphnode removed was caught before it had traveled further. I’m still here and I’m still standing.
There’s always something to be grateful for, however small.