This weekend has mostly been comprised of couch time, but I did take Charlie-dog for a walk and did a little bit of house-cleaning. Boy-o, do I get tired quickly though. How annoying.
I've fallen behind on documenting gifts I've received lately. So I'll catch up here:
From Grandma (sent in different installments):
a HUGE basket of awesome cancer-fighting stuff and general fun from Army friends, including a self-created board game. :)
From a student and his mom:
A hat/scarf from a co-worker:
I'm so lucky to have awesome people in my life thinking of me. I can't help but notice that having cancer means more gifts than birthdays or christmas! haha. And its not just gifts... Offers of help. Hugs. Emails. Voicemails. Texts. It has all been valuable in keeping my spirits up. I feel I have done a fairly good job at staying happy, positive, and upbeat, but I definitely have my sad moments/days.
I've been reading a couple blogs recently from two authors of a book called "100 perks of having cancer and 100 health tips for surviving it". Basically, these two women had breast cancer and blogged about their experiences, met each other through the blogs, and then decided to team up and publish a book of their writings. I will be ordering this book. But in the meantime, I've been perusing the blogs.
They are both very invested in the mind-body-spirit connection and assisting cancer recovery and preventing recurrence through that. What's really neat is that the two of them didn't actually meet in person until after the book was published. Transcontinental friendship because of cancer survivorship. Very uplifting.
Another bit of valuable reading material.
We did a staff development activity this week on developing emotional resiliency in teachers. #itsmydailymoodthatmakestheweather
The transfer of the ideas in this article from my teaching life to my healthy life was astounding. It was embarrassing actually when I was reading it. I started to tear up a little bit, just because it was so relevant to my life right now. Well...one of the side effects of chemo is extra teary eyes, and extra runny nose. So getting, what normally would've been, a little watery eyed turned into MAJOR WATER WORKS. So people are noticing it and feeling compelled to hug me and be sympathetic, and I'm like, I'M FINE! I know I don't look it. Its the stupid chemo's fault! I'm not having a meltdown, I promise.
And more on that runny nose bit. At any given moment, a dribble of snot will come racing out my nose. Unexpectedly and without warning. Its super annoying! It hasn't happened in the middle of teaching a class yet, but I'm just waiting for it, and having to say: "Welp. That happened. Sorry guys. Grossssssssssss."
Well, this week is onto Chemo #6. I'm so thankful to be able to take 2 days off each week to rest. Something I look forward to, with this part of treatment being easier, is coming out of survival-mode in regards to work and doing my job well again. Many things have suffered. I have been focused so much on setting myself up to survive each day and LEAVE to go heal and rest and less on producing results with my students. Friday was definitely a rough day, mainly because my lesson-planning was poop! However, one of the big takeaways from this experience will be that work will always be there, with an endless to-do lists of things that need to be done. But what's most important day-to-day is being healthy, balanced, and happy. Emotionally resilient. :) Work will be just fine.
Gratitude, acceptance, and healing!
Love the little lego guys and game. Fun stuff! What did you take from the teaching article?
ReplyDeleteSo glad things are better this time around! May they continue to get better and better! :)
ReplyDeleteEmotionally resilient is something I think we as teachers are always working on, at least I know I am lol. But when you have something major happen to you, it kind of puts everything into focus.
On that note, we are not in the business of teaching music; we are in the business of cultivating the hearts and minds of the future through music. In that sense, you are producing very good results. Sometimes the years we don't obtain the musical product we hoped for are the years our students actually gained the most. :)