Normal is a Dryer Setting

In my last post I mentioned wanting to get back to normal.
Over the last several days I was reminded of the saying 'Normal is just a dryer setting'.
Thursday after radiation I had my discharge teaching with Patsy. She told me at the time that her good friend Val was now in palliative care and not doing well, she has been supporting Val and her family and it has been hard on her.
When I got home I found Rod home already, not feeling well. Very unusual for him to come home from work so he must have really been feeling sick - he was coughing and said he ached all over.
Friday was the last day of my treatments, there is an area under my arm that is beginning to break down, the rest of the skin is just tender like a really good sunburn. I am keeping up on the Glaxobase cream, I am told that it could get worse for a week or so before it starts to get better.
After the treatment I met Liz, Sherry and Lisa for lunch, it was great to catch up on their lives and the goings on at work. When I got home, Rod once again came home from work early.

Over Friday evening and Saturday I packed and prepared for my week away at Justin and Leah's. It was also Jordan's 28th birthday on Thursday and Kenny's 18th birthday on Saturday. Not too terribly much celebrating happened so we will have to make up for that when I get back and we are both better. I also had a meeting on Saturday a.m. at our autism association regarding the young adult workshops we do.
On Sunday morning just after we were getting up and getting ready to go to the airport we received a call from the hospital emergency department saying my mother had fallen again and was in their department waiting for x-rays. I made the decision that I was going to continue with my travel plans - I may not win daughter of the year for that. I am relieved to find out since getting here that nothing was broken and that she spent one day in hospital and is now in the rehab facility until she is well enough to go back to the lodge.I'm hoping for a better assessment for her this time, she hasn't gone longer than about a month when back at a lodge since her fall in December 2011.
At the airport I checked in and was happy to see that I had been assigned a window seat on the plane. As I was going past one of the baggage handlers he stopped me and said he'd had a song going over in his head and he couldn't get it out - he began to hum it and I joined him as I recognized it. I'm sure Rod thought we were both a little crazy when he caught up with me.
When we got our boarding call for my flight. I was sure I must have gotten the wrong instructions as it seemed that I walked the length of a football field before finally getting to our 'gate' and then having to go outside to board the plane. There were seven of us traveling on a plane that had about 16 seats from what I could tell and all of us had a window seat. The aisle was very small and I was right over the wing where I could see the propellor. It was snowing when we left and they kept de-icing the plane while we sat waiting to take off. We could see the pilots from our seats and there were no attendants on this flight.
What are the odds then, that out of the seven passengers, the lady I sat across from recognized the 'hairdo' and asked if I was going home between treatments.  I explained the completion of my radiation and she shared that she had gone through chemo last year also, having completed earlier than me. She showed me pictures on her iPad of her last chemo and we bonded during the flight.
I will share more about my time here in Cranbrook in future posts, this one is getting long.
For now I will say that it has been good medicine.


Take care everyone.