It’s been a while since I’ve written.

I have this dress. I used to like it, but it has bad karma. Really bad karma, death karma. I haven’t worn it since December 21, 2010. Last year, I wore it in January to a friend’s memorial service (she died of cancer), in April to my brother-in-law’s funeral (he died suddenly) and the day in December I found out my seemingly benign lump was malignant. Originally we were going out to dinner with some of Marco’s new colleagues. But we went to see the doctor instead because they called me. Yuck. But we move on, we deal with stuff, and this is how I’m dealing with this particular thing.

I pulled the dress out of the closet. I had a sudden dark feeling and then decided to give the dress to strangers. I’m going to drop it off in one of those clothing bins.

But I am settling into my post-treatment life. We’re moving first week in January and so I’m preparing for that, packing boxes and sorting through crap. I have a very obsessive sort of packing scheme where I label each box with a piece of colored duck (not duct) tape corresponding to the the room where it will go. I also have recorded the contents of each box in a computer file. But for a person usually living in a dervish of disorganization, this is not a bad scheme. And I have time.

My angry boob has healed. The scar is healed. All of my follow up visits were good. My hair is growing fast, it’s a bit curly and I actually like the gray color, something I thought I’d never say, but it doesn’t really look that old on me. It’s actually sort of chic. Although sometimes it has a wild Beethoven-finger-in the electric socket look to it.

Arimidex is a bit of a challenge. The worst part is that when I wake up in the morning and at different times during the day, my hands are stiff and a bit tingly. My moods are cycling a bit, and my blood pressure might be going up. . These are all possible side effects, so I just have to monitor and deal with them. I don’t have hot flashes, however. I want to take the drug, because I believe it will help me given what I know about its action and my tumor’s characteristics. I’m also trying to move around more, which seems to help. I’ve been going to Pilates and I’m trying to walk more.

It is weird to be done with treatment. I have a lot of follow up still, monthly visits to the oncologist – mostly to ease my own fears while I transition from one type of a patient to another. It is a little scary, because I feel cut loose. It’s not that I feel negative, but I’m no longer in that protective bubble (somewhat illusory, I’m sure) of treatment and monitoring. So I’m happy to have a monitoring transition.

My days are no longer managed around treatments or doctor’s appointments and I feel better, so I have more time. Time to live, and enjoy things, but also time to be anxious and think about the future. So I’m going to try to think about stuff other than breast cancer if I can, and enjoy each day as it comes. I’ll still be writing here, but less about breast cancer.

Actually, I’m doing NaNoWrMo (National Novel Writing Month), where one writes 50,000 words in the month of November. I’m just going to start to write and see where it takes me. When I’m not packing boxes, that is…..