It’s raining.  It’s pouring… the old man is snoring.

Actually, it is not raining, but the old man IS snoring.  And do you know that wearing nasal cannula changes the way that you snore?  Or the way that your old man snores?  I have some thoughts on snoring but I am going to save them for later – like a few paragraphs later.

It’s raining.  It’s pouring… and I am a puddle.  I have never called myself a puddle.  I have never even thought of that before – but yesterday a friend asked how I was doing and I responded, “I am a puddle.”

And I loved my response – it actually seemed to fit!  This past week… with the fever, hospital and emergency room experiences… it has been exhausting.  “Tired” is not the right word, but “a puddle” worked exactly!  Like I had just melted onto the floor and was unlikely to get up on my own.  

Then the magic happened – the sunshine came out and I went to dig in the dirt.  So rejuvenating!!  Remember that house project? Well, the demolition should be happening in the near future and I had four piles of dirt from our garden boxes that had to be moved.  I moved about 20 wheelbarrow loads of wet soil so I was a bit sore, but felt great!  I guess my little puddle was reflecting the sunshine and I began to sparkle.  I know it is January but it felt like springtime.

The adventure was a double bonus — Mark agreed to come with me and sit in the truck with a blanket while I worked.  He had FOUR different friends stop their cars to come and talk to him.  Like moving the soil, it wore him out yet, at the same time it was so rejuvenating,

Now – back to the snoring.  Mark doesn’t always snore – but when he does – he does it very well.  It is worse when he has been doing a lot of traveling or during allergy season.  Someone else who used to snore was my paternal grandmother.  I didn’t notice it until I was a teenager and then I was shocked at how her snoring reverberated through the house.  However, my grandpa used to tell us that it didn’t matter to him.  As long as she was snoring he knew she was alive.

I have tried that line of thinking many times over the years and it helps a little, a least for a few minutes.  However, over the months of facing a terminal illness I have put extra effort into trying to be happy about the snoring.  Just be glad that he is breathing… just be glad that he is breathing.  So much easier to say when I am wide awake, but it does take the edge off – currently there is a battle of wills between my efforts to be positive and those nasal cannula!

(Please try to imagine a smiley-face emoji every time I talk about being a puddle and snoring…)

Anyway, how many things can you identify in your relationships that you allow to get under your skin?  Are they important?  Would you be happier if they stopped or if you stopped letting it get to you?  

Sometimes I say, “This has to stop.” And sometimes I say, “Well, that is my sweetheart and I am going to learn to love that about him.”  And sometimes I say, “I am just glad that he is breathing (even with nasal cannula – or especially with nasal cannula).”

You get my point.

And I AM glad that he is breathing – each breath is a blessing.  Try to find these blessings in your life… it may feel like the sun has come out.  You may begin to sparkle.

LATER– I wrote all of that on Sunday. Today is Tuesday. Greg offered to take Mark for his thyroid biopsy and I couldn’t be more grateful. The very thought of driving and going through the check-in process makes me crazy, mostly because we will be doing it again tomorrow. I don’t know if I mentioned details from the PET scan a few weeks ago? A tumor in the thyroid which I guess looks different. The biopsy is necessary to know how to proceed. A tumor in the opposite leg which looks much like the original sarcoma. I guess we are hoping that the chemo will kill it along with the lung tumors. It seems like there is something growing in a lymph node but I cannot even remember where it was. Also some “hot spots” around the original tumor site. We were listening to all of it in a bit of a disappointed daze. There will be a follow up scan in a couple weeks.

Oh – and I just got a text that the biopsy is complete. The appointment was at 10:00 and the text was sent at 10:13… so that was easy! We now wait 7-10 business days for results.