Taking care of me

03-15-2020 I have always been a patience person, at least on the outside, and of course, when it comes to dog training. My mind often races, but I can present a calm demeanor and press on through, when needed. This morning is not like that, and the dogs barking, and my thoughts about cancer racing, makes me edgy and short with the dogs and Mike. I’m sorry to all of you in my life for not making your lives easier. And that is sometimes the issue. I’m often working to make it easier and more positive for those around me, and in doing so, I often neglect my own needs. I’m sure that makes things seem shocking to others when I am not working on their behalf, to make them feel better, (with my thoughts that I have cancer in my boob distracting me). This means that I’m not taking care of my own needs, so when I complain that picking up after everyone, cooking and cleaning makes me feel like I am unable to provide for my own emotional well being because I’m taking care of others, please be understanding, that I’m trying to survive and live to help all of you, but I need this time to heal. I know being tired is to be expected with a tumor growing in my body, as well as the worry that goes along with it, and the hurry up and wait, with the medical field in general, adds to my thoughts racing about my existence, others’ well-being and of course money. Thank goodness we have good insurance along with Medicare, because there is no way we could pay for the bills that are coming along with all of this. The biopsy bill was over $6,000, and the sleep study nearly as much. And while I did stay overnight for the sleep study, everything else has been out-patient, so it’s breathtaking to see those costs. I can’t imagine what the lumpectomy and follow up is going to run. Thinking about the cost, Mike’s three-day stay in the hospital last year, was $47,000 and he was still in out-patient mode! It was covered, 100%, thank goodness, but wow, I had no idea how much these things might cost. I’m also considering the amount of people going to hospitals with the Covid19 virus, and can’t imagine the bill this country is facing with the numbers that are being seen here and around the world. It’s science, not prayers that will take us though this, “To aid in the search, scientists have enlisted the world’s most powerful supercomputer, the IBM-built Summit. Occupying the floor space of two tennis courts at the U.S Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the Summit can perform 200 quadrillion calculations each second — roughly a million times more computing power than the average laptop.” (Medium) https://link.medium.com/KrsS5r4x24 With this information, they are able to hunt down drugs and combinations of drugs that could be used to combat the virus. That is pretty amazing. We will all be paying for this for many years to come, both financially and emotionally, and this adds to the anxiety and the need for my own, self-preservation, causing me to pull in a bit, bite my tongue and go the course, rather than speaking up when others’ habits impact me. Sometimes, especially with everything that is taking place, the idiomatic approach, and saying things like, “It’s all going to be okay,“ or, “I’ll pray for you,” when neither is going to change the fact that, like me dealing with my new cancer diagnoses, we will be all dealing with this for a long time, “Bless your heart,” if you don’t think we are in it for the long haul.