Diantha's Health Update March 29, 2010

March 29, 2010

Dear Friends and family,
Thank you everyone for you prayers and thoughts and support. My best news is I AM FEELING MUCH BETTER!!!!! Hoorray!! The effects of chemotherapy are fading. Sunday I felt great all day. I was tooting around the house doing projects and things I wanted to do, rather than just coping. I was flooded with the thought: this is how I used to feel!! I still have some lingering nausea on some afternoons, and tiredness after a busy morning. My brain still has some concentration/memory to recover. We joke that I stopped to think and nothing happened. It was worse during chemo.
Last week I started radiation therapy Monday through Friday through the first week of May. I go to Kingsport, a little over an hour drive each way. Our county has a van that can take me most days, with American Cancer Society paying for transportation (thank you!) Wednesdays we will drive. There is a church there that is key in supporting Boo and Phyllis Hankins who are missionaries serving in Sudan; we would work closely with them when we go. They Skype them every Wednesday morning, and we will be able to participate in that. One of my desires in the last year or so is to learn to play the fiddle. I found a teacher in Kingsport, so I will get lessons while I am there!! Making dreams come true. My daughter Sugi left her fiddle at home, and I have done fairly well, after playing the cello, at picking it up. Speaking of hobbies, I even feel well enough/ have a bit of time to read a novel. What a wonderful, ordinary activity. I've also found a wonderful CD I listen to on my way to radiation: it is a guided imagery for healing and radiation. It is really helping me shed some deep fears, imagine total and real healing and feel more hopeful.
Spring is visibly inevitable now. What a wonderful feeling. It reminds me that things have their process and season. That healing will come in its time. When you are in chemo, or feeling really bad for a period of time, it is hard to easily believe that, even if you "know" it should be true.
Will be nice to have more hair on my head!

Happy Easter, Happy spring, and many blessings.

Love, Diantha