Ho hum. Life goes on.

I fold my hands, and wait patiently, and it all comes out right.
Sooner or later.


I bought liverwurst: Max's pilling goes well. Liverwurst is the only edible that he will swallow without suspicious lingual examination for foreign objects.


MiMau has lost all her sharp and bony angles and has become soft and rounded once again. Whatever it was that, nearly overnight, turned her all limp and bony, has passed. She's been quite a little comfort kitty for these two weeks of my recovery. One morning I woke to find her sleeping furry forehead and nose pressed against my forehead and nose . . . giving me a mind-meld of healing.


Angus had something like a seizure one night a week ago. Since early puppyhood, he's had a little Parkinsons-like wobble that comes and goes. The vet said then: He's five weeks old; it's probably an immature nervous system. The wobble seemed very slightly more frequent after his mauling by the fisher, and it accounts, I think, for his occasional stuckness on the stairs. During Last Time Out last week, both boyz ran all over the yard sniffing and barking maniacally. Something terrifically exciting . . . I hoped nothing more unusual than a rabbit . . . or maybe the local feral cat, but who knows? . . . had recently visited. Max was out at the edge of the light cast by the roof-edge floodlight, bouncing back and forth and yelling his curly pink-blond head off. I turned my head to check on Angus' position, and saw that he was on the front walk,  wriggling on the ground as he would in a particularly lovely fresh pile of woodchuck poop. Almost that way . . . but a little less wriggling, a little more stiffness. I went closer to get a good look at him. His eyes rolled toward me; he was in there. He grew quiet. I patted him, told him he was all right, stood next to him wishing Max would shut up, settle down, and come over closer to the door. After a few minutes . . . less than five . . . Angus rolled from his side to his chest, and got up on his feet. Max returned and we came inside. Angus didn't seem distressed, and he hadn't lost control of any sphincters; whatever it was came and went and hasn't recurred. I'm not especially worried. The way life has been going around here, it seemed like just another bump in our road. I'll mention it to the vet next time we go, or if it happens again we'll make a special trip.


With three pets, trios of bad luck are predictable. It could have been worse. I might have had to give him a de-woodchuck-pooping bath at eleven at night.


Two weeks ago tonight I was wandering around the hospital looking for some way to pass the time, finding a dogeared magazine aimed at an audience between the ages of, I'd say, fifteen and twenty-five, and being astonished at the clothing styles. Can it be that the current fashion is to gather several articles of clothing that bear no relation or resemblance to each other, throw them together and call it good?


I had a wonderful last day of sick time today. Moderate temperature, low humidity, a pedicure on the patio, an absorbing book to read, a nap in the afternoon. Tomorrow I'll return to work. I'm just about ready, physically and psychologically. 
I have the coffeepot and my clothing prepared for the early morning launch.
Tomorrow at 8:30 as I go out the door to start my commute I will be sad, the same way I was always sad when a new school year started. But it will be good to be back among people, doing the tap dance by which I earn my bread. And at the end of the day I'll get to come home again. Blessed home!


So now I'm a breast cancer survivor. 
Frankly, I consider myself to be a survivor just having managed to keep breathing through the first utterance of the diagnosis. Now I'm at the other end of it, and I have all but the last, formal pronouncement of "all clear," which will come, in due time, from the Yale laboratory.


The routine resumes.