Saturday

Yesterday I turned a small corner.  I actually ate a couple pieces of toast and was up in my chair more.  I walked outside twice.  Not huge, but improvements.  It seems as if the pain control and the nausea are a little more under control as well.  I think we have come to the conclusion that I really should have stayed in the hospital another day or two.  I wasn't ready to be home yet.

Yesterday was also a weepy day.  It so so good to hear from people!  Fun to hear about their plans and just things happening in their lives.  Then I would hang up and start longing for those things that I call normal.  Running after kids, watching activities, going to work, getting groceries, going for school supplies.  Not a big deal, right?  Something that in ordinary life we just don't appreciate.  Over the last years, though, that is normal to me.  Not the big things.  Just the little, ordinary occurrences in life that typically you don't think about.  Maybe even dread.  I was starting to do those things the last few weeks to a certain extent.  I could get a few groceries on my own and just needed help if the list was a little longer.  But some freedom in that. I actually took Kylie to a doctor's appointment in Sioux City by myself--the first time in I drove in a city for probably a few years!  Then we went to one store.  Not a big deal to most, but huge to us because we hadn't done that together since she was a little girl. We were able to get her some school clothes and it was so "normal."   The younger kids just asked me last night when we would get school clothes for them and now that seems out of reach again. 

I long for the bigger things, of course, but even more for the small things.  Just the ordinary, normal things that people do without a thought.