600th and 40th

So, my 40th birthday is on Saturday, and I managed to time out my Peloton rides, so that I would hit my 600th ride on my birthday. Any Pelo friends reading - 9:30 am this Saturday, 30 min Jess King Sweat Steady ride!

Workouts

Speaking of workouts, I am doing a pretty intense (for me) ride about 5 days a week. We have had to put a pause on the long evening walks that we had been taking, as I realized that the stabbing pain in my heels was not a side effect of Avastin, as I had thought. It is actually Planter Fasciitis. Therefore, I am rolling them out in the mornings and at night, and I ordered some high quality insoles and ordered a very sexy pair of orthopedic slippers to the tune of $90 :/

General working out and lifting is off to a slow start as I still have a lot of joint pain from my Avastin treatments, which are done but can take 2-3 months to clear from the body. I also still have some left side mobility issues from my tumor. My radiation oncologist said I will likely always have to work on my mobility on that side. Speaking of radiation, my stepdaughter got me some hilarious gifts for Christmas, including this sticker and the card at the beginning of this post.

Independence

I don't remember if I've talked about this here or just with my therapist, but one of the things that I've struggled with a bit this year was losing a bit of my independence. Or maybe I should say, I have been a bit more reliant on others than I have been in the past. My parents will tell you that I have been fiercely independent since childhood. Hell, my ex-husband used to call me "Miss Independent." So, when I had to rely on others - mostly Brad - to help me with everything from extra cooking/cleaning to energy management, I had to check myself a bit. Here is something cool that I noticed this week, my "I can do it myself!" is back. Yesterday, when I started making stovetop popcorn, Brad took over and I felt a little ping of it,. Then this morning, I was making a breakfast sandwich and he tried to take over again (as a help to me - just to be clear), I said, "you know, I can do this. Thank you for offering." Or something to that effect. I call that a win!

Driving

Speaking of independence, I am still struggling with driving alone. I feel fine when Brad is in the car with me, but I feel a little anxious when alone. I have driven a few short distances by myself as I start to feel more confident.

Our Birthday Party

Brad and my joint birthday party, originally planned for this Saturday, has been postponed due to Omicron. Gathering our 30 closest friends and colleagues in public to celebrate ourselves felt wreckless. However, some of our closest friends, Kate and Eric, will still be visiting and celebrating with us this weekend and Mar and Lar are coming down the following weekend!

2020 Book recommendations

Before I move on to this year's readings, I wanted to throw out a few of my most notable reads last year.

Night with Many Endings, Melissa Payne - borrowed from my parent's house at Christmas, it was written by the sister-in-law of a schoolmate. It was engaging from the first few pages, and really makes you examine your first judgement of the people around you. One of those, "everyone is fighting a battle that you don't understand" stories.

Invisible life of Addie LaRue, V.E Schwab - Brad and I read this together and it's such a great story of dire choices and living with them, but also a bit mystical. It switches back and forth between time periods, which is my favorite style of story.

Midnight Library, Matt Haig - Brad and I also passed this one back and forth. Another great story of life choices that come with regret, "could haves," and "should haves." This book ends with a really great moral.

I Know This Much is True, Wally Lamb - 900 engaging pages about a family dealing with severe mental illness through the eyes of the "healthy" twin. I ordered it to read before watching the HBO miniseries (have yet to watch), before I knew that it was 900 pages.

I have also rediscovered the library in the past few months. I was giving amazon way too much money and our small house is running out of shelf space.

My book goal for 2022 is 52 books. This may sound ambitious to some and meager to others. I think it may be a bit of a stretch goal, as we go back to the office, I can't use my "commute" time to read anymore. I also want to read more nonfiction. I really love fiction and tend to plow through them faster than nonfiction, and I want to use my reading time to learn and grow, as well as leisure time. I do find that I like memoirs and 2 of my reads last year were 2 of Maya Angelou's series of 7 memoirs (how cool to have such a rich and interesting life that it spans 7 volumes), I know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The Heart of a Woman, both great, educational, and engaging narratives.

I would love any recommendations from any of you who may have read something that you recommend from your recent reads.

So far, I've read Into the Abyss, Carol Shaben (one of the survivors daughter),a true story of 4 strangers who survived a plane crash in the Northern Canadian bush in the 80's, and In My Dreams I Hold a Knife, Ashley Winstead, a fun fiction mystery - changing perspectives, time periods, and characters with each chapter. Brad and I are reading a fun fiction, Ghosts, about a woman in her early 30's navigating online dating - it's laugh out loud funny.

As I am headed back to the office this week for the first time regularly in almost 2 years, I find that I have had a bit of professional confidence feelings in the first few weeks of the new year. It's not a consistent view - just some fleeting moments. I know we all have these from time to time but thankfully, I have always felt pretty confident in my abilities (whether warranted or not, is not the question). I know that comparison is always a bad idea but it rears its head sometimes. One really bright spot professionally was a few weeks ago in our side hustle. Brad and I got to work with my former team at MSU and I enjoyed it so much! We did a virtual strengths workshop and some follow up coaching. For one thing, their team is incredible, and I found myself regaining much of that lost or wavering confidence.

Health

I had a new MRI a couple of weeks ago that our Oncology PA at Duke described as "beautiful," when we spoke to her last week. From here on out, the plan is MRIs every 2-3 months and my current cocktail of anti-seizure meds.

I'll leave you with a great nugget from my favorite Peloton instructor, Robin. During a class last week, she said, "I've never met an interesting person with an easy life."