When man plans, God laughs.
It’s been eight days since my hospital stay. Eight days of German-Russian purgatory.
For anyone joining me on this cancer journey, I recently posted my long list of commitments for the year, trusting I would be well enough to follow through. I was feeling so normal I filled my calendar never expecting any roadblocks. However…
For three weeks my life has been on hold. My carefully planned days beginning with meditation, yoga, jigsaw puzzles, medication, and writing were brought down by a tiny virus hundreds of times smaller than any cell in my body. (I am assuming cancer cells are included.)
I struggle to find the energy or motivation to do much more than sit or watch television.
It is German-Russian purgatory.
If you are unfamiliar with my culture, which is verified by an Ancestry DNA test to be 85 percent German-Russian, let me explain.
Arbeit macht das leben suess!
While I cannot even do justice speaking that phrase in German, I am well aware of what it means — “Work makes life sweet.”
My Grandma Kaseman said that to me, but only once, in English. I was young and had no idea how ingrained into our DNA that love of work was.
My brother and I speak often of how we love to work, make things, and spend productive time each day before we allow ourselves to sit.
Now, God has driven home a valid point.
RSV and the resulting pneumonia requiring a visit to the emergency room and hospital stay was an eye-opening experience. Apparently, I forgot my immunity has been compromised by the cancer-fighting drugs I have been taking for more than a year.
Never have I been so ill. Never have I felt so hopeless. Never have I felt so unproductive.
Recovering from this experience I have been caught between not being tired enough to sleep all day and not having enough energy to do anything. For a good German-Russian that is purgatory.
The good news is that YOU, my support group have shown kindness and grace with prayer, cards, and even more puzzles and plants (thank you, Laura).
It is in my best interest, and my doctor’s advice, to hunker down until flu season has passed. Also after being hospitalized, the time has come to accept the fact that I’m no longer a spring chicken, but an old hen with cancer.
I am grateful, though, for years of good health going into this journey. It surprised the doctors that my list of medications was only two scrips long and I did not require oxygen at any time during this ordeal. Gotta thank those good German-Russian genes.
And, I thank you for being a part of my life. It has been a year since the overwhelming outpouring of love we (J.C. and I) experienced at the medical benefit on my birthday.
My tears of the past two years were more in gratitude and joy greatly outweighing the tears of despair I shed while in the hospital.
One day, soon I hope, I will wake up to my old self again. It can’t happen soon enough.
And again I say, “Not today, God, I got shit to do.”
INDYchildrendotme 
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