For the past few weeks, I'd been increasingly certain that my oncology checkup this past week was going to bring bad news. In my head, the next six months were all mapped out, with blood tests, checkups, a scan, and the resumption of chemo. Not a fun prospect at all. However, to my delight and amazement, the blood results were all good, and the tumour marker is at the same level it's been for most of the past 16 months! That's obviously unequivocally good news - unless any symptoms become troublesome, my next checkup is on another two months, so I have six weeks of peace before the worry starts to build up again.
My mind has been very much on the future as a result - firstly on the concerns and fears of what it might hold, and the worry of what if the chemo was something I just couldn't tolerate at all. And then, on the restoration of hope. Being me, one of the ways I have cooed has of course been through knitting.
I've been very aware that I have a list of things which my Chaos Gremlin has requested, so was keen to make sure that a twenty-something also had the chance to ask for anything she wanted, She showed her own future planning here by requesting a baby blanket - the chances are pretty much non-existent that I'll still be around in however many years it is that she hopes to start her own family, but she'd love to have a blanket that I've made for her future children. The shawl of previous posts is complete at last (other than washing and blocking), finally finished on Thursday evening, and so the blanket is begun! It's going to need eighty squares knitting, which then get sewn together, so I'm now alternating blanket squares and the Hearthstone Wrap for the gremlin. Fun!
Perhaps naturally, I've been thinking about other kinds of legacy that I'll leave my children. It's such a joy, seeing them grow and develop into their adult selves, and see some of the ways I've had an influence on them. I've sometimes thought about writing cards or letters for them to be given at future milestones. Maybe this is the year I'll start writing these; of course there will be an element of loss or sadness as their very nature means that if they're given, it's because I won't still be alive - but I think that perhaps writing them while I'm still (relatively) healthy and optimistic might be rather easier than doing so under the shadow of death. It's definitely an idea I'm letting develop gently, and I'll see what happens with it over time.
So all in all, it's been a week of transformation from worry and fear to hope and cautious optimism. I know my future is precarious and fragile, but I'm back to focussing on the good things again. And at the moment it's that very fragility which makes it feel all the more precious.
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