CHEMO REPORT

I had a good first week on the chemo. Then they had me double it. Nausea kicked in right away which is the symptom I so hate. Nothing worse when you are trying to keep weight on. I lost 5 pounds that week, but then the nausea started lessening. On this past Wednesday, I had my first nausea-free day. And 2 more after that. And I have had pretty good days since, with just a couple of low-grade nausea hours. I am trusting that it will continue with more thumbs-up days than thumbs-down.

Richie has been on a fishing trip for 7 days and should be home tomorrow. My best friend Susan from Georgia flew in for 3 of those days and we had a great time together. It is hard to be so far apart, but it is what it is. We generate lots of telephone time!!

I am the worst selfie-taker EVER.

Susan arrived on her birthday and requested REAL chocolate mousse!

Finally, I have a shout out for my young friend Jocelyn who is doing such a fabulous job losing her baby weight. I hadn't seen her in about a month and her ongoing path to getting fit and trim again post-pregnancy is really paying off. Her face even looks different. I love encouraging these young women to do the work to get it all off.  She doesn't have far to go! Way to go, Jocelynn!! I see trim, fit and healthy just around the corner for you!!

Thank you blog readers, for your prayers for me in this long-enduring walk with cancer. You have been persistent and generous in talking to the Father about me and I am so grateful!!

BOTTOM OF THE TEAR BARREL

I took a short walk at 9 last night. Beautiful, balmy, birds still singing. I wasn't thinking about my folks at all when I walked out the door. And then, so out of no where, grief descended like an angry storm cloud. And the first tears fell before I was past my house. And then came the aching, the longing, the deep deep yearning to hold them and talk to them/hear their voices and joke with them and love on them. I cried the whole walk. Grief, which lives so close to the surface of our souls, had wrapped itself around me and wasn't letting go. Dick held me for a awhile when I got home, but my heart seemed to need a grief explosion. I cried and cried, til there were no tears left. I was at the bottom. 

I don't think if you had a tight bond with your parents that it ever gets any easier. My brothers both have those moments too, they've told me. We all have an emotional hole---even some of the grandkids have expressed it. How hard it is living without them in our lives. How blessed we Hiebs all are to have had two people so loving, so generous, so full of wisdom, so fun, so giving to others, so full of goodness as Eddie and Pat.

All I really know is that the best parts of who I am were created from the best parts of who Mom and Dad were. They live within me. I feel them. And if in honoring that love we shared, I need to spend a few nights sobbing out my grief, then so be it. 

Happy Mother's Day and Happy Father's Day, Mom and Dad.