Post Lumpectomy: Day 6

It is cold and rainy outside, which is ridiculous for where I live at this time of the year. I feel cold and rainy inside, too, which is pretty normal for me. LOL. I am not a cheery person. I am, however, powered by sunshine and nice weather; it combats the stormy, gloomy person within. Needless to say, 10 days of rain and no sun and too much thinking about cancer have not done good things for me mentally.  

My family is still off camping, so I'm enjoying another day of doing nothing. Highlights of the day thus far include: deciding that this blog needs a face lift (ongoing project), and receiving a phone call from a friend, during which I discovered that my cold has taken away my voice. I croaked my way through a brief conversation until I just couldn't talk anymore. 

Otherwise, I am feeling pretty good after two back-to-back nights of eight hours of sleep. (Thank you, Ambien.) With the exception of my arm, I feel like I'm pretty much 'over' the effects of surgery. I can move my arm a little better, though it is still ridiculously painful considering all I had done was have 7 little itty bitty lymph nodes removed. (Well, that, and a 4.5 cm ball of tissue scooped out, but supposedly it's the lymph nodes that hurt the most, which at least makes me hopeful that surgery #2 won't be as bad.)

I spent most of the morning playing on my computer, trying to get motivated to do some actual work stuff, but not succeeding. As I perused the news, I was sad to see that John Nash had been killed in a car accident. At the same time - and forgive me, this is going to sound super insensitive - it's not the saddest story out there. I've always been the type of person to contemplate death a lot. (See paragraph #1: I am cold and rainy.) My reflections on death have led me to probably the same conclusions anyone who thinks about death a lot would come to: there's not really a great way to go. Call me cynical, but even the super religious people who claim they can't wait to meet their Maker don't have me convinced that they are truly excited about dying. I do think that some diseases are so horrible and take so much of you, including every last drop of dignity, and cause you so much pain, that you reach a point where you give up and stop fighting. The anticipation of A Better Place must be comforting in those final days or months or even years. Which brings me back to my original point: dying in a car crash at the age of 86 isn't the worst way to go, in my opinion. The most upsetting thing about car crashes, and other accidents, is that they are unexpected. No one anticipates dying in a car crash. (Planes are different story; take it from someone who is terrified of flying.) When your husband tells you he is taking the kids camping for the weekend, you fully expect them to return, without getting into a fatal car accident on the way home. The surprise element of someone dying unexpectedly, and often prematurely, is the horrifying part, not usually the death itself. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I want to die in a car accident. But, I don't want to die of cancer, either. Or Alzheimer's. Or a stroke. Or be shot to death. Or drown. Definitely not ALS. There isn't really any way I can think of that I want to die, but... we all have to, eventually, and some of us sooner than others. And no matter what, it is probably going to suck. If it is an unexpected death, you likely won't have gotten very far through your bucket list, and the shock will be hard for loved ones to absorb and accept. If it is expected, that means it will likely be preceded by a long and unpleasant struggle. Which one is worse? I don't know. And really, there is no point in contemplating it, because very few of us will actually choose how we die. 

How is that for a rainy day thought? God I need some sun.