Journal of a Living Lady #75
Okay. So you want to know about my health. Probably not all of you, but enough have asked that I feel obligated to respond. As of my last medical report, I am stable. Stable is a very good word when you have serious cancer. Sure I have bad days now and then, but don’t we all? My hair is getting a tad longer and as curly as a Scottie dog. I only got called “sir” twice last week.
It is hard to know whether the pain in certain joints is the bone cancer surging or my nemesis, Arthur I. Tis. Some days I feel like wearing my right arm in a sling or grabbing my cane to walk, but most of the time I won’t. I don’t like the unnecessary attention. Occasionally I must carry my portable oxygen tank in public which I detest, but all in all, I am doing good for the shape I am in.
I have two weeks before more chemotherapy, so I am trying to figure out what to do in this hot weather. Our good friends sold their pontoon boat. Nobody else has invited us boating, so I am land-bound. We briefly had a jet ski, but Buddy sold it before I ever got a chance to try it out. I think he was afraid I would fall off and he would never get me back to shore. He was probably right, but don’t tell him.
Not many summers ago, Buddy and Charlie were pulling me behind an old boat in an inner tube. I came out of the snug tube. Don’t ask me how. I couldn’t get back into it or muster enough strength to pull myself into the boat. Buddy and Charlie tried to pull me out of the water, but my wet arms kept slipping out of their hands. It was a predicament for sure. Finally, Charlie extended the boat paddle which I held onto while Buddy slowly idled the boat more than a mile to the concrete ramp. I walked out of the lake.
For some reason that inner tube is nowhere to be found now and Buddy has not been inclined to get me another one. That is okay. I smugly remember October 1964. Those were our courting days. Buddy and I had gone out in a little boat on a lake not far from my home in Memphis. For some reason, we decided to swap ends. In the middle of the transfer, we spontaneously embraced and kissed. The boat capsized. My daddy wasn’t too thrilled with Buddy or me when we arrived home after dark, soaking wet and shivering.
In spite of our water unworthiness, this goose married that gander and we are still floating.
