After the last entry about the "Oven Bird," two long-time friends (I've known them both for over 40 years) wondered about the fact that after introducting the poem's idea of dealing with diminished expections, I spent the rest of the posting writing about poetry and criticism rather than with my own experiences of living during the last year (the surgery to replace my femur and part of the hip joint took place exactly one year ago today) with a diminished quality of my life.  One asked as well whether the cloud of depression "wafted" around my days.

I don't think (but who can trust our consciousness?) that I was purposefully avoiding the implications of Frost's poem.  What I wrote reflected what I had been thinking about over the previous few days, though, as I said, Frost's lines had been floating through my mind for a long time.  Partly, too, the blog showed my refusal to give up the teacherly side of my personality.  But perhaps a few more personal reflections are in order.  To answer the question about depression first, no, it's not something that plays a part in the way I think about things.  I certainly have as many neuroses as anyone, but depression has never been one of them.  (Now that I've ruled out depression, anger, guilt, and I can't remember what else as components of my emotional character, I'm beginning to think that my friend Jill may have been right in suggesting--years ago to be fair--that I have a low EQ.)  But I am aware, during all the waking hours, of the limitations and discomforts of life as I live it these days.

I'm aware of, and unhappy about, the fact that I will never go to France again.  And what is going to seem silly, every time I see a commercial for Worlds of Fun, I'm reminded that I'll never ride a roller coaster again.  I'll probably never travel very far, nor have the uninterrupted energy to cook a full meal.  I'll probably never sit through an opera again, or when one of my talented friends is in a musical in KC, never travel to KC, have a good dinner, and then watch him on stage.  I'll never again take my german shepherd, strong and badly trained on a leash, for a walk around the lake.

More important are the daily discomforts and assuming that they are going to become progressively more significant.  My shoulder has been feeling much better lately, but for over a year now, I can't reach across the table with my left arm or lift a bottle of milk from the refrigerator with my left hand.  I can't raise my left arm very high or far for a toast.  I can't stand up from a chair or couch without a moment's hesitation and bracing myself with my right arm.  Every time I go up and down stairs, my hip creaks and I half pull myself up using the railing.  Because, I assume, of the daily anti-coagulant shot, a small cut looks fine at first, and then a few hours later, it's turned into an ugly scar which takes several days to go away.  By the time I'm up in the morning and have had my best energy of the day, I shower, and then I sit on the edge of the bed, tired from all the effort, trying to summon the strength to put on my right sock.  I can't go to a restaurant without taking Imodium first, locating the restroom, and wondering what I should order that isn't going to provoke an immediate reaction.  When I first started the chemo, lots of food tasted "off."  Diet-Coke has never tasted the same, and much more seriously, I rarely enjoy wine any more.  Recently, however, food tastes fine, and it looks appealing, but after I eat about half of what's on the plate, I have no more appetite.  I can't even force myself to take another bite.  For the last couple of weeks, the need for naps seems to have become more frequent.  I always take a book or magazine to bed, but I no longer even make the pretense that I'm going to read.  The book is only a security blanket.  Instead of clutching a pillow, I like the feeling of holding the book as I drop off.  Scariest of all is that for the last couple of weeks, by the end of the evening, I've been having terrible cramps and can't sit or lie comfortably. 

So there's a partial catalogue of dimished hopes and possibilities.  Some I've become inured to (my right arm works just as well for lifting the half gallon of milk out of the refrigerator).  Some--like the small groans I make each time I stand up--I hope Mohamed has become inured to.  All are frustrating; each has changed my self-image from someone who was always energetic and adventurous to someone whose physical energy is indeed much diminished.  Most important, because most frightening, is not knowing just what these limitations mean, just where in the arc of living with cancer I am, what each new twist implies.  But there are still enormous pleasures left in life, much that's just as exciting and pleasurable as it's always been--friends, laughing, reading, becoming infuriated over politics and issues, discovering new authors and ideas, sex, and loving and being loved.

What I've really not expressed often enough in these postings is how much Mohamed does for me every hour of every day.  No one else really sees the downs or the fears, no one hears all the groans.  There is never a hint of complaint, never a request that he doesn't fulfill.  Without Mohamed, the last year would have been diminished in ways I can't even imagine--and don't want to.  If I'm not depressed, if the frustrations and fears are manageable, it's because of Mohamed's support and love.   It took me a lot of false starts to get it right, but at just the right time, I finally did.