Settling Into My New Life

I called this blog A New Life when I started it about two years ago, but it's only now that I feel that I am actually living this new life.  So much of the first year was taken up by crossing things off my "to do" list: getting out of the house, finding a place to live, filing for divorce, filing my tax returns, finding a job, figuring out my health insurance, adapting to living alone, letting go, figuring out who I was, reclaiming my soul.

But now I'm in a different space.  I've been in the carriage house almost two years.  I've been at my current job over a year.  I'm now on Medicare and have all new doctors.  I have a new tax preparer and have even filed on time for the first time ever (April 15th).  My dance card is most often full, mainly with new friends I've made in the last year or so.  I feel comfortable in my skin ("bien dans ma peau" as they say in French).  I sleep well at night.  I feel confident in my future, even though I don't know what my future holds.  To celebrate this new contentment, I had my nails done this morning, for the first time in over 4 years.  I am once again caring about how I look.  This is a good thing.

I haven't posted on this blog for over a month.  I have to confess that I didn't feel up to it.  I went through a couple of weeks of feeling a bit "down."  I struggled with whether to post anyway, in an attempt to be honest and genuine here, not just posting on the "good" days.  But the "down" part of me won out and I didn't have the energy or desire.  Why was I down?  I honestly don't know.  Part of it was due to the fact that the new MS drug Ampyra suddenly stopped working for me the way it had been.  I still felt an increase in energy, but not only did the improvement in my walking cease, but I experienced a relapse - I started feeling a numbness in my lower legs which made it very difficult to walk, or to stand for more than 5 minutes.  I didn't know whether my new shipment of pills was defective, or whether I was experiencing a relapse, or if it was perhaps due to the increase in temperature.  I still don't know.  But it was upsetting to me.  The numbness started to go away a few days ago, but my legs still aren't as strong as they were in the early days of taking the drug and I find myself using the cane practically all the time.  Not good.

However, I'm not letting it get to me anymore, and I'm concentrating on all the good things that are happening in my life, of which there are many.

I started group physical therapy at Stanford Hospital on June 10th and I am loving it.  Tashina is also the physical therapist and there are usually 2-4 of us in the class.  Carla has already noticed an improvement in my posture.  We do exercises to improve our balance, our core muscles, our strength, and the ability to lift our feet.  The most exciting part is that I've made a new friend.  Her name is Donna, she is about my age, is at about the same level with her MS, and we immediately clicked.  We now go out for lunch every Thursday after "rehab" and even spent one day after rehab playing in SF.  She's as nuts about Argentina as I am about Brazil and we share a love for Latin music.  She and her husband are ardent tango dancers and she and I are trying to put together a class with Tango dancing as physical therapy.  It already exists across the country for Parkinson's, so why not for MS?  She introduced me to a friend of hers who is also our age and has MS and we've become friends, too.  Her name is Judy, is Jewish from NY, and she's coming with me this Monday evening to the free jazz concert in Redwood City.

Stanford Medical School has just started having monthly lectures/meetings on MS.  Donna and I went to the first one this past Wednesday where the guest speaker was a naturopathic doctor.  I met a woman there, also about my age, and we'll be getting together soon too.  I've never had friends before who also have MS and I have to admit, it's very very nice.  It does make a difference.  It's not a necessity to having a friendship, not by a long shot, but it's nice to have.  I realized the other day that I'm very lucky in that I have so many different groups of friends: 1) my friends from before 2) Carla and the friends I've made through her 3) the friends I've made through the cancer class Carla and I took at the YMCA 4) the friends I've made through the support group for chronic illnesses 5) the new friends I've made through MS.  I feel very lucky.  Back to the monthly MS meetings, future meetings will include art therapy and yoga.  Donna and I have suggested they have one on Tango as therapy, with Donna and her husband teaching it, and I would like to see one on singing and breathing techniques.  The naturopathic doctor had mentioned deep breathing as being important to good health.

I received a surprise phone call from the Cantor at our local Synagogue here in Redwood City.  I had taken that 4 week music class from her and she remembered how much I love music.  She's putting together a small group of music lovers to meet on a weekly basis between now and the High Holy Days to practice and learn the music that will be sung then, so that we can serve as "ringers" in the congregation and thus lead everyone in the singing.  She asked me if I would be interested in participating and I said yes.  Our first meeting is a week from Tuesday.  Vickie, my boss at work, has asked me to decide on a regular weekly schedule, instead of on a week-to-week basis, and I've chosen to work Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  This leaves me free for rehab on Thursdays and the Temple on Tuesdays.  As I said, I'm settling into a rhythm here with my New Life.

Here's a bit of interesting news for those who have known me since high school.  Elson and I used to belong to a jazz group called PAJA (Palo Alto Jazz Alliance).  I've discontinued the membership but am still on their mailing list, and I received an email announcement last week regarding a free Members party in September, with local jazz pianist David Miller performing.  As some of you may recall, he was my boyfriend in high school and into freshman year in college.  He lives here locally and even though professionally he's a lawyer, he has a jazz trio and performs for private organizations.  I sent him an email asking whether he was THIS David Miller, and he wrote back a pithy response: "yes".  I'm planning on attending and have asked my sister to join me.  I think it will be fun - a tuneful step back in time.  I actually met David through his piano playing - he was the accompanist for our high school glee club.  Life can be so interesting.  You just have to live long enough!

I've talked to Vickie at work about phasing out towards the end of the year.  I really do want to find employment closer to home.  I am finding the commute more and more difficult.  I had a near accident on the freeway a couple of weeks ago.  There had been an accident on Highway 101 and it was bumper to bumper. I was trying to get across so that I would be able to eventually exit.  I had just moved across one lane when the person in front of me suddenly came to a halt and I came THIS close to bumping into her.  In fact, we both moved all the way to the side (in a way, this was a Godsend, because everyone made room for us to do this - I might not have made it across in time otherwise) to check for damage because we weren't sure whether I had hit her or not.  Luckily I hadn't.  Then this past Friday there was an accident on Highway 101 right where I would have gotten on, causing backups all the way to where I would have gotten off, so I took a detour to Highway 280.  No sooner had I gotten onto 280, traffic came to a standstill there and I found out there was an accident further north just before my exit.  So I was damned either way.  It took me over an hour to get home.  Luckily, when I got home, Carla and a friend were sitting in the garden drinking wine and they called to me to join them.  I collapsed into a chair and gratefully lifted my glass.

I bit the bullet and called Elson a couple of weeks ago.  I'd decided it was time.  It just didn't make sense that we weren't speaking to each other - not after over 30 years of marriage.  He was surprised to hear from me, but we ended up having a very good conversation.  It lasted almost two hours!  I'm glad I did it, thus breaking the ice, and will do it from time to time.

Well, I think that pretty much catches everyone up.  I did go to SF for that ACT performance of The Tosca Project and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I also took the train into SF on a Wednesday, was picked up at the train station by my roommate from college, Andrea, who took me out for a very nice lunch and then to the De Young museum for the Impressionist exhibit visiting from Paris.  I got a wheelchair and we had a great day.  I had particularly wanted to see it with her and my other roommate Joanne because we had seen the Impressionists for the first time together in Paris at the Jeu de Paume when we spent the summer there in 1965.  I thought it particularly fitting to see it here together.  Hopefully Joanne will make it out here and all 3 of us can go together.

I've been very lucky with the weather in that it hasn't been too hot.  Carla did a good job of teaching me how to keep it cool here (I open the windows at night and close them in the mornings).

That's all, folks.  I hope everyone is having a great summer!