PCMLC

...stands for Post-Cancer Mid-life Crisis...and I'm having one. And it isn't for a sports car...



and I haven't written about it because I feel guilty for doing it, and now I can't really get out of it, quickly. Every day I struggle with what I have done and I put off doing laundry a little longer and I leave the stacks of paper on my desk and I just go again and again, to the barn...

...and write another check, for some hoof supplement or some new body sponge (for him), and it's pretty fun, except for the guilt.

I am very well. My hair is very housewifey and getting a little bushy. My eyebrows are wimpy and my big toenails are almost completely grown out. The only procedure I have left to do is tatooing (ugh--I cannot believe it). I am all back together. But, another, younger woman I know, who was diagnosed while pregnant (!!!), had chemo while preggers, delivered, had radiation and then surgery, found a brain tumor.

The day I read that on her Caring Bridge update, I started looking for a horse. I almost yelled to my husband, from the office computer, "That's it--I'm getting a horse!" I felt frightened and sickened and spurred to action--I'd better get on with whatever's on my bucket list because I just don't know how long I've got--none of us knows.

So, the horse market being what it is--I found a horse, and a terrific prospect to boot. So I drove 6 hours to see him for an hour and six hours back. And she had brain surgery. And my horse was delivered to my barn, and I paid $1 for him.

And she had weakness in one of her hands and was feeling better and went in for a follow-up, which included a body scan, I guess and they found tumors in one lung and on her pelvic bone. And she has three little children.

And my horse, is being trained by my long-time friend the professional trainer, who says he is doing great. And almost every day, after I feel really guilty about how much this costs Handyman, I brush off that silly, unnecessary horse and pet his nose and look forward to getting on him myself.