Sleeves...

I wore long sleeves… to the gym… to a class where everyone else was wearing clothes to really sweat in. I had massive second thoughts as I stood outside the glass door, biting my lip and fighting the urge to walk away. Too late. My sweet, encouraging friend saw me, brought me in, got all the equipment I would need and quickly set it up for me. How could I walk away now?

The class began and I found myself moving my body in familiar forms, keeping time with the music and rejoicing in the fact that maybe I could still do this! Two years with a trainer and consistent daily exercise had toned my muscles and they remembered! They remembered the movement at least… but the last three months had taken a toll I did not realize until I looked at my hands. They did not match. My right hand was swelling, bulging slightly around the bottom of my compression sleeve. At the next break I sat on the end of my risers, holding out my hands and taking stock of what I was actually looking at. Was one hand bigger than the other? Really? My friend came over to see if I was ok and agreed that I probably shouldn't keep going.  Thus began another public admission (try going through airport security with a Jackson Pratt drain - as humiliating as you can imagine!) that I was not the same as everyone else there. Not any more. I put my equipment away, fighting tears and fears of having my arm swell up to the size of Pop-eyes massive forearm before I could get out of there.

Something I wouldn't care to experience again

Tender mercies of the day:  For some reason I hadn't worn my glove which would have masked the swelling, I did get home before my arm got any bigger, and most importantly, my husband was still home and could enfold me in his arms and tell me it would be alright and what to do because he knows...

An agonizing week has gone by. My arm has slowly deflated like a balloon with the air released, as close to matching my other arm as it may ever get. My loving husband, who says that ANYTHING is better than having a single cell of melanoma in my body, continues to love me in spite of the scars, bumps, and losses incurred from health problems. How was I so fortunate to have this man choose to love me? That is a subject for another blog on another day.

So happy, so carefree… so FALSE advertising