I'm having a hard time responding to "how are you?" or "how're you doing?" these days.
My husband died. That's always at the forefront of my awareness. But I'm having better days lately. Yesterday I cleaned the oven. Also took some stuff to our local charity organization for their shop and donation activity, had a conversation with a friend, and filled the bird feeders.
I'm making an effort to drink more water and less alcohol, eat more protein and less carbs, spend more time doing than sitting, and more of the sitting time away from the computer. There are still many areas I can make improvement in, but one thing at a time is movement in the right direction.
In cat news, I am currently feeding 14 (and the dog). One, a tabby with lighter-colored chin, has never been indoors yet, though it has sniffed my hand.
A 2nd, tabby with adorable white markings, under 6 months old I'm sure, prefers living inside the house and rarely ventures past the porches, but won't let me touch it. Both of these cats have been hanging around for 6 weeks or more.
The other cats are Shorty, Sapphire, Nameless, Booger, Klutz, Roadie, Red, Barney, Growler, Sugar'n'Spike, and Tuffie Tuftkins, who came to us from the neighborhood, a female kitten of about 4-5 months old when she came here February 14th, 2013.
I'm not ready to write about th'Mr yet, except to say he died of pneumonia, which was the result of the inactivity caused by the brain damage (he thought he was being active. In his dreams he was active, doing all the physical therapy he was supposed to, and he couldn't tell the dreams from reality), the brain damage that he sustained from the radiation to treat the bits of his tumor they couldn't cut out --radiation is some wicked powerful stuff. It made his brain look like he'd had strokes on both sides-- the brain tumor that had metastasized 18 months after his lung cancer tumor was successfully removed.
Apparently there were some little cancer cells floating around in his bloodstream, just waiting for a place to anchor. That's called blood-borne metastasis, which is better than the kind of metastasis that gets in your lymph nodes and kills you within 6 months, usually. Instead, 18 months after the upper lobe of th'Mr's right lung was removed, his brain's frontal lobe grew another tumor. And he lived another 33 months after that, so 51 months instead of 6 from finding the original cancer. I guess I should be grateful for that extra 4 years, and I am, but all the same it was a heartbreaking road to travel.
The first 8 months after his brain surgery he was home. And the last 9 months. Now he's been dead 3 months, 2 weeks, and one day.
That's all I can write about that right now.