Aliens

Last night I stripped down and looked at myself, I mean really looked at myself.  I look like an alien. I don't mean someone from Mexico, I mean the kind that Signoury Weaver kills in the movies.  I have this tiny little head on top of this body that is lean, but not in shape.  Strong wide shoulders covered with skin that looks dry and loose.  The muscles are not toned, sort of like a being that is not used to living on this planet with our gravity.  My arms and legs are very long in comparison to my body and they are also very thin.  In other words I look very much like a movie maker's idea of an alien.  Add on how I move now with the lower stamina and exhausted muscles and I look like I am not used to this planet.


I guess it makes sense as you cope with this disease and go places you never knew existed let alone of going to, that your body would look and/or feel alien or foreign as the doctors use their WMDs.  My friend Susan said that it is healthy to see my body this way.  There are two basic groups.  Those who deny the disease and those that accept it and give into the treatments and the changes.  I can see how easy it would be to deny this disease.  I don't feel it . I am dealing with the side effects of chemo, not the symptoms of cancer.  Since the radiation took the pain away with the cancer on my bones I have not been in any pain from the actual cancer.  So right now, I could skip the chemo and deny that I have the little "c".  But the lab work says otherwise, and although this disease is an emotional disease, the lab work is fact.  


For the most part I have accepted my alien body, but then when I have to see people who have not seen me since I started this journey, I am so self conscience.  I am vain.  I don't look so bad in clothes, but without them, that is a different story.  And even though everyone sees me in clothes, obviously I don't walk around naked, I know what I look like under the clothes.  I am maintaining my weight.  All this week I have been around the 123 mark.  That is not too thin for me.  I have actually been able to pull clothes out of the back of my closet that fit me again.  I don't know that I was this thin before, but I think I was in better shape, tighter, firmer.  I kept up my exercises for a while, but I have let those slip away now.  I should do yoga and stretch out.  Funny how when your body needs it the most it is the hardest to do.  


Today was garden club.  We made reindeers out of pine cones.  I managed to make one.  I have cancer so no one makes fun of me when I do less then others.  And I can leave early and now no one thinks anything of it.  Sometimes having cancer is such a plus.  I love the ladies in our circle, but I am so inept at being around people.


I went out to feed the chickens and one of the peeps didn't make it.  The other two are looking good.  Yesterday I realized that someone was pecking them.  I suspect Bea so I moved her and the other two hens into one side of the coop and left Zora with her peeps in the other side.  This will let me give her as much time as possible with the peeps, but at some point, I am afraid I will have to take them away from her and keep them safe.  Peeps can get into places their mamas can't go, and then harm can come to them.  But we will see how things go, take it day by day.


It has been a lovely weekend.  I did manage to get the pansies and violas planted, and when I got up this morning they were still there.  The rabbits haven't eaten them yet.  I did put out rabbit food with scratch and most of that was gone.  So it would appear that domesticated rabbits, even those who live like wild ones,  actually prefer the pelleted rabbit food over plants.  Hmmm, who would have guessed.  


Geeta was supposed to come over this evening, but she had a family emergency, so we postponed this to another time.  I hope all is going to be OK with her family.  


So another week is upon us.  A week filled with cake and birthdays, chemo and friendships.  A busy week, I am ready for it.