Much like the snake I photographed in the chicken run a few weeks ago, (find Part 1 at suburbangrowing.com)  the human folks at our house have been working our way through a big meal this fall. Speaking only for myself, in September I wasn’t able to write or do much else of real meat (haha), besides eat, breathe, sleep, and process. Me and the snake. Thank goodness the surgery date is moved up into October, and so we can get through quicker.  It’s “really just a blip on the way to the rest of your life” as my mother-in-law put it, bless her, I hope so. The footage of snake working its jaws around bird is a graphic if gory presentation of the job at hand. Feathers and all. Feet last. Once you get all the information downloaded, which is worth taking your time about, you still need to come to terms with it, and that also takes time. The correspondence is complete, even to the fact that this experience of having cancer is a kind of a meal, something I will grow from going through, and be enriched by. Although I guess that’s up to me.

Owen may be affected by the vibes, or just doing an unusually busy stage of his own development. Lately, he’s been showing affiliation with his Nordic ancestry and leaving warm bed or hot bath for the cool of the brick patio backyard, where he will stand chopping plastic at the table until he feels sufficiently chilled.  Or until I go look for him. He has figured out how to operate the deadbolt on the back door to  achieve early morning freedom. But since there are plenty of shrubs around the property lines to screen him, this seems like a decision he should be allowed to make.

Owen appears fed up with being “directed” these days. And given that most of his hours he is being directed, or pushed or hurried, a little early morning nudity may be just what he needs. If only all his problem behaviors were so easy to deal with. Thank goodness for our homeopathic doctor. I really don’t care if it’s voodoo or what, but the remedy (three little pills of a dilute substance in a sugar pellet) he gave to Owen seems to be calming down his prickly irritability and mulishness.

The night-time care of Owen is another matter, and Edward and I are reaching our limit. Trying to imagine what Stage 2 of Caring for Owen might look like has been keeping me awake at night as much as Owen himself.  How can I make space for Owen to be Owen, and have a life and keep a sense of humor, as I go forward toward 60 and Edward toward 70?  How will we find the care we need for him? And if we do find it, how will I let him go from our house into the care of strangers? How do I send my son away? What kind of life will he have? The need for help is a palpable as the sadness that threatens to choke me. This is a meal to manage in tiny bites. Thank goodness for Owen’s county resources coordinator Nicole Chittams, a woman of great heart and also great practicality and many resources, who has some answers to some of those questions.

My surgery is set up for October 18th. Family and friends have rallied to help out. It turns out things are not going to be as difficult as I thought at first. Where I thought twin mastectomies were called for, it turns out that lumpectomies will do just as well, and maybe better.   I have leaned that for many women Radiation is not the problem for every woman it can be for some (I heard a bad story).  It is possible that I may not need chemo. The best news of all is my own realization that I will come out of this cranky, stiff, and sore true, but still feeling like me. And since mostly I like my me this is a relief. After a September of digesting, on to an October of adaptation.