New/old kind of tired

I am wore out!  Ever so tired.  From shopping and gardening and eating out.  It's a wonderful kind of tired that I haven't been in ages.  I almost feel nostalgic along with the tired.

Janet has been here for a long weekend and our mission was to find clothes for me to wear to THREE weddings this spring!  I haven't had a wedding to attend for a long while, much less three in one season.  But I am excited about each one of them.  Of course I missed two nieces' weddings while I was sick--I still can't believe that happened.

We had success finding a dress.  And a stole and a belt and shoes and purse.  And jewelry (in my box at home.)  And we found some great jeans for me and a WOW outfit for Janet.  She bought an awesome bag that we found at another store for less :( then a third store for more :)  I guess it all nets out.

We met friends for dinner Friday night at the Macaroni Grill to celebrate normal platelets.  I'm still adjusting to that idea.  The server comped our dessert, and I got an Italian language lesson in the lady's room.  I shall have to eat there often in the coming weeks.

I shall also have to do some serious hiking and stretching to be ready to spend 10 days in Italy in October.  The stretching makes me feel better but I don't think I am regaining any range of motion.  I asked for a referral to a physical therapist last week at the clinic.  The purpose of the PT is to recover range of motion so I hope I hear about that soon.  In the meantime, keep up the yoga, the hot baths, lots of rubbing.

Sunday I supervised a little gardening, more things in the ground.  I wore my long sleeves and my new broad brimmed hat (another shopping item) but I could not stop myself reaching down to pick things out of the dirt.  I went inside and washed up and stayed there.  I don't know what I'm going to do.  I asked the doctor last week when I will be able to garden.  "Is it passage of a certain number of months?"  "Is it reaching a certain level in my counts?"  His response was "we will tell you when."  Almost like Ganguly, but it was Aljitawi.  The giggle about that conversation is that his first response to my question about when can I garden was "what kind of gardening do you do?"  I was thinking "how many kinds are there?" but I responded "the kind where you plant things in the dirt and amend the soil and pull the weeds.  (What else is there?)

I will never, ever be able to spend time in the sun.  I must cover up, wear sunscreen that includes a physical blocker (I didn't know they made those that were not zinc based!) and avoid the midday sun.  It's all common sense; I haven't been sunburned in a number of years.  I admit that when I think about the restrictions at the lake I can make myself feel bad, but the trick is to focus on what I can do.  I can do a 10 minute water ski run at 7 in the morning (like I could hold a ski rope for 10 minutes, ha!) I can sit on the dock in the evening, I can go out in the morning and watch the sun rise, I can take after dinner boat rides.  I simply have to stay out of the sun and for good measure, away from the water, during the hot midday.  I guess it means no more trips to Boundary Waters, but what a great reason to not be able to go on that trip.

The reason is that exposure to the sunlight can incite graft v. host symptoms that can be lethal.  I'm unfamiliar with the science on this.  I'll be studying up on it while I study the history of Florence and the Medicis.

Ciao baby
~Cathi