Renal Cell Live!

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Life, the Universe, and Everything

Sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake. Saturday night I was taking dishes out of the cabinet, thinking only of arranging food on the plates, when it struck me: When did I become a retired housewife?

The short answer is, January 10, 2005, when I left my beloved job to begin my high dose IL-2 treatments. I walked out of work one day and entered the hospital the next. But mentally I don't think the penny dropped until this weekend.

Beyond setting up retirement accounts and saving money, I hadn't planned realistically for life after retirement. I just knew that retirement would come in 2018 and that I had plenty of time to think about it. The daily routine would fall into place, and I would spend my time doing - well, I'm not sure what I thought I'd be doing. I figured we would both be retired and living on that long dreamed-of farm. It would just be like life-as-we-knew-it, except we wouldn't be working; certainly neither one of us would be facing major health crises immediately. Right?

I spent 28 mostly delightful years in the library profession and still think of myself as a librarian. I find that I'm passionate about cooking and knitting (and sometimes spinning). Laundry and housecleaning are still chores but a lot easier now that I have more time to do them. I guess the rest of the answer is, "After retirement, life happens." It sure beats the alternative.

I'm back on the half dose of Nexavar starting Friday - side effects started getting out of hand after 5 days at the higher dose. Oh well - one can't know unless one tries.

Labels:

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home