Until I'm Home

I've got it!

My job, most of the time, is fairly mindless. Except for when I have to do simple addition I just listen to music and let my brain wander a little as my fingers type claims automatically.

Due to this I have had ample time in the past few days to contemplate my book. THE book. The one I know many of you are waiting for (and you'll probably be waiting kind of awhile, unfortunately...).

At first it was suggested that I chronicle Mom's life, from beginning to end, like a biography. Well, that would be kind of hard and a little too pragmatic for my artistical imagination. So I thought about it, and then I thought some more, and then it hit me. What I want to do is take my Update posts, Mom's thankfulness status updates from the month of November, and stories about Mom for all 16 months of cancer, from beginning to end, from Dad, the nurses, people who drove her to radiation, my aunt and grandmother. Through this I hope to show how one woman coped with this illness even though she knew it would kill her, how she never complained and rarely let it get her down. I know for a fact that her joyful, peaceful spirit through the entire ordeal ministered to not only her family but also to every nurse, friend, acquaintance, student, etc that came into contact with her.

This idea, in my head, feels much more manageable than the overwhelming task of chronicling everything people can remember about her without her here to give her own view of things. Of course, if she were here she would be embarrassed that I'm writing this story in the first place. In either case, I intend to start as soon as I can once I've outlined things a little. I'm very excited, and I really hope I can live up to the expectations I feel everyone has for me and this book.

In other news, work today gave me no time to think about and refine this idea at all. Systems were malfunctioning at work today, so much so that I actually got to chat with the people sitting around me for a good hour and a half because none of us could do any work. Eventually we were all given paper claims instead of using the electronic system and things went on as usual, though due to needing to catch up two missing hours of stats I was cranking out claims like there was no tomorrow and had little time for extra thought. Hopefully this little problem will be fixed by morning.

And I went for a run!!! My first real run since before my knee surgery back in September, and boy did it feel great! Technically speaking I'm not supposed to run anymore due to degenerative cartilage and an aversion to being bionic by the time I'm 35, but by golly it makes me feel good. Unlike power walking I really feel like I'm doing something good for myself.

Whoa. My brain suddenly went into wedding planning overload. I know, seems random, but I took a break from what I was writing above when I got three phone calls in a row and then called back my fiancé, who was the first caller. Two hours later I'm exhausted and full of to-do lists so I'm going to go now. Oh, and PS, if anyone has brilliant ideas for making a wedding cheap and pretty and fun, please fill me in!