Dontcha just love the word "whisk"?

The other day, someone said, "I was keeping up with everything for a while, but you don't write much about it anymore on some of your blogs." And while I was thinking about how true that was, and how *no news is good news*, someone else standing with us said, "Well, that's actually good thing."

It is a very good thing.

Tomorrow I have an appointment to see the gynecologist who found the problem I didn't know I had and helped save my life, starting with a routine, yearly exam and a simple blood test. Am I excited about telling her "thank you"? Yes and no. Cold metal tools, latex gloves and paper gowns, no. Feeling better and and on the way out of the woods that I was in? That would be a big yes.

The hardest part about being sick is different for everyone. Things have to be done in stages. For me, one of the hardest parts was admitting that I was sick, at all. Oh trust me, it's fairly easy to admit the truth when you are lying in a hospital bed for 13 days with your mother curled uncomfortably but into a recliner to one side of you and an IV pole attached to a PICC line your other arm. Staring into endless needles of high-powered steroid after steroids and a few bags of chemo, handfuls of pills that burn, more handfuls of pills to keep the others from burning -- this is only the beginning of what some people feel. All I could imagine was how painful and trying it must be for other people whose treatments were longer and more complicated. Painful and trying but truly hopeful. I could hear the 4-year old child next door screaming and crying and throwing things when the medicine carts would roll into his room. I felt exactly the same way he did, but until lately, I haven't really cried about it. And I almost threw something yesterday, but I didn't.

Stage One. Now, Stage Two.

With a lot of therapy inside and out, for the emotional side of illness and for the other things that I haven't talked about here that fell away from my life in the past year and a half, my deal to myself is to enter a new stage, to understand and heal from the inside out on my own with pills you can't see. But maybe now that I am at the point in retrospect where I can admit that I *was* sick, and now I cry in fits of panic and fear about what happened, that's hard for me to deal with. but it means that I can start moving on now and I will.

Remember me telling you that one day, you'd look back and see how far you came? Remember that my mom said "You have to feel bad to feel good?" Well, I guess I'm here to at least tell you that, yes, you get there. In small steps , you falls and recovery, and you get there.

Another reason I haven't talked much about what has been going on was because it's very hard to keep my balance on a tightrope and look down into a cavern underneath me. So I didn't, I don't, and unless your motivation works best that way, I think no one should.

So, my point, and I do have one: now it's time to talk about other things. Now it's time to talk about things like staying healthy, body-wise and emotionally. Let's talk about nutrition like I said I would, and about things that can keep you and your blood healthy. I want to talk about the positive things that will happen to you despite the illness. I didn't forget I said I'd do that for you if you Googled here looking for some positive thoughts. I owe a lot of people a lot of things here, so it's time to start.

That sounds like we need a recipe. Yes, a recipe. If you feel up to it, cooking can be a a truly therapeutic thing, all around. Plus, you need good nutrition to heal faster. This I know from experience. So get out your whisk.