We're off -- almost

It looks like this trip to B.C. is really going to happen. My mom and I are hip-deep in clothes and suitcases and arguing over what to leave out. We depart in two days.

One reason I'm feeling better than I did in my second last post is that the doctor did permit me to start taking steroids again. My energy level is better, and my pain level is much reduced. My legs and hip remain semi-paralyzed, and I've had one bad fall, where everything just gave out at once and I went straight down to the floor despite having the walker in my grip, banging my head on a shelf as I went. Getting around is onerous, but not worse than it was. My voice and throat continue to plague me, but that's also status quo.

So...off to Vancouver for two days, then Victoria for two days, then four days on Gabriola Island. Visits with friends, spa treatments, swanky hotels, first-class plane seats. I hope it will be worth the day-in, day-out planning I've been doing for the past month. I think it will. I'm looking forward to it immensely.

Meanwhile, I am harbouring a fear that my hair loss is permanent. The stubble that remained after I had it shaved is staying put, and I don't see any regrowth. Is it possible I'll never have a head of hair again? Something to add to the list of things I'll never do or have again -- riding my bicycle, taking a streetcar, a bath in my claw-foot tub.

I'm not getting out very much in this nice weather, but my kitchen patio allows me to see how fast my garden is progressing--as usual, wild and unruly but beautiful. In my front yard, the lilac bush has lots of buds, and I'm afraid the blooms will appear while I am gone. Last year I prayed I'd still be alive to see my lilac bush one more time. And here I am -- going to B.C.!

Walking the Jane way

As last year, I'm dropping a plug for the May 1 and 2 Jane's Walks, which commemorate urban thinker and Toronto resident Jane Jacobs. There are a gazillion walks now, and in just four years, they've spread from their birthplace of Toronto to a multitude of cities across North America as well as in Ireland, Uruguay, India and Spain.

I'd especially like to tout walks that are being led by friends of mine in Toronto and in Kitchener. Diane Dyson is doing two in Toronto that resemble the one she and I used to lead in Little India, but, unlike me, Diane has considerable research-based expertise in what makes a neighbourhood work because of her many years as an activist and working with the United Way and Woodgreen Community Services. (See link to her blog below.) She's leading a walk called "Neighbourhoods 101: Theories of Place-based Community Organization," and, with our neighbour, affable and wise historian Doug Fyfe, she's co-leading Greenwood-Coxwell: Belonging Community. Either walk will tell you why I love where I live.

In Kitchener, you can find out from my friend Rosemary Kelly what it's like to be a single woman who lives in the downtown core of the city without a car -- yes, it can be done -- during her walk "Living in Downtown Kitchener."

And also in Kitchener, another old friend, Jim Bindernagel, is co-leading two walks on the Iron Horse Trail, where the old train tracks have given way to walking paths.

Or choose from many, many other walks that illustrate Jane Jacobs's contention:

No one can find what will work for our cities by looking at … suburban garden cities, manipulating scale models, or inventing dream cities. You’ve got to get out and walk.”
-Downtown is for People, 1957.

Good news and bad

Everybody around me is excited that the results of my brain MRI were very promising -- the large-ish tumour in the lining of my brain has shrunk considerably, and the smaller one, too. I saw a personable Australian brain radiologist whom I'd never seen before, and he said he was encouraged. Unlike any other doctor I've consulted, he offered to show me the actual scan, and it was good to see with my own eyes the comparison of the last scan with this one. He says he has every reason to hope that brain lesions will remain at bay indefinitely, although no one can say for sure. He even told me that some of my hearing could return in a few months. All of that was gratifying.

Meanwhile, I feel pretty crappy. Since I gradually decreased and then stopped the steroids, my back pain has returned, my voracious appetite has disappeared (maybe a good thing, but I'm less inclined to eat through the vocal cord resistance), and I have less energy. I'm back on painkillers and it's hard to find a position or chair to sit or lie on that doesn't hurt. The vise-like grip of my ribs around my middle is debilitating. As soon as I do get a little comfortable, I go straight to sleep. Walking is tough. My skin is dry and shedding and itchy. I continue to feel an inner tremor, which is especially annoying in my hands. I find it hard to do up a necklace, for example. For now, the sensation is fairly subtle. This is not even to mention the vocal cord problems, which probably comprise a third of my discomfort.

But I was putting up with all of these things pretty well as long as I had no back pain. As soon as the pain started again, I began to feel overwhelmed. I'm even shying away from touring my neighbourhood in the wheelchair because the bumpy sidewalks jar my spine. I should be rejoicing, but instead I'm whining.

I wonder if the doctor would let me go back on the steroids just for my vacation?

Through the palliative care people, I get free complementary therapies; twice a woman has come to my house to do a combination of reflexology and Reiki therapy. The latter is a kind of therapeutic touch treatment. The website Reiki.org says: "A treatment feels like a wonderful glowing radiance that flows through and around you." I'd had one before and it was kind of nice. But both times this woman has come here, all I remember is her starting with my feet and then gently waking me up to say she was finished. I slept like a log through both treatments. She could have robbed me blind and I would never have known. (I doubt she would.) I don't know if one's body responds to the treatment if one is not awake.

Some sad but not unexpected news: I've mentioned a few times the blog of Tasha Westerman, who started blogging about her breast cancer and whose husband had a brain tumour, while her best friend had leukemia. I wrote about her in my Best Health article about writing for health, and it was her blog that inspired me to give it a try. Tasha's husband, Ryan, died a few days ago. Reading Tasha's blog and Ryan's has been painful, but inspiring, not least because they have a small son. My thoughts go out to them.

But I've been lucky enough to have had plenty of Pollyanna moments in the past couple of weeks:

• As usual, it was great to have Matt here. We did a lot of sitting around and watching movies and being what I think my young friend My Anh calls "surf clams" or something similar: lounging side by side with our laptops and even playing Lexulous in real time. We also had some outings: On Easter Sunday, Matt's friend Ron H. drove us up to Creemore and then to Collingwood to enjoy the sunshine, shop a little and bask in the breeze off Georgian Bay. We had lunch at Chez Michel in Creemore, which I recommend; good French food, nice room, attentive service. (Unfortunately, on the way home I developed chills and fever, and I must have slept 14 hours after I called the doctor, took some Tylenol and collapsed on the couch. A lot of sleep before and after outings seems essential now.)
• Jocelyn treated Matt and me to a lovely brunch at her house between transporting us to the hospital for my MRI and helping us with various errands.
• Matt and Jocelyn managed to get me into my own backyard to enjoy the sunshine, which was a treat. The most comfortable place for me to sit is on a big armchair with a lot of cushions in my living room, which is nearly windowless and rather dim most of the time. So I don't always get to see the beautiful days, like this one. And because the steps down to my yard have no railings, I need some strong people to get me down there without my panicking like a six-year-old.
• Jay and Dré took me to the Owen Pallett concert at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre; I had heard him at the Calgary Music Festival a few years ago, and was intrigued. The concert provoked much discussion about tape delays and electronica and so forth. To me, it's somebody doing something fun with a fiddle, which I always enjoy. Hadn't been to a concert in a very long time, and it was preceded by a great dinner at Leslie Jones in Leslieville, complete with a splendid view of Queen East's eclectic population, assorted body shops and assisted housing -- and nonstop Bob Dylan in concert on the sound system. I got through the whole night pretty well.
• Yesterday we celebrated the 50th birthday of one of my brothers, and although I couldn't finish my plate, the dinner was yummy. Especially my mom's homemade birthday cake with boiled brown sugar icing. It was fun, even though I felt a little yucky. I think my brother was pleased and touched by the day.
• My former tenant and friend Isabella has been staying with me, and she's an attentive nurse and housekeeper. And she leaves me alone to sleep and do the stuff that needs doing, whether it's filling out yet more insurance forms or trying to keep up with emails or just playing Lexulous. Or blogging.