So, good stuff.

Work went well, for which I am thankful. I got the cake ordered for Friday’s party; it was a far more complicated process than you might imagine. The person taking the order (over the phone) did not grow up speaking English. I was spelling the names which should go on the cake. There are four of them. I asked her to spell them back to me. One of my co-workers (male) has a given name that sounds like a surname in the order taker’s language. I had the bright idea of telling her “like surname, but take the last two letters off”. I thought it was an elegant solution to the problem. I was wrong; that was the name which got mangled the worst. Finally I asked if there were anybody in the bakery department who spoke English. I hate doing that. I like to sweetly persist in efforts to communicate until both parties feel (A) clear, (B) intelligent, and (C) successful.

With great relief, she told me that the other woman would be there in three minutes. I called back in fifteen and got Ms. EnglishSpeaker. In less than a minute, I had the order confirmed: half a sheet cake, half vanilla and half chocolate, vanilla butter-cream icing, sprinkles and confetti, four properly spelled names.

The massage went well last night. I can look at my right foot and ankle and see a shadow of my former sylph. Ditto my right wrist. All are visibly smaller than they were at the end of my workday and before the massage therapist went to work connecting dots and unblocking passageways. There was not time to do much work on the left half, which is worse, but we got things stirred up a bit, and I have booked another appointment for the end of next week, as Brother Sushi has a conflict for the night on which we would ordinarily have dinner.

This woman is amazing! I am so glad that I persisted until I got a series of appointments lined up. They are definitely going to be more often than once every four weeks. I think we can move toward that in a couple of months, but right now there is so much work to be done, and I can feel such a difference already.

When I was done, as I was paying, my body told me that we wanted watermelon. I don’t like watermelon. I like it a little more than I like broccoli, but not much. So I stopped at the grocery store and came home with two pounds of cut-up watermelon. And another pound or pound and a half of canteloupe, which is the only melon I really like. I ate watermelon and canteloupe for dinner last night, after nuking some cheese in a wrap and calling a quesadilla, and then a bit of edamame hummus with baguette for dessert, and a banana after that. I am working my way through another small bowl of watermelon as we speak. I don’t like it any better than I did last night, but I am eating it.

Next week we are going to connect the dots on the left side of my body. She says to continue with the chair massages when I get the chance, as they will work on my upper body. She talked about the tension in my hands. Yep! strung up tighter than a woman of ill repute in church. She talked about old emotional wounds. [Might have a few of those, but as I discover them, I hand them over to Heaven for scar revision surgery.]

I feel really good this morning. Or, rather, the right half of my body feels ten or twenty years younger, and the left half is distinctly cranky and jealous, but hopeful.

I was online last night, and a message popped up from the new guy: Turn on your phone. So I did, and he called, and we talked for twenty minutes or so. He is probably in chemo as I type this, and said he will call me tonight to let me know how it went.

I do not feel all anxious about it today, as I did two weeks ago, which is probably the greater part of the reason I was sick that day and stayed home from work.

I have an invitation to his ward’s temple night next week, but we have already scheduled visiting teaching for that night. I told him when our ward meets for their temple session. It might be feasible this month.

I had an aha! moment a bit ago. When Firstborn was tiny, and I had that massive nursing-mom infection [figured that if I spelled out the word for the mammalian organ, I would get all sorts of weird traffic here on the blog], it was on the left side of my body. I wonder if the blockage was already forming then?

It was really cool, last night, to have her working on a trigger point near my shoulder blade, and another near my hip, and suddenly feel little sparklers of energy traveling between the two points, along the front of my body. Or to have her work on something near my hip, and feel referred pain or pressure shooting up through my neck into the base of my skull, and then resolving itself.

Time to reload my bowl of watermelon so I can take some to work.

She said that as we work and free things up, I will lose a lot of weight (I think it is mostly water-weight), I will regain my energy, and I will sleep better. I suspect that Heaven and I will be doing a lot of spiritual and emotional house-cleaning as this occurs, as well.

Can’t wait.

But if you will all kindly excuse me, nature is calling.