Going out two days in a row!

I was expecting to feel exhausted after yesterday's excursion, but to my surprise, and delight, I'm having a pretty good day. So good that I am planning to go out later this afternoon to get a much needed pedicure--my toenails haven't been cut for months, and they are getting so long it is uncomfortable. Plus, I find having my feet taken care of to be one of the most pampering experiences imaginable.

Ann has been here all morning and we cleared out some piles of stuff that were in the way and making it difficult to get things set up optimally. A few weeks ago Marty had the idea that a hospital-style bedside table would work much better than the bed tray I've been using. He mentioned it to Kathy and she said that hospice could take care of getting one delivered. In fact, through some mix-up, two different companies each delivered one, and we are still waiting for one of the companies to come and pick up the one we're not using. Now that there is space for it, I have the table arranged so it can go either at the side of the bed, or swivel around and go over the bed (ideal for eating or working on the computer).

Yesterday, Florence, Marty, and I worked together on the Sunday Times crossword puzzle, and finished it--we all agreed that it definitely needed all three of us. Marty disdains to do the Boston Globe puzzle, but Florence and I did that one, too, and today, in the course of clearing up one of the piles, I discovered two partially done Sunday Times puzzles, so later we will definitely have a go on those!

Although I still get ridiculously winded from any little exertion, I'm not feeling the overwhelming fatigue I was expecting to feel after a day out. Yesterday, well into the evening I took a nap (the urge to sleep coming on me quite suddenly), and also got a pretty good night's sleep, and when I woke up for good this morning I could tell it would be a good day. Florence, who habitually walks three miles every morning with a friend, went out with Julie and the dogs at seven-thirty for a long walk (I'm not sure how the distance compares with her usual walk). I tell her that even though she is eighty she is clearly a lot younger than me, since the twenty or thirty feet I walked yesterday from the car to the restaurant was my idea of a long walk!

A little while ago I got a call from a Boston Globe reporter, responding to an e-mail I sent the other day in response to a story she wrote on how even people with health insurance are finding themselves having to pay higher and higher out-of-pocket costs. I told her how my insurance is unwilling to pay for more hospice services, but instead will pay much more to put me back in the hospital, where I don't want to be, and as a result she is coming here tomorrow with a photographer to do a story! I hope this will embarrass someone at United Health Care into doing the right thing.

Today I'm feeling a lot of anger at being in this situation, and, as I try to do with all my emotions, I'm letting it out. It really is a rotten deal that I am so sick and so weak at an age when I should be still traveling the world and doing the work I love. I want to yell, and curse, and cry, and I am doing each of these things as they come to the surface.

I expect the pedicure will help me mellow out. I'm going to a salon that I've never used before, which describes itself as having an old-fashioned, cozy ambiance. Being pampered is something good I can give to myself, something I really need right now.