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" It was just a purse party, but it might as well have been a state dinner at the White House, or something just as daunting. My neighbor, Janet, had invited me to her house next door for a mid-day gathering where women talk, eat bagels and buy purses, jewelry and wallets. Normally, this would be a simple stop for a little Christmas shopping during my day, but since I&amp;#039;d just finished five months of cancer treatments, it felt more like the final leg of the Olympic torch lighting: tiring, yet commemorative.  By the time I walked up the hill to Janet&amp;#039;s house, I was gasping for air. I used to bike that hill without breaking a sweat, and yet, there I was, hugging Janet&amp;#039;s mailbox as though I&amp;#039;d just been washed ashore during a storm. I caught my breath before I entered her house.  After I bought two Christmas presents, I stood in the kitchen and watched everyone else eat. My throat, still sore from radiation, certainly couldn&amp;#039;t get muffins down, so, I drank tea and chatted. As I compared home remodeling notes with a neighbor, I thought, It&amp;#039;s awfully nice of Janet to help ease me back into society. Because I&amp;#039;m finding that it&amp;#039;s not so easy to restart your life after cancer treatments. Since I finished radiation last week, I&amp;#039;ve been trying to recapture a little more of normal whenever I can. I cooked dinner for the first time since June. I put the Halloween decorations away in the attic. I bought a star for the Christmas tree. It sounds boring, I know, but to me, it&amp;#039;s as exciting as a prisoner&amp;#039;s first step outside the barbed wire. Now I know how Martha Stewart felt when she got out of jail.  And yet, I&amp;#039;ve still got a ways to go before I reach normal. My eyebrows are half grown-in, and my hair appears to be stuck somewhere between balding-man-who-forgot-to-shave and Demi Moore in &amp;quot;G.I. Jane.&amp;quot;  I still have to paint over the lines chemo left on my fingernails, and I am the most out of shape I&amp;#039;ve ever been. Even after five weeks of bed rest for pre-term labor, I didn&amp;#039;t need to hug a mailbox. And I certainly wasn&amp;#039;t thrilled to be able to put away the dishes. Sometimes I feel like shouting, &amp;quot;Look! I can carry the groceries into the house again!&amp;quot; In other words, &amp;quot;Look! I&amp;#039;m normal!&amp;quot; Sort of. For the next eight weeks, I will wait for (and worry about) my PET scan, which will show whether or not I&amp;#039;m in remission. Until then, I&amp;#039;ll attend the purse parties and other simple, yet greatly appreciated events. But when Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year&amp;#039;s are over, I hope to have something very special to celebrate. Something truly extraordinary and yet, at the same time, normal. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a2118/good-grief-112207/>