A Working Vacation

I’m on cancer vacation - sort of. For the first time in 18+ months, I’m not in treatment, on any drugs except my maintenance stuff, and have no medical appointments. But it’s not a “lay around and catch up on reading” sort of vacation.

I need to scurry to two different pharmacies to take advantage of $20 kickbacks with transferred prescriptions. I’m reapplying for a grant from a cancer organization and I’m in the process of refinancing my house. Both require a fair amount of time and reams of paperwork. Speaking of paperwork, I've been very neglectful and everywhere I look there are piles of paper that need to be filed: bills, insurance, etc. I'm in danger of becoming one of those crazy people who has little paths through the clutter.

I’m overdue on mowing but out of gas, so first I have to fill the gas can. I need to drop off a couple months’ worth of recycling. (We have curbside recycling here, but they charge for it and it’s privatized, so I refuse to use it.) I need to get to the post office and FedEx, then come back and mow at least half the yard if it’s not raining. I'm halfway through Laundry Mountain, with hopes of reaching the summit today. And very soon, I will either have to clean the Villa or apply for a Superfund Grant. Things are getting toxic around here.

Gosh, it's tiring just thinking about everything that needs to be done! Of course, fatigue is still an issue, so most days I manage to get two or three chores done before dropping like a stone. It seems endless, and overwhelming, and I really, really wish I'd had the sense (or lack thereof) to have married some nimrod so I could just crawl back into bed and know that someone would still be working on The List.

So it’s not a real vacation, at least not yet. I’m hopeful that if I just keep my head down and keep plowing through my tasks and errands, eventually I’ll work my way through all the to-do’s, and have a day (or several!) to just completely decompress and pretend I’m on a real vacation.