Lumps and All

Yesterday I had a lump removed from my right breast.  The lump-thing has been a sign of age: according to the breast specialists I have seen for the last three years, since the first lump appeared, peri-menopausal and menopausal women get them.  And a little tiny chest measurement is no guarantee or safety-feature.   The fibro-adenoma recognized a year ago suddenly decided to grow around Easter time, and then some more in just the last month, so it may actually be a filodes tumor, which like polyps can host cancers.  I'm being pro-active and pro-philactic (is that a verb?) and also got the cyst with little calcium stars drained and biopsied.  Results in a week!

This showed up in my email basket today: barefootceo@e.femailcreations.com. An email newsletter all about empty nesting. I have been telling people about my vacation -- which was scheduled, I admit it, to check up on my kids -- and that I cried on the way home. The youngest child is so so so together, goal-driven, and open with her questions, that I can trust her to tell me when her life starts to crash (right now, she may have strep throat). The other two play a bit closer to the vests, and I have to guess the emotion and the question behind their off-hand remarks. Martina, the wise woman in Palo Alto, has 6 adult children of her own and advises me to negotiate new relationships with each one individually and separately. The children/adults will know better than I do what they need from me. It sounds like the same strategy I used when they went to kindergarten, and then to Prom: leave the door open and let the face & voice project the open-door of my heart. I will add to that recipe: go to them, and sit with them -- let the silences fill naturally with conversations. I've already got some plans for next year's trip to CA!

Kids living across the country, and lumps in my breasts (not now!) --- I have to alter my way of thinking about my world. What can I control now? Not even the garden, which is the typical August jungle of lushness and happy health and weeds flaunting their power.