Thursday, April 22, 2010

Reading and reading and reading and reading and reading

Since T3 and T4 hormones have officially "left the building," I'm left on most days with a heating pad and a couple of sweaters, a wool blanket and a stack of books. The diagnosis coincided with my ex's 16 day tour of Thailand, which essentially means that my mom is on shift with Ben every day after I wrap up my morning sessions with clients.

This is a new thing for me; this laying around and relying heavily on other people to help with daily activities, particularly those that involve Ben. I understand very much that it's a time of being in limbo, a time to wait patiently on my doctor, to wait on the technicians who are generating results and image slides, to wait for the next appointment, the next test. I'm waiting on 40 and I'm waiting on an outcome. I might be getting used to waiting.

What's helping is this stack of books that I've collected for a few months now. I've always loved to read but after my divorce, I went through a long, long period where I couldn't focus on characters, story lines, or words. Sometime in the last year, I fell back into the literary world. Maybe the blogging had something to do with it.

In any event, I've discovered two tremendous authors - Lisa See and Kelly Corrigan - who are definitely book club worthy. Kelly Corrigan is my new heroine; I want to go to San Francisco and have a long lunch with her. I know I'd need a whole box of tissues because I would simultaneously laugh and cry my eyes out. She's THAT amazing.

In the last month, I've also read "The Alchemist" (finally!), "The Mommy Wars" (sad commentary on our expectations of mothers), "The Reliable Wife" (fabulously racy and entertaining) and "The Year of Fog" (no mother of a six-year-old should attempt this).

Realistically, I'm probably looking at more couch time and less gym time in the next few weeks. Please send me any book suggestions you might have. A good read definitely beats scouring the internet for pituitary information! It's also a little more rewarding than Facebook or People.com. But I still make time for those too!

2 comments:

Michelle Richmond said...

Hi Janeen. Came across your blog through Google alerts. It's so well-written and compelling, I just had to share, so I've been tweeting it. Wishing you well...Michelle @michellerichmon

Lish said...

I literally have been trying to wrack my brain to figure out how I can be paid to just read already published books.

One of my favorites lately is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Weird title. Compelling book. I'll email you more as I think of them.