"Nothing More We Can Do..."

I am heading back into yoga hell. The tough class. The class where everyone did head stands and neck stands and I was the oldest in the room. This morning. If I survive, I am looking forward to orchestra rehearsal tonight. The concert is February 2. Two weeks. Three more rehearsals. Tonight should focus on difficult passages of Beethoven's 5th Symphony and the second movement of Elgar's Cello Concert. My goal for today is to recover enough from yoga to totally focus on the music tonight. I want to make music tonight, not just read the notes.

Michael called his contact yesterday and was not able to get tickets to see the The Who. I let Chip know last night. With being gone for four days and the upcoming memorial service for his brother, Michael doesn't want to fly to Vegas or Arizona to see them. Too bad. They would have had fun together.

Yesterday, I spoke on the phone with Kathy from our rehab class. She had not be at the class for a few months because she and her husband bought a condo in Seattle. Their daughter lives there along with their first grandchild. They have been visiting every month but thought it would be easier to have their own place. We chatted about the class and Seattle and our illnesses. She has some kind of fibrotic lung disease but none of the doctors can determine the type nor the cause. She also has a terrible problem with her back and has a rod all the way up to her neck. Her one lung is totally useless and the other is only at 50%. She is needing increasingly more supplemental oxygen to get through her day and, just recently, is on it 24/7. She is a tall, very thin woman and because her thoracic cavity is very small and her back issues, she is not a candidate for lung transplants. She has been told that there really isn't much more they can do for her.

She is about five years younger than I am. Our children are about the same age. We both have been married for decades.

We talked about living with that information, the importance of having the serious conversations with loved one and having everything in order. She says she tries not to think about that fact and she does not let it run her life. They go to Shark games, they fly their plane to weekends away together, they spend as much time as possible with her daughter and grandson, she does not hide in her house or cry everyday or retreat. She simply lives life to its fullest. Every day.

She is living life well with a bad diagnosis.