I saw my Oncologist who said everything is looking good and he doesn't need to see me until March.  I also had my annual colonoscopy to check and make sure everything is looking good there and that came back clear! So I got really good reports this past month, but I was supersized be my lack of enthusiasm.  I am healed of cancer and Dr Greico says I'm healing well from my surgery from 4 months ago, I should have been jumping for joy.  So I sat with my feelings for a while and tried to figure out what was keeping me from the joy and I realized that my excuse for taking care of myself and taking it easy had just been removed.  I said at the beginning of all of this that I knew I'd need to take care of myself not because I was sick but because I was worth it.
    This last year I slowed down a lot, I pulled back from a lot of commitments and I learned how to say no.  And people respected that because I had a perfectly acceptable reason to say no.  But now my reason was NO more!  And I was faced with this awareness that my lack of excitement was because now I knew it would be harder to maintain my commitment to self care.  I am going to have to put more effort into it.  I honestly have started to enjoy this slower pace and I don't ever want to go back to the overextended, over-committed, stressed out person I was before.  And I don't have to, and I won't.  I know now that my yes is sacred and I can't give it to everything or I'll be saying NO to other things.  I know where my priorities are and I want God to take the lead.  I can do a great many things for the sheer fact that they are good, but I also know that when I do the things that God has directly called me to, that those things prosper and don't leave me feeling exhausted.  So I'm moving into the real challenge of self care, taking care of myself for real, not because there is a reason. 
    All that being said, while Dr Greico has said my healing is going well I still have two more months wearing the abdominal binder and he said I am not to do abdominal work for a year.  So I still have a long way to go, but I am encouraged by the progress that I have made and am continuing to make.  It will probably continue to be farther and farther between updates but I still plan to post until the healing is complete.