2025 was quite the year

As I sit here in my recliner on December 31, 2025 I think of this past year. It has been challenging. One of my most challenging years ever.

This one has involved health challenges. It started with increasing muscular pain that began in January—and made no sense to me. The pain grew progressively worse and made walking harder and harder. I went to using a cane for a few months and then to using a walker. It was muscular pain that moved around, like pulled muscles. But pulled muscles stay with one muscle. They don't move around. My pains would move. And all of the pain made it hard to walk.

I also had double vision at the periphery in my right eye. That popped up right after cataract surgery in that eye, so I assumed there had to be a connection.

In trying to find the source of these pains as well as the double vision, my doctors ordered an MRI on my brain in October.

That scan result was a surprise to me.

It showed cancer in my bones. And a follow-up PET scan showed cancer in multiple bones.

And with that diagnosis my life got even harder. I'm currently taking an aromatase inhibitor that targets the specific kind of breast cancer than I have (it's what has spread to my bones). I was taking two types of aromatase inhibitor, but I can't tolerate one of them. So I'll start trying a different one next week.

I've been on a roller coaster of treatment side effects with a couple of trips to the ER. And a lot of rotten days when I felt bad all day and night.

This past week, though, has brought some improvement, and nausea is the worst symptom. I still have some trouble breathing and have some wheezing, but I've not been gasping for breath as I did for a while. My fractured ribs must be mostly healed because they're not hurting.

The biggest positive through all of these challenges has been the support of my sister and her husband and my friends. My sister has come several times to take care of me and help around the house while her husband has taken care of things on their home front. My friends have come through in myriad ways, getting me to appointments and feeding me and sending cards and gifts and doing chores and anything else that I've needed.

For in independent person like me, it's hard to ask for help. But I'm getting better at it. And I get to see how willing people are to help in so many different ways. I get to see firsthand how community is so very important.

Perhaps the oddest feeling for me today as I reflect on this past year and look toward the new one is wondering if I'll be here on December 31st of 2026.

Or will I have crossed over? Will I have died?

On past New Year's Days I've assumed I'd be around the next New Year. Yes, I knew it was possible that something could happen that would cause me to cross over, to die. But I didn't think it would. Even when I went through breast cancer the first time in 2011 I assumed the chemo would work and that I'd gradually recover. And I did.

Though I do think now that that those two rounds of chemo are making this treatment harder. I think that my body's having been through those two rounds has weakened its tolerance of the targeted drugs. I see others who are on these same meds tolerate them so much better, and I wonder why. Am I just weaker somehow?

I wonder if I'm just a wimp, not able to tolerate pain that isn't that severe. But then I realize that those who tolerate the meds better have never been through systemic chemo. They haven't had the red devil. They haven't had taxotere.

I've had both.

So my body has already been through a whole lot. And survived.

But how long can it continue?

As I say about so many things: Time will tell.

I don't know if I'll be here in a year. Actually, none of us knows. But we make plans as if we will be alive in a year.

I only look a couple of months ahead now. Because I don't know how much longer I have on this particular life journey. I know I'm at least close-ish to the end. A lot will depend on how well the aromatase inhibitors are working. The signs in the CTs I've had indicate some healing of cancerous spots That's encouraging.

And I do feel better than I did when I got the metastasized cancer diagnosis. My oncologist said the meds would make me feel better. And they do—except when their side effects make me feel rotten!

I write all of this very dispassionately right now. I'm not feeling the impact of what these words mean, what it means not to have long to live.

But sometimes I do feel sad.

Sad about what I can't do now. Like walk easily. Like drive. Like go to places that appeal to me.

Like decide right now I want something and then go get it.

I can't do that now.

I feel sad that I haven't been to Savannah in almost four years. That I haven't seen my childhood church or driven past my childhood home in almost four years.

I also feel sad...

That I'll probably never see the Grand Canyon and visit Sedona to feel the energies of the vortexes. Those have been high on my list for a couple of decades.

That I'll probably never visit my favorite national park, the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, again.

That I may not even get to take another class at the John C. Campbell Folk School and stay in my favorite mountain cabin. Even though that's only two hours drive away.

Writing all of this does grieve me.

I have a glimmer of hope that maybe I'll do some of these things. Perhaps all?

Probably not all, but the hopeful part of me wonders if perhaps I might...

Right now it would be wonderful not to have so much pain that I need pain meds...so that I could drive again. To go to my garage and back my car out and drive to the grocery store would be a real gift. And then to be able to WALK into the grocery store and shop. Wow, I'd think I'm in heaven!

So this December 31st I think of very different things than I did a year ago. I don't take many things for granted now.

But I'm still hopeful on this last day of a year...

Just a little.

I mostly try to stay in this moment. A moment in which I have very little pain.

I have a warm house with warm clothes and plenty of food (food I don't enjoy much because of nausea, but that's not so bad). I have a generous, kind, loving sister I can call on at any time. I have lots of friends who will help me with whatever I need. I have more stuff than any one person needs. I have two (mostly) sweet cats who are good company. I have a comfortable electric recliner and an adjustable bed. I have a great TV with thousands of choices of what to watch. I have books upon books. I have paints and canvases and sketchbooks and all of the art supplies I need (and more). I have a nice view of bare trees and mountains on the horizon if I step out the front or back of my house.

Right now, in this moment, my life is good.

Who needs next year?

I don't.

Because NOW is what matters.

And my NOW is very pleasant!

So that is what I'll focus on this December 31, 2025.

May each one of you have a pleasant December 31, 2025.

May your NOW be lovely—filled with love in so many ways!