I have a beloved Australian shepherd named Mitzi. i’ve written about her in previous blog posts.

Growing up, I was an Air Force brat and we moved so much,we never had dogs.It was just too hard to deal with finding kennels and new homes and having to deal with quarantining, etc.

We were a house of cats. They traveled well, and were a staple for my entire childhood.

There have been a couple of dogs that have passed through my life in my 20s and 30s, strays that would come in and out of my life. It didn’t end well because I knew nothing about dogs.

When I met my husband in 2007, he had a dog. He also had dogs his entire life. His dog was well behaved, and I started rethinking my position on dogs.

A lot of my experience from dogs was with poorly behaved ones. Dogs running out at me, unleashed and yapping at my ankles. Or dogs on those terrible leashes that zip out toward you while the owner is not paying attention. Jumping dogs. Barking dogs.

You get the picture.

Sometime around 2009, I went to the pet store to get something for my husband’s dog – we were married now so she also was my dog. Sort of.

As I was walking into the store, the most beautiful puppy I ever had seen was walking out.

A fluffy, jaunty confidence added to the allure. The dog was black with gold and white highlights. And it had piercing blue eyes!

I started researching what kind of dog I would want if I was to get a dog. I wanted a medium size dog. I knew I wanted an intelligent dog. And I definitely knew I didn’t want a small dog.

After much research, I settled on Australian shepherds. I found a breeder in Georgia, and found out that she was going to be in my area showing her dogs. It was a perfect opportunity to check out this whole dog thing.

I was amazed! These dogs were performing in the ring, and they were all extremely well behaved. They rested quietly in crates when it wasn’t their turn to perform. They watched their owners every move, and came and went as they were told. When released, they were wiggle butts of love and affection.

I was sold!

The breeder and I made an arrangement for me to get a puppy out of her next litter. Little did I know that she’s one of the top breeders in the entire country.

After watching the puppy cam that was set up when the pups were born, I had my heart on a little pup that had a brown kiss on her head. Right on the top in the middle of the white! But I had no idea which puppy I was gonna end up with.

My dad and I made two 5-hour trips to Georgia to see the puppies.

The very first time I saw them, this little puppy that I’ve been watching with the kiss on her head, came and sat in my lap as I sat cross legged on the ground. I was in love!

The breeder knew my intentions, but she’s a professional and she had dogs that needed to go to professional homes. The dog that I wanted had a lot of potential.

At seven weeks old, I brought home the puppy I wanted. I got to name her. She is named Mitzi. I named her after Mitzi Gaynor of “South Pacific”, because she was a sassy, beautiful gal. Her fancy name is “Nightstar’s Some Enchanted Eve”, after that great ballad in that movie.

I set her up for a puppy classes, and we were on our way. I soon learned that most bad dog behavior can be attributed to irresponsible owners.

Mitzi was very smart and eager to learn, and we went through all of the classes together, all the way up through canine good citizenship.

I also tried to get her to be a therapy dog through Pet Partners, but the trainer never did her final test, so she did not make the cut, through no fault of her own.

When Mitzi was five, she became acutely ill and went blind in one eye. It turned out she had a rare disease that left lesions on her brain. In smaller dogs, it is almost always fatal.

We went up to Auburn University Veterinary School in Alabama, got a plan of action, and a wonderful vet in a nearby town gave her the subcutaneous chemotherapy treatment that she required every week. My own vet refused to do it. I am ever in this veterinarians debt!

Fast forward to now. For most of the years since that diagnosis at age 5 she’s been healthy. She did lose her vision in her left eye. Due to the fast and accurate treatment of the emergency vet, she did not lose vision in her other eye.

Now she’s 13 years old. She’s slowing down like most old dogs do. She’s got cataracts now, and her vision is poor in her remaining eye. Her hearing is also not great. She is also been getting lumps and bumps that I suspect are masses.

Last night she woke me up coughing a couple of times. it was an uneasy, haunting sound. It almost sounded human.

I called that vet this morning and he called her in some medication’s for her cough.

As I have been her groomer since she was a puppy, I gave her a good brush down and trimmed her nails and loved on her, and picked her up and put her on the bed.The dog that used to jump feet into the air to easily catch frisbees cannot jump up into beds, or climb upstairs anymore.

As I reached under to pick her up, I found a hard mass, about the size of a couple of golf walls. They are in the area of her mammory glands.

A year ago on December 7, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I’m so blessed to say that I am cancer free!

Now a year later, there’s a great chance that my beloved dog has breast cancer. What are the odds?

It’s a bitter irony to me.

We’ve got an appointment to see her vet the first week of December.

She’s my best girl. She changed my life.

Please say a prayer for my Mitzi.

I am not Susie Homemaker.

Many things have contributed to this.

When I was young, I was cooking as soon as I could reach the stove. By the time I was a freshman in high school, I was responsible for cleaning the house, and cooking when my mom was at work.

Rebelliously, I refused to clean MY room. It was the only place I was in control.

Rebellion was strong with the younger me. I was a single mom, working 2-3 jobs, and keeping the house clean was on the list – below spending time with the kids, making sure they were fed, and trying to get some sleep.

The house sometimes looked “lived in”. Usually looked worse.

I’ve worked since I was 16. I never got into a rhythm of cleaning.

I have raging ADHD, and it’s all about systems for me. Making lists. Checking things off.

It’s easy for me to get overwhelmed when there is a lot to do.

No one took the time to show me how to keep a home.

I didn’t have time.

Interestingly enough, all I wanted to be when I grew up was a housewife and mother.

Now, in the last quarter of my life, it is being realized.

It’s not easy to start something new at this age.

I know how to work hard – I’ve done it for decades.

Now I am slowly coming up with a system that works for me.

Little by little, there is a deep cleaning happening in this big house.

I’m learning to slow down. It’s a fight. My body threw up the white flag, and I have to listen.

So I will.

I am a full time housewife.

Finally.

I moved every 1-2 years for the first 14 years of my life.

I am a military child, an Air Force Brat.

I’ve been all over the country. I have lived in the south, Midwest, and west.

When we moved to Utah for the second time, I felt it in my soul.

I was home.

I said it aloud as a 14 year old, with the Wasatch front looming behind me – “I’m never moving again!!”

I did.

I’ve lived in the southeast for 24 years now. I was in Utah for 10 years.

I miss it.

I can smell the high desert smell of cedar wood. The grassy high mountain sweetness of Eden.

I can see the cottonwood fluffs floating by.

I can hear the roar of the Ogden River in spring.

I can feel the soft grass underneath me as I stare up at the clouds.

Oh, Ben Lomond – my favorite mountain on the planet, smiling down over the valley. How I long to look out the window and see it.

I miss my hearts home.

I’m sitting in the spinning black chair, my feet on the metal foot rest, scrolling social media mindlessly. I’m waiting for the freshly applied color to transform my gray roots to a close approximation of the hair color of my youth.

A young hairdresser is excitedly talking to her client as she trims his white hair, just a booth over from me.

She’s buying her first home – a townhome.

Her client grunts and says “yes” at the appropriate pauses.

She’s excited to get out of her rental apartment.

He asks her how much for this new home.

“$300k” is her response, immediately followed by revelation it is built by a well known builder of shoddy homes.

The man is concerned. I can hear it in his voice. He’s older, and gently goes into a fatherly conversation mode.

She continues, nonplussed.

He counters that he once had one of these homes by that builder, and gently explains all the issues. He frames it in a way for her to be sure to check every aspect of this home before they sign.

I’m cringing. I understand her excitement, even as I know she’s being ripped off, and worse.

She walks him to the register, telling him how the builder is rushing them to sign on the dotted line.

I know so much, yet I am outside her world. I wish I could save her.

She wouldn’t hear a thing, though.

She’s too happy. And young.

I didn’t hear a thing either when I was her age. I made the mistakes, letting my excitement override better judgement.

I rise to get my hair rinsed, the new color absorbed into all the gray hairs that I have earned over the years.

I’ve earned every single one.

A dear friend of mine had a lovely home that I looked at with awe every time I visited.

It was always cleaned within an inch of its life. It was decorated beautifully, with seasonal touches coming and going.

I felt a little less than after visiting. I don’t have a lot of decorations – my husband abhors “dust catchers”. I loved all her personal touches. You could see her love for different places and memories.

This morning, a mutual friend sent me the listing for the contents of the house on an auction site.

My dear friend passed away cruelly to ALS, and her husband recently followed.

As I looked through the auction house pictures, it made me sad.

Everything looked so beautiful still…but no one was home.

I’m sure family members selected items that were sentimental to them.

Yet, there was so, so much more left behind.

None of it will ever mean as much to anyone as it did for my friend. I am glad she found joy in collecting these things.

It has made me look long and hard at my own home.

As I get older, I am giving more things away.

Instead of buying, I am reducing.

Combing through my closet and paring it down. And again

When I go to the store or see something I like online, I’ll consider it. Hold it. Put it in the basket. Nine times out of ten, I won’t buy it.

I’m framing photos, which bring me joy at each glance.

We will buy a piece of art from somewhere we travel to.

I started a slow journey to de-clutter.

Now it will be a steady minimization of what I’ve accumulated.

I don’t want to fund another storage facility. I don’t want a full attic.

Goodbye again, dear friend. I’ll look at our pictures and remember the good times.

We are staying in a bland, brick home filled neighborhood. The house sits on the edge of a cul-de-sac, backed up to a corn field.

The field has been my comfort, as I am far from home, and in a place that isolates me even further from my family.

I go to the backyard whenever I need a few minutes to breathe.

The corn field is just a few feet from the back chain link fence.

The field rustles, verdant against the pale blue of the late summer skies. The corn has already tassled, signaling the coming fade to brown that will herald harvest time.

The tassled tops are gold, shivering with every breeze. Beneath them, the leaves of the stalks scrape and shove against each other in the scant inches between each stalk. Each push of air causes noise, more raucous as the wind increases.

Below the jostling corn, the crickets sing. Unseen, their high chirping underscore the shuffling noises above. Their song comes from a thousand places at once, yet not a single hopping insect is seen while I stand there listening.

The sun begins to set, and the harvest moon rises in the west. As daylight drops into night, the field darkens to a rich green black.

The stalks shuffle.

The crickets sing.

I am at peace.

He was 7 when he got diagnosed with a bleeding disorder.

At age 10, he had his spleen removed as a “cure”.

It didn’t cure him.

This evening while I was watching the sun set over the corn field, I glanced over and saw a transformer box.

I remember that my son used to sit on top of a transformer box when he was struggling the most with his bleeding disorder.

Every week it seemed we were either getting blood tests, or he was being admitted to the hospital for treatment.

Outside the crappy, 800 square foot garden apartment that I lived in with him and his two siblings, the transformer box stood by the parking lot.

There wasn’t a lot to do in that apartment. Not enough space. Outside, there were no swing sets or slides. He climbed on the grey metal box.

It scared me to death. I was so afraid he’d fall off and hit his head, causing a brain bleed.

One day he did fall off, landing on his bottom…and causing a huge hematoma to arise, fearsome and purple.

Straight to the hospital we went, and another hospitalization ensued.

That was nearly three decades ago.

I had forgotten the constant anxiety I lived with for many, many years.

Now my boy is healthy, married, and a wonderful human.

I’m grateful.

I’ve learned a lot in the last 3 months.

Three months ago, I had a traumatic injury to my right knee. It dropped me to the ground, sobbing, and I knew something was torn.

I did what a lot of people and stubborn nurses do. I elevated it, put ice on it, and just figured it would get better.

It didn’t.

The daily pain was the worst for the first six weeks. A completely avulsed meniscus and a bone bruise are very painful.

I suffered through sleepless nights and very painful days.

Then I went to the orthopedist.

She told me about the injuries listed above. The meniscus will not come back. I was not shocked. I was mentally ready for that.

What came next, I was NOT ready for.

My interior knee is now bone on bone.

Stage 4 arthritis. End stage arthritis.

No cure. Some palliative options. Partial knee replacement needed soon.

This sent me into a flood of tears. I had gone from fully to mobile to…now I wear a medial unloader brace to be able to walk. That was a trade up from a cane.

I can’t walk distances. I did weeks of PT and learned the quad loading exercises I need to do to keep my legs strong.

The expert at the local sports med Mecca told me that running and even walking any distance are things of the past.

I can’t wrap my head around that.

It’s a reality I live with daily, though.

I’m slow but steady. I have a brace on my leg that covers 2/3 of it. Despite this obvious walking aid, I’m amazed at people who cut me off or race ahead of me to get in line when I’m at the store. I guess they see the advantage and go for it.

I’m tall – 70”. Most toilets hit me below the knee. Getting up and down is a painful and difficult process. At home, I have a booster seat (I wish I was kidding) made for the commode, so I can sit down and get up without an issue.

In public restrooms, only the handicapped bathroom will suffice. The commode is taller, and there are rails to hold onto.

Being able bodied, I never considered the handicapped stall for people who can’t get up and down easily. In the past, if I was in the restroom and it was the only stall open, I would use it if it was urgent.

I have seen the error of my ways.

Every step is a struggle now. Every time I get up or down of a chair, or in and out of a vehicle, I have to plan, position, brace, boost…whatever it takes.

The aromatase inhibitors I have to take for five years exacerbate things. All my joints are achey, and the ones that hurt, hurt more.

I’m hoping this is just a season with limited mobility, but time with tell.

In the mean time, my husband continues to help me out of the car, pulls right up to the front door, and helps me however he can.

I’ll keep doing the PT exercises, try to increase my time on the stationary bike (the only permitted exercise, now that I can’t run, walk, or hike).

This, too, hopefully will pass.

In the mean time, I’m a lot more sympathetic to those who are mobility impaired and who can’t find parking spaces because of selfish people who don’t need to use those handicapped spots.

I have never been an athlete.

I hated PE when I was a child.

I was a child in the ‘70’s, so I spent a LOT of time riding my bike, playing outside, running around.

I was not by any means sedentary.

Fast WAY forward to my mid forties when I was diagnosed (incorrectly) with type 2 diabetes.

From the age of 45 to 50, I ran 22 half marathons, a couple 15k’s, lots of 10k’s, and even more 5k’s.

I didn’t like it at first.

I always hated the first mile.

Eventually, though, I got a sense of peace during the runs – I never had that “runners high”, but I definitely got in the zone.

It was a great sense of accomplishment to start and finish a race – especially a half marathon. Or that time I ran 2 half’s in one week.

When I got diagnosed (correctly) with type 1 diabetes (LADA), the running stopped, because my labile blood sugars would tank.

I always meant to start up again. I’ve been listening to audio books by my running inspirations. Mentally, I was preparing.

About a month ago, I suffered an injury to my right knee. Like the stubborn nurse I am, I hobbled around, icing and elevating when I could, living off voltaran, which took a slight edge off.

Finally, I took myself to the orthopedic doctor.

My meniscus is toast. Completely ruptured.

I expected something like this.

What I didn’t expect came next.

I have stage 4 arthritis in my right knee. I have no cartilage left. It is bone on bone.

I cried through that appointment, overwhelmed by the big health news I had just received, so soon after the breast cancer diagnosis I had in December. It seemed like a lot.

(Yesterday’s mammogram was clear – hallelujah!! Cancer free 6 months!)

Today was blow two.

I went to “the” leading osteo issues place in the area. I was given several choices on how to deal with this bum knee – and I decided to get a peripheral nerve stimulator to deal with the pain. None of the treatments are cures – they are all temporary band aids on the discomfort.

I asked the doctor what level of activity I can expect to do now.

He said no running. No walking except “for life”.

I’m sitting here with my leg propped, thinking of all the races I’ve planned for, trained for, entered…and now it is over.

It’s a lot.

I CAN use a stationary or recumbent bike.

I’ll be talking to medical friends. Researching. Tweaking my diet. I won’t go down without a fight!

I just didn’t expect this to happen at my age.

Today, I’m in mourning. Mourning the woman that went from couch potato to half marathon runner.

I’m proud of her. Humbled by her strength.

I am going to have to summon that strength again…and redirect it.

We sailed on a faux pirate sailing vessel to our snorkel site.

After clambering onto the padded seating that ringed the boat, we were given cauliflower soup in artisan bowls. Truffle oil glistened on the surface, tantalizing on this hot day with a hot soup offering.

The soup was delicious, and the flavor gliding past my palate was unfamiliar and mysterious. Unable to identify the spice profile, I ate it all anyway. It was a traditional island greeting for guests, we were told.

We reached the beautiful dark turquoise waters, and listened to the safety briefing as they anchored the sailboat. At last, into the water!

The sand below was white, and the ghosts of former coral formations lay pale on top of it. Floating, still, I listened to the crunch of the parrot fish as it ate the dead coral, depositing with the rest of the sand on the floor of the ocean.

I swam a bit, looking around, and finding a swarm of infinitesimal fish at the surface – clear, and tiny like gnats. I wondered if this was similar to the krill that the world’s giant whales lived on.

I swam toward the shore, and large coral formations materialized before me. Standing taller than I was, I carefully avoided getting too close. From my safe distance, I could see larger fish cutting in and out between the branches.

I surfaced, cleaning my mask and clearing my snorkel, and turned back toward the boat.

Soon I was over clumps of sea grass. I stilled myself, floating in the rhythm of the sea grasses below – back, and forth. Back, and forth. Arms outstretched, I breathed in the peaceful feeling of being one with the ocean.

Clown fish weaved through the green blades below me, and a blue tang surprised me by racing past me to the left. Various fish of color and size moved below me. I spent several minutes watching, my breathing slow and even. I was an interloper, but not one to disturb the life around me.

I started my move to exit their peaceful home, and smiled at the school of angel fish under the sailboat. I paused again to watch the coordinated movements to and fro, glinting bright on one side, muted on the other.

Reluctantly, I pulled myself back onto the swaying vessel.

Seated again on the thick padded cushion, I relaxed as I dried in the sun. The breeze was comfortable now, and the trip back was much cooler for the dip I had taken in the clear water.

I felt blessed to experience this day in Bonaire.