The Edge of the Cliff

By Jamie DeBree 2025/01/10 Weekly News, Writing Notes

First things first – I want to wish my best buddy Carol a very, very happy birthday today! I hope it’s fantastic!!🙂

When I was in my early 30’s, I quit my 3-per-day minimum Coca-Cola habit. I also went on a keto diet, worked out daily, and got myself in nearly as good of shape as I was while working the pool deck in high school and college.

I’ve had my ups and downs since, but I’ve tried to stay on the healthier side, and while the combination of menopause & winter is currently kicking my butt as far as weight goes, I still try to eat fairly low carb (not keto, by any means, but I avoid breads and pastas, much as it pains me to do so), I keep my sugar intake to a very dull level, and I drink incessant amounts of tea and tisanes (with the occasional sweetener-free flavored carbonated water thrown in for fun).

I do yoga every morning unless I’m rehabbing from some stupid injury (no, my knee is not completely healed from the pothole incident yet, but I am still doing morning yoga), I bounce on the rebounder/trampoline several times a week, walk the treadmill at least a few times a week when I cant’ walk the dogs due to ice/cold, and I walk two blocks from my car to my office four times daily. I always take the stairs, and park a fair distance away from doors when I shop. I’m trying to make sure I get at least 5 hours of sleep a night (which is all I can reasonably sleep without just waking up…if I could sleep through six, I totally would).

And yet, today marks one week away from my 50th birthday, and I am over-analyzing and worrying over the fact that the lymph nodes in my neck may still feel a bit woozy from the cold I’m still getting over.

Because it may not be just the cold, it may be the “family curse”, which I’ve mentioned here before. Briefly, for anyone who missed it, Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma runs in my family, on my dad’s side, and for three generations before me, it’s presented with a lump on the neck about 1 week before the oldest child’s 50th birthday. The younger children don’t tend to get it for some reason (luck of the draw?). Obviously it’s a genetic “switch” of some sort, and for the last twenty years I’ve been doing my best to thwart it.

Obviously, there’s a 50 percent chance I don’t have the gene, since it doesn’t run in my mom’s family. But having seen my dad go through radiation for his first bout with it, followed by hyperbaric chamber treatments for the destruction that caused in his jaw, and then a subsequent bout of chemo a few years later when it popped up again…I am quite hyper-aware of what that diagnosis could mean for me going forward.

Incidentally, my dad is fine now, and eating/living healthier than he ever did before, and staying more active. His mother lived into her 80’s after her diagnosis, so it is generally treatable.

But, I’m still hyper-focused on my neck and lymph nodes at the moment, and probably will be until one of them swells to an obvious lump, or until I kick the dregs of this dang cold to the curb once and for all, and finally start feeling normal again.

Either way, I’m going to find myself a new primary doc (my last one transferred to a different position), make an appointment “just in case”, and then try not to worry about it until something obvious happens. I’m trying not to look for trouble lest it finds me first, but in this case, it’s very difficult.

I did, however, write the draft of an entire short story by dictation while on the treadmill one night this week. I’m quite happy with that, and will be working on edits for that next week while I get back to work on my main novel for the rest of the month.

And I’m waffling on whether or not to try to schedule in for a 50th birthday tattoo next weekend. On the one hand, I should spend that money on my debt payoff goal. On the other hand, if I make it to next Friday without a lump on my neck…well, that seems like something well-worth celebrating. And a little tattoo ink tends to keep the lymph nodes busy for awhile, too. Ha!

Now, it’s time for some of that restorative sleep, after I finish my Immunity tea. Hopefully I’ll have good, no-lump news to report next week, and perhaps even a new tattoo to show off.

Until then,

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Tagged on: birthdays, cancer, fear, health, healthy living, non-hodgkins lymphoma, writing