More about the book

When people who don't know my situation ask what I do now that I'm retired, I'm not quite sure what to say. Frankly, staying healthy takes up a lot of my time, but if I say, "Well, I work out three times a week, and walk as much as I can, and have a yoga class," it sounds as though I'm a fitness fanatic. An unsuccessful one. No abs of steel here.

If I say that I'm writing a book, the next question is "What's it about?" and if I say, "It's a memoir of my first year of pancreatic cancer," I can just imagine the reactions, but I never say that because I don't want to go into the whole thing with people who are just acquaintances.

However, I thought I'd bring you up to date about the book. It will consist of a series of short pieces, many taken from this blog and expanded. Some will be about what I've been through, others semi-technical explanations of parts of treatment, others suggestions for caregivers and concerned friends and relatives. I have six finished. The titles are Cancer for Dummies, Hair Today, Port Authority, Prayer, Weighty Matters, and What to Say. Several more are in various stages of working and reworking: Scansion, Prologue, Zapped, Diagnosis and Testing, Community Happens, The People You Meet, The Stages.

I've had suggestions that pieces on how to stay optimistic and how one deals with a suddenly foreshortened future could be interesting/useful.

Any other suggestions?

Meanwhile, when people ask me what I'm doing these days, I usually tell them I'm knitting (in progress right now, two chemo caps not for me but for charity, and a summer sweater out of a bamboo/silk/cotton blend, definitely for me).