I Painted a Room!

I learned how to paint when I was 16. My father owned an old motel, and the painting was endless both inside and out. This skill would be very useful in the future. In all our houses, except for the ones in Costa Rica), I did all the interior painting. I had help sometimes, but usually I just pumped up the music and rollered myself away.

What does this have to do with leukemia? For one thing, I haven't painted since my diagnosis in 2006, mainly because nothing needed painting. When we bought our house in the Catskills, someone came in to paint the bedrooms pre-furniture, before we moved in. Now that we're living here full-time, we decided to add some color to the back room that overlooks the brook. There are places for stark white rooms, but this one cried out for color.

The first problem is that, as our living room, it has the most furniture in it. Plus it's one of the smaller rooms in the house. First we had to remove the smaller items, and then stack the rest in the middle of the room. Fortunately, the ceiling didn't need painting, the hardest part of painting a room. There's actually very little wall space in the room, which has 3 windows and 3 doorways. That also meant there was a lot of taping around the natural wood frames and moulding, and a lot of painting that had to be done with a brush.

Because my ligaments and tendons are so tight due to gvh, and my muscles are weak, it's a challenge for me to walk, let alone do physical labor. Marty isn't crazy about painting, and the room didn't really need it done, so I felt I had to do my share of the work. After going to yoga Friday and Saturday, I thought, how will my thighs be able to hold me as I rose up and down to paint the trim and roller the walls? My arms are also weak. I surprised myself by working 6 hours on Sunday and 4 yesterday. It's all done except for putting everything back in the room.

A couple of weeks ago, I couldn't have withstood this kind of physical labor. Just re-upping the prednisone by 5 mg has made me feel like myself again, whoever that is.