So, now that the holidays are over — they are over, right? — it’s time for us to, well, what?

Christmas and New Year’s Day involve so much intense focus for most of us that the actual new year, at least for me, is anticlimactic. It’s over. Some of the Christmas decorations are down (not all of them. They took such effort and time to put up, so what’s the big rush in taking them down? Right? The stockings are no longer hung with care on the mantelpiece. But, for us, the tree is still twinkling brightly.)

I know what I have to focus on — doctors’ appointments. Lots and lots of doctors’ appointments. Primary care physician. Cardiologist. Heart surgeon. Oncologist. Cancer surgeon. Sheesh.

Then there’s cardiac rehab, where I fully expect the rehab-ologists to kick my butt in order to get my heart healthy. I think the big     question will be how we fit cardiac rehab into whatever plans my cancer surgeon now has for my near future. The sooner I can have the cancer surgery, the better.

(I say that, but inside I tremble at the thought of yet more major surgery and the awful immediate recovery after surgery. I’m not recuperated from my open-heart surgery yet, for goodness sake.)

So, here we are, with the holidays all over and a brand new year stretching out in front of us full of incredible potential. Oh, what possibilities! A new, healthy heart! A cancer-free future!

But for right now, it’s one day at a time. That means one doctor after another, one heartbeat after another, one breath after another.

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