Nerves + Michael Phelps

First the nerves: When my daughter was a baby, she had an inherited childhood cancer of the eye called retinoblastoma. She was operated on and has been fine since and she's now in her teens. Because she can't really see out of the eye the cancer was in, she doesn't use it; this lack of use caused her eye to drift out. Friday, she had an operation to straighten that eye. It was supposed to take about an hour, but because of scar tissue from the earlier operations, it took a lot longer. My husband and I were fine, until the nurse came out to tell us why it was taking longer. We hadn't been keeping track of time, but suddenly we began to keep track of every second. We were nerve wracked by the time the doctor came to get us. Again she's fine, but the idea of her being under anesthesia for so long was scary. And she starts school Monday -- I was hoping her eye wouldn't still be swollen by then (and it probably wouldn't have if it hadn't been for the scar tissue) but it looks like she'll be starting her first day of high school with a slightly swollen eye. Poor thing.

I knew I missed this! I looked for it on the TV schedule and couldn't find it -- Michael Phelps in the 400 Men's Relay:

When we’re in the water, we’re not in this world -- Gertrude Ederle -- U.S. Swimmer

Guess what I did today for the first time is over a year? That's right -- I jumped in something that looked very similar to this:

I'd forgotten how much I missed the water -- the way being immersed in it makes me feel. Since it's been over a year and I am extremely out of shape, I wasn't expecting much. Imagine my surprise to discover that I'd swum 700 yards by the end of my swim! I hope I'm not hurting tomorrow but even if I am, it'll be worth it. It's been several hours -- I went right before lunch and it's now evening -- and I still have that swimmer's high. I missed that too.