Someone in one of my networks commented that after diagnosis, nature has more beauty. That suddenly you are more aware of the beauty that surrounds you. I’ve definitely noticed that when I go out riding or walking. I’m finding the bike path behind our place particularly beautiful these days.

Today, rather than riding (it was a hot day here), we waited until it started to cool off and went for a nice long walk (dug out the pedometer – 7500 steps). When we ride up on the path we noticed a natural area between the path and the street. Today we walked through that area. Many of the plants are labelled and there are several information plaques throughout. Apparently, it is the last “forest” area in Santa Clara. Santa Clara is bordered by the San Francisco Bay in the north and cities on all other sides (Milpitas, San Jose, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Campbell, etc).

We came across a grove of old eucalyptus trees. In this photo you can see the different phases of their life cycle – shedding layers of old bark to allow the new growth. Every time I see this I think, that is soon to be me, shedding my hair, nails, and other fast growing body parts (and tumors), to allow for new healthy growth. I am very curious what colour my new hair will be!

Walking back along the path, with heightened senses I noticed a family of snails on the shrubs that bordered the path. After noticing the first bunch, we realized that there were families of snails on the shrubs all along the path. We have walked this path several times and never noticed them before. Of course, my heightened senses might also be attributable to my new glasses, that let me actually see clearly at that distance – but still – I’m sure there is also an aspect of the cancer that I can attribute to this perception.