The stock market

When my parents died in 2011, they left me money in the form of stock. I considered it the retirement account I never had and didn't touch it, except for the dividends, which I kept rather than reinvested.
My parents lost a lot in 2008, as did many others. "It always comes back," my mother would say. (She had the investing gene in the family.) She was right, but it can take years for it to do so. If you're in the market when you're eighty years old, it might not come back in a way that will help you because you may die before it does. 

That was the case with my parents and may be the case with me, with my recent diagnosis of a probably terminal illness, so earlier this week, I got out of the market and put the money someplace safer. I have little knowledge of financial things, but I know that I don't want the stock market's ups and downs to influence my moods while I'm already concerned with a form of cancer that can only be treated by amputation, in my case of my right leg, at the hip. 
As people say, I've got enough on my plate. 
Today, I washed my sister-in-law's dog, which I'm tending for a few days. She looks terrified in the photo and indeed bath time is not her favorite thing in the world, but once she's clean and I'm drying her off she gyrates happily in the towels as I rub her dry and it's one of those times you can see an animal having genuine fun. I'm going to hate not being able to do this because it's too hard to do on one leg.

A dog getting bathed.