The Storm

This week has been a week of ‘weathering the storm,’ which translates to good days and bad days. I’m being well taken care of by both the Salvatori family and my good friend Matt, whom I met while in Rwanda. Matt has an enduring optimism to beat all, and a doctor’s mentality. His knowledge and diligence have been greatly appreciated, especially as I seem to have developed ‘chemo brain,’ a spacey-ness that causes me to do things like spread toothpaste on my morning bagel. It’s been great to have a friend to hike and take walks with, and it’s always nice to have company at my chemo treatments, as I can hardly ever tell how I’m going to react (there was one day this week that I just sort of unexpectedly fell asleep right at the beginning and didn’t wake up until it was time to leave!)

I’ve had to psyche myself mentally to deal with a full week of chemotherapy treatments. Such large quantities of so many foreign drugs are being pumped into your system that it’s hard to tell if or when exactly the side effects are going to kick in and how severe they’re going to be. Imagine a fast-paced card game like speed, where every second you’re reevaluating what you have to play with and what’s been dealt. Every day I visit the infusion room is a new assessment: how do I feel? How sick am I? What do I feel up to? Some days, I’ve been scaling the tops of the hills just behind the house after chemo; others, I’ve been recycling most of my insides.

Matt and I are headed up to Brighton today, a beautiful mountain escape where my family’s cabin is located. We’ll meet up with the family and hopefully get a small hike of some kind in. It’ll be nice to have a change of pace. My days can really blur when I’m in an intense week of chemo. I’m just looking forward to being surrounded by the enormous pine trees encroaching on the cabin. That and s’mores over the fire. It's hard to be unhappy when you've got s'mores.