Positive aspects

This is going to be a long post.  When I declined an appointment for later during the same week to discuss the results of the CT scan on Tuesday, my hope was that I’d get a call anyway.  I imagined my oncologist who is about to move to another hospital and is in her last week of caring for and about me would want to share any positive news.  It feels good to share good news.  It would also make her training at the hospital a success and let her leave on a high note.I did get a call on Wednesday afternoon, but the tone of my...

No worries

The CT scan today is just another step on a long journey.  Nothing special.  Something I've done before.  And yet!  I felt an unfamiliar tension grow inside me as the appointment drew closer.  When the nurse connected a bit of tubing to the port in my chest to facilitate the administration of the contrast agent and the drug that will keep my allergic reaction to it in check, I was stiff as a poker.The CT scan is an exam like any other, but the results matter.  If the scan is negative, if no growth can be seen, chemotherapy...

Insufficient words

I should write much more.  That’s how I see it.  Not necessarily to share more of what occupies my body and mind, but to keep a record of what’s going on.  I’m very good at forgetting things.  The more happens, the more I forget.  Over the last year, a lot has happened, most of it so out of the ordinary that I never dreamed it up even in my wildest nightmares.  Everything was new.  The one hundred posts I’ve published...

New life

Before I started working at my current job, I was asked what type of laptop I preferred.  When I arrived at my desk on the sixth day – the first five were spent traveling to Athens, Georgia, in the US, a lovely little MacBook Air waited for me on my desk, fully installed and configured and ready to go.  This was a good start.Things have gone downhill since then.  I still have the AirBook, but IT is getting increasingly antagonistic...

Session 2.5

Yesterday I came home with a headache that felt as if someone were playing pinball inside my brain.  Pain was bouncing back and forth within my skull.  I don’t believe in headaches, but this one was real.  I dropped onto my bed for an hour and a bit but then had to provide the childrens’ pre-bed routine.  Flucha does most, but I’m reading books and brushing teeth.  I wasn’t in a good mood, and the children noticed it.  Fasting isn’t pleasant, and when I fast, I’m far from pleasant.  An hour or so later, the pain...

Traveling

After exactly six months, I went back to the airport on the day I started writing this post.  I didn’t get very far.  Business travel hasn’t really picked up again, and I didn’t have a flight to catch.  All conferences and workshops I was scheduled to attend since January have been canceled, postponed or moved online.  There doesn’t seem to be any change in the air.  I want to go to Japan, Korea and China this year, but I’m...