Thursday night

At long last, my cold seems to be losing its grip. I'm not completely over it, but improving daily, and certainly a world away from how I felt a week ago. That's good, because David and I are getting ready to go to Nashville for a 3-day weekend, to visit Aunt M and cousins, C, D and D, and S - who is about to move to Canada - will stop by. My brother John and son and grandson are supposed to drive up from Atlanta to spend Saturday night. A mini-family reunion. D's crazy boyfriend L is stopping by. We must have at least one good long cut-throat game of Hearts. David hasn't met my family (my kids, yes, but not Aunt M or brother John or my cousins). He's in for a treat. We're a normal family, which is to say - strange and wonderful.

Today I saw Dr. M - the gynecological oncologist "in charge" of my treatment overall, and the guy I will be seeing every 3 months for 2 years. He pronounced me doing well, and said that after the last chemo, I should schedule a CT scan about 2 weeks later, and then come to see him a week or so after that. That scan will be the "baseline" for the post-treatment era. A CT scan is not something I am looking forward to, mostly because I hated drinking the icky thick sickeningly sweet "vanilla" flavored crap that they made me (and are likely to keep making me) drink due to where my cancer was (abdomen). Someone else in the hospital waiting area on the day of my scan told me they have other "flavors" including something like Strawberry-Banana - man, if they give me that, I will puke it right up on the waiting room floor, I kid you not.

Anyway, I guess the fact that we had this conversation today is an indication of progress - I'm nearing the end of the "treatment phase." As I think I might have written here before, there's a certain odd security about being "in treatment" as if the cancer can't get you while you're getting hammered by chemo and radiation. Post-treatment is the big scary "normal" world where cancer snuck up on you before, jumped out and screamed "Gotcha!" So of course, heading back into that world is both thrilling - I mean, really, this treatment stuff is not exactly fun - and fear-inducing. That's life, I guess.

I think maybe tomorrow, before we go out of town, I'll post that letter to myself I mentioned before , the one I started some time ago as a short list of things I think I have learned through all of this. We'll see.

In the meantime, it was in the 50's today - jean jacket weather. The sun was out. The leaves on rhododendron bushes on the sunny sides of the streets and park paths are uncurling from their winter concave shapes into their summer convex curves, and their tight dark buds have appeared. One tree on my street has tiny pale green leaves pushing out. Spring will come. It will not come soon enough for some - my friend CB's brother passed away suddenly of a massive heart attack, people still suffer... in Haiti, in Chile, elsewhere - but spring is like hope, isn't it. Where there's a little warmth, a little kindness - it pushes out and insists on being felt.

Peace