The Best Medicine

It has been said that laughter is the best medicine ... and I certainly got a super-sized dose of that this weekend on the trip Abby and I took to Atlanta. It was also great to see her connect with some other little girls adopted from her area of China. All around, a great break from the reality of living life with cancer and cancer treatments.

On the way home, I had an interesting encounter with a woman in the airport. Abby and I were sitting in the gate area and I noticed this woman looking at us quite frequently. I'm somewhat used to that in public situations as people often notice Abby, as we're conspicuously not biologically related, and I think people just look and try to figure it out. Anyway, we had a flight delay and walked around for a bit, then came back to the gate and ended up sitting closer to the woman who was watching us before. Almost immediately she said, "She's so beautiful" and nodded toward Abby, and I said thanks. Most often the next comment from a person in this situation is to ask if she's my daughter, where she's from, etc. But much to my surprise the woman said, "I love your curls" in reference to my very short hair that is growing out very, very curly. I again said thanks and before I could finish a sentence about it just starting to grow out after ... she said, "I know. I'm a survivor too. Breast cancer?" and I said yes, and we had a nice conversation. I appreciated her obvious attempts to avoid the "gory details" of her own journey or mine with Abby's ears nearby. As we boarded, she gave me a hug and told me best of luck ... it was a really wonderful moment and probably one of the best exchanges I've had with someone out in public about all of this. A nice end to a relaxing weekend.

Today I'm off to the radiation oncologist's office to do my CT mapping scan over again ... still not looking forward to that, but need to get it over with so that they can get my radiation treatment plan finalized and get those treatments started. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to start next Monday 11/12, and that will have me finishing up with a final treatment around December 29. I will have a Sunday treatment the week of Thanksgiving since they need to do 4 consecutive days to have the treatments be the most effective, and looking at their office calendar it would appear that the Christmas holiday week I'll have a Saturday treatment for my final time.

With 33 radiation treatments coming up and another round of follow up appointments with surgical oncologist and medical oncologist, plastic surgeon, blood work, saline flush of my port every 6 weeks, and more in the coming months ... I have 42 medical appointments on my calendar between now and April 12 when I'll have my first post-surgery mammogram. Thank goodness for the electronic calendar on my phone ... unlike a paper calendar hanging on the wall at home, it's in my hand and always at the ready when I'm standing at a medical counter to schedule appointments, and it keeps me on track visually and with audible reminders. Balancing medical appointments is my new normal now!