Progress Report 2-10

Week 10-11-12
I can’t believe 3 weeks have passed by and I did not post an entry. This may be a long one. I actually had started the week 10 journal but got too busy to post it. As you know my mom was here for 2 weeks and I successfully went to 2 treatment sessions without her noticing. A few days of bad weather guaranteed her presence in the kitchen preparing these special meals that take 3 days to make and 3 minute to eat, specifically stuffed grape leaves, spinach pies and her specialty Kibbeh balls. Now these are not your average meat ball. They are made of a mixture of meat and cracked wheat beaten to a consistency of dough and stuffed with more meat. She makes them effortlessly almost without looking while watching her favorite show The Price is Right and somehow they all come out the same size. Unfortunately for me I believe I have not inherited the genetic ability to make them. You either have it or don’t. I can make Kibbeh in a simple pie form but not the balls. So part of my therapy that week did not include helping make the food as much as inhaling the wonderful childhood aromas and fulfilling my duty of taste tester, a job usually exclusively reserved to Sharbel when he is around. Her mission was accomplished. The freezer is stacked. My sister Mona also came for the week of thanksgiving and the focus went from cooking to shopping. My sister was very excited to experience the American Thanksgiving tradition including shopping on black Friday. Anyways so we had a full house with Sharbel home for the week (a rare treat) and Yasmine and Greg in for the weekend (even rarer treat). With the Monday after Thanksgiving off from treatment I can tell you that I had a very happy and enjoyable time and all would have been perfect if not for the construction delays that kept the second bathroom from being completed as scheduled. I had kept my cool about the entire situation until that Friday afternoon when as my friend Eileen J. would say “Zen left”. The long awaited for vanity had finally arrived and I had great hopes for it being installed before my sister arrived. But upon opening the packaging we discovered a broken leg. I could not even envision going through the process of resending the vanity and waiting for a replacement and since it was fixable, I thought I would just place a call and report the damage and possibly get some sort of compensation. The broken leg actually was the least of the worries as we discovered that the plumbing which was located to accommodate the original cabinet - that was back ordered and I could not get - did not fit the new one (which came without any specifications) which meant opening a finished and painted wall to move the drains up. I was in a pretty disappointed state when the girl from the cabinet company returned my call and became the unwilling emotional punching bag. I had lost my cool and went on a rampage of how dissatisfied I was with the whole transaction ignoring any attempt on her part to quite down until she finally yelled at me asking me to stop yelling at her. Well I did and I realized right away what I was doing, apologizing and telling her it had nothing to do with her personally, but she just happen to be the unlucky person at the other end of the line with a very frustrated customer. Of course I also realized right away how often we do that and that yelling at her was not going the fix the problem, so I hung up and took a deep breath promising myself that I was not going to let that event stress me or spoil my joy. It would be another week waiting for the correct hose size to be sent before we got the vanity fully installed just a day before my mom and sister left and even though I am still waiting for the linen tower, I realized how insignificant these events were. They have passed, the vanity looks great and even the bedroom walls have been successfully stripped. Life lessons come in different forms and apparently remodeling is full of them.

So far I have not told you anything about my treatments. Well they have fallen into a mindless routine and on my end as of yesterday all the blood work looks extremely good and I continue to feel healthy and well and for which I continue to be eternally grateful. And I do keep meeting some of the most interesting if not inspiring people; so I have to tell you about Heather. I used to see her occasionally at the clinic on Mondays but never had the chance to talk. A couple of weeks ago she walked into my Yoga class at the wellness community and the following Monday I found myself sitting next to her at Chemo. We chatted some mostly about Yoga and how she enjoyed it and I talked her into coming to the Monday night class. Her daughter was sick but her mother offered to watch her so she came. Heather was hard to miss because she has a very athletic body and only one leg which didn’t stop her from doing any of the moves including balancing doubling the work on the leg she had. She lost her leg to bone cancer when she was twelve and now she is being treated for breast cancer. Heather and I share the same doctor and the same number of occurrences. She is now in remission again to which I said “Hurray hold that thought" and silently wished my self the same. She continues the treatment for safe measure. With her one leg she raised 30,000 $ for the Komen foundation by organizing a spinning event. Yesterday I arrived into the suite just as she was leaving. She was on her way to the airport to go to Orlando, where after all these years of feeling that a fake leg was too much work to fuss with, she was inspired by attending a “Challenged Athlete Conference” and decide to get fitted for one; The objective… she wants to run a marathon. Heather has the most amazing attitude and I was so blessed to meet her and talk to her. Her excitement showed and was contagious. She offered me her seat, the one we all like right by the wall. I thanked her and wished her good luck and I can’t wait to see her when she gets back. With 2 legs there is no stopping her. I will keep you posted.
Much love