Morning People

Some people profess that they are “morning people”; to be honest I never considered morning to be better than any other part of the day but I'm becoming a fan.

For the past week I've gotten out of bed feeling pretty darn good, I've run, walked, cut firewood and putzed around performing various household duties. I seem to make it to mid or late afternoon when suddenly the “wheels start falling off” and I am reminded, (as one friend put it) that chemotherapy attempts to kill the cancer before it kills you. YIKES !

Even so I realize that I am in a minority of patients whose lives have not been totally disrupted. This morning for example I met my trail running group at eight AM. Though I did not cover the ten or eleven miles which our group ran, I did manage seven and a half, finishing strong and feeling good. The run completed and now into “social hour”, elation would meet reality as a cold can of beer tingled then numbed the gloved fingers of my right hand. Oh well, it was worth it.

Yesterday at Mom and Dads I had a great afternoon even if my body complained. My sister in law, Wendy showed up with a small gift bag with a pair of “Irish Hand Gloves” (picture to come) which will make it to infusion tomorrow. The gloves will be accompanied by multiple packages of hand warmers, given to me by my sister Kathy. Normally I would just place a hand warmer directly in a glove but after returning home with numb fingers I decided to try placing the hand warmers on my wrists, under a long sleeve shirt, secured by rubber bands. (Sweat bands might have worked better but I couldn't find any). Guess what, it worked great, keeping the heat source away from my already sore hands.

Leaving Mom and Dad's last night I was anxious to get home but saddened to leave. This morning, running along the trails, I could picture my family packing up to head to their homes, hitting the car's horn as they drove though Mom and Dad's driveway's stone pillars. (It's tradition). Of course it's a moment of sadness but evidence that we must all go our separate ways, but, if we are extremely lucky, we will converge from time to time to renew and grow as a family.

Mike

What is it, something like forty five bottle of beer on the wall? Right now I'm too lazy to do the math.