Chemo #9: Hail Mary, Full of Grace

Helped me find my good head space.  

Read on the back of a tee-shirt in the waiting room, "Don't trip over what's behind you."  

Yesterday's chemo session was yet again easy and unproblematic.  It took much longer, as it was my day to check in with Dr. Patt's nurse, but once back in the treatment room all went well, and I nearly won my game, but did have to roll to the loo one time.

My friend Mary, a former fitness client from my days at BodyBusiness, came to visit and we had much to catch up on as it had been years since we last laid eyes on one another.  It was an inspiring and uplifting reconnection and so good to see my friend still fit, joyful, living her best life with she and her husband loving retirement and gearing up to spend a month in Australia with their son, daughter-in-law and teenage grandchild.  

Which got me to thinking about all things Australian and that it is on the bucket list of travel destinations one day.  I love some of the television series I've viewed (Stateless, Kath & Kim, Offspring, 800 Words, and Mary said to check out: Ms. Fisher's Modern Murder Mysteries).  I adore the Aussie accent, sense of humor and turns of phrases.  My good friends the mighty Traeger's spent some time living in Australia years ago and are close with a young couple who moved from there this summer to work abroad in Houston for a few years.  We all got to connect over New Year's Eve (and a few times earlier this summer) and they are just so full of life and possess such strong joie de vivre, in spite of the hardships of life like losing their 14-year-old sweet Indy dog to health complications months after arriving in America.  Impressive, these two, Ben, when in Australia is a helicopter rescue EMT and Kat works in the oil and gas industry, and together they form a dynamic duo of note.  They've done more in the past six months seeing some of the best the USA has to offer: mountain bike hut-to-hut riding in Utah (that was a dude trip, Mr. Traeger, Ben and several other guys), exploring the ATX and going to ACL, snowboarding in Breckenridge and for the first time ever, white knuckle driving through snowy whiteout conditions in Colorado just last week.  Being around these kinds of people with keen wit and humor and enthusiasm for life is good medicine.  Hearing their banter flashed me back to the time I got to live here in Austin with one of my favorite Australians of all time, the one and only Lady Lee, and she too, has such an amazing spirit and is a force to be reckoned with even into her eighth decade.  

Being over the half-way hump with Chemotherapy has me thinking ahead and scheming for what's to come after treatments end and the ensuing surgery.  Likely no international travel for this gal for some time, but the wonderful dangling carrots of seeing loved ones in the states, going to the last of my sibling's children high school graduation in May, and just getting back to normal life is where my head is these days, in the fresh beginning of a new year.  

I trust we all will make the best of it.