Chemo#14 Second Round of AC: Halfway Point!

Last Friday's infusion went very well, and I was delighted to sit for the session with a former coworker and fun friend, Delena.  We had much to catch up on as we've not seen one another since well before Covid.  We laughed a lot, especially as this chemotherapy tends to make me a little loopy, so my conversation was studded with moments of complete brain erase, and I couldn't recall, at times, what we were talking about.  This is what people refer to when they speak of "chemo-brain", and it certainly has been plaguing me as of late.  Radiant Delena stayed for the entire session, and we parted ways having made plans to stay better in touch.  Cancer, though I want it gone and never to come back, has brought me so much indescribable joy through reconnections with old friends and forming new connections with other survivors and caregivers, for which I am ever grateful.  I'm not joking when I say I will miss Texas Oncology, and the people there, and one day I plan to volunteer my time to help comfort those in the infusion room.

I am elated as I write this entry, buoyed up by yesterday's amazing surprise: a unanimous donor came through to complete the targeted amount that my friends Tricia and Sue came up with back when my diagnosis was made, of $25,000.00 to aid with associated costs of health care and lost income I might encounter on this journey.  I was completely thrilled with what we had raised from so many wonderfully generous folks thus far, over twenty-grand, and had forgotten the fund raiser was still live, so when we received the news (me, Mom, and Mark, who had stopped by after Taichi to say hello) we couldn't stop screaming, laughing and jumping for joy!  It is surreal, like a lovely dream, and now I know what it feels like to win the lottery.  To the person(s) who gifted us yesterday, please know how deeply grateful and happy I am to receive this and so very thankful for your generosity.  

One of my long-time best child-hood friends from somewhere over-the-rainbow, Kathy, stopped by shortly after this and we got to soak up the sunny warmth of the afternoon together, around a picnic table in front of the cottage, reading an old letter my namesake grandmother wrote to her father in 1924 from Marymount Women's Teaching College in Salina, Kansas.  Ironically, she was asking for funds, preferably in the form of a few blank checks, to cover her "$6.00 face" and for a new dress and possibly new shoes she would need for an upcoming "keen vacation" to Lawrence to see her friend Mable Roony and attend the Nebraska/Kansas football game.  I know not if my great-grandfather James granted her request, but her wonderful praise of his never having disappointed her and her argument that her college education was much less expensive than anywhere else she might've attended, and that "half of an education is meeting and knowing different people, places, etc." was so compelling I like to think he did.  She signed her letter, Your Loving daughter, Maurine Anne, with a P.S. Give my love to all, "Wild Irish Annie." 

I feel a loop of time & space has been tied in a bow, and that somehow my ancestors have a great degree of influence on my current situation and the love that wasn't able to be shared in real time and space, is now pouring through in magical ways.  I've never been so in love with life!  I hope you are too, and that whatever seemingly insurmountable obstacles you are facing, you feel armed with the power to overcome them.