Congratulations, Guillermo! plus fitness & hair update (click on the photos to view them fully)

Today my fitness trainer, Guillermo Contreras, graduates with his Doctorate in Physical Therapy. Guillermo is an inspired and inspiring young man, who is kind, smart, caring and dedicated. He just got offered a job he's really excited about, and I'm very happy for him. And I will be very sad to say goodbye to him in a couple of weeks. G'mo has been a rock for me the past year and a half as I took on this new level of fitness as part of my leadership coaching training, and the past two months especially, as I took on my dance with cancer. His gentle and firm coaching got me through my tears of joy and disbelief on the very first day with him, when I did something every story in my head was telling me was not possible for me to do. On that day as I used my arm strength to pull my body up and forward in "TRX rows," I felt powerful in a way I had not felt since before elementary school, where I was usually among the last ones picked for teams and had some notable Presidential Fitness Exam bent-arm-hang failures. (My report card read: "Rebecca needs to increase her arm strength."  My parents' accepting and loving but not particularly empowering response was: "No, you don't, honey.")

Guillermo also brought his loving presence to my tears of despair during one of the low points in my chemo treatment a month or so ago, when I felt weak and tired and hopeless -- I couldn't remember why I was trying to push myself physically, and was afraid I was going to lose all of the strength I'd gained in the past 14 months of working with him and doing masters' swimming. And the day I felt light-headed and dizzy, instead of freaking out and telling me to call for a ride home (which the parents in my head would have done), he just stayed closer while I worked out so he could catch me if I started to black out. 

I'm pretty sure I couldn't have gotten this far into chemo still exercising this much without Guillermo's help. (I swam 40 minutes on Sunday, did 45 min of workout/15 min of stretching with G'mo on Monday, swam 45 minutes on Wednesday, did another session with G'mo on Thursday, and swam 35 minutes this morning). While it will likely be a difficult transition to have Guillermo leave, I now feel much more confident that I will be able to keep working out through much of this journey, and will be able to build back up what strength I lose. It is only due to my economic privilege that I have access to this resource, and I am grateful for that. I am also grateful for the incredible privilege of knowing Guillermo himself; and to Jeff at The Fit on Monroe St. for his match-making process, where he interviews prospective clients and matches them with one of the trainers in his crew; and to Annette for her recommendation of The Fit.

PS: The Hair Update -- note in one of the pictures how the design shaved into my hair as "negative" space when it was still long, has remained, but now shows up as the "positive" space, since the shorter hairs haven't fallen out as fast as the longer ones!  And for those who are deeply curious, I can report that all other areas of my body have significantly diminished hair as well -- perhaps this is an indirect effect of the ovary shut-down happening due to the chemo.