Well my blood counts were high enough for chemo today and it all went smoothly enough. This is my week for the heavier-duty Taxol plus Carboplatin combination, which will likely make my blood counts plummet again. If so I will get another transfusion. The happy news is, Dr. O’Regan gave me the “okay” to go to clay camp July 12-17, and skip chemo that week! That will be the third week post-carboplatin, which is the one we had to skip last week, and she said, we might have to skip it anyway due to low blood counts, so why don’t you just go to camp! It’s possible if my counts are too low on the last week of the last cycle, she will postpone that treatment by a week rather than skipping it.[...]

Two follow-ups from my last post:

1) My dad did have several comments to offer on the post. Here is my summary of them: One, that many decisions are neither rational nor irrational, but are merely preferences; something is only irrational if it conflicts with achieving a goal that one holds.  (So his preference not to eat tilapia may not be rational, but it is not irrational either. BTW, they were his research subjects in 1963).  Two, that he doesn't have any problem with spirituality in general, but he does take issue with 1) mind-body dualism that posits some pure essence that is separable from the body, and 2) with belief in what authorities say when they assert something that is not easy to verify.[...]

I've been having a good visit with my Dad and brother Ari (see the picture of us three baldies!). We've been doing a lot of cooking and eating, exercising, hanging out with Sam & Sarah, celebrating Fathers' Day, and reading aloud together. We had a brief scare when Don's dad was taken to the ER in Indianapolis yesterday, but they sent him home without finding anything new wrong (he is nearly 96 and has a lot of issues already -- including some memory loss, which means he already doesn't remember the trip to the hospital!).[...]

Well the transfusion definitely helped. I went from needing a wheelchair on Tuesday morning to get from the car to the far side of the clinic, to being able to walk out on my own later that afternoon. And from barely being able to go up a flight of stairs without passing out, to being able to do some gentle workouts (including trying out a new fitness trainer, who was great, and a short swim in the lake) the last two days. I do not, however, feel like super woman, as one friend suggested I would! I think my hemoglobin is still low compared to what is "normal" for me (before the chemo started in March it was 14, and it was down to 7.9 the morning of the transfusion). I'm still feeling like I have to rest a lot, conserve my "spoons," and choose how I spend the ones I've got. And I am still managing other minor symptoms and side effects from the various treatments. [...]

Becca's chemo and transfusion was without incident today, though she had to spend 7 hours at the hospital. Three of us (Pat, Anita, and myself) took turns keeping her company. She required a wheelchair to get to oncology, because of her low hemoglobin (7.9, down from 14 before she started chemo), but she felt somewhat better after receiving two pints of blood and was able to walk out, though we decided not to go dancing tonight :-)

Many of you, and I myself, have been amazed at how well I’ve been doing through the chemo treatments so far. I’ve even gotten concerned communications from a few of you, reminding me that it’s important to give space and attention to sad & angry feelings. (I appreciate the concern, and want to reassure you that I do have practices, based in Re-Evaluation Counseling and a variety of coaching and meditation techniques, to help me do so). You & I have also been amazed at how much I’ve been committed to and able to keep exercising, and at how much Don & I have been able to ask for and be open to receiving help.[...]

Margaret's visit was a pleasure. As you may have read, she was the one we brainstormed to invite to stay with me while Don went on his meditation retreat in Minnesota. Margaret left a few hours ago, and Don is due back tonight, and I feel very well-loved and cared-for. Margaret brought materials to begin work on one of her gorgeous art quilts, and I began work on a beading project, and we spent a lot of time on a jigsaw puzzle I had in progress. We also swam together (we made it most of the short way across Lake Wingra and back on Wednesday!) and talked and ate. I managed to do quite a bit of work while she was here too, since I had some energy and a lot of our meals were being provided, and Margaret was taking care of everything else that needed doing, and then some!!! (she even cleaned the raccoon poop off the back porch -- a rather icky perennial problem that I've completely let slide this season). [...]

It's been a good few days, with some fatigue and other annoying symptoms (e.g. nothing tastes normal, and the inside of my mouth feels coated in a weird way) but it's all manageable. After a nap today I felt up for my first swim of the season in Lake Wingra. Lovely! [...]

Yesterday's planned chemo treatment got postponed to today. (I guess the feeling I had over the weekend that I was hiking in the Rockies in WI wasn't my imagination). When I got this news, instead of heading home, I had my chemo buddy Jen drop me off at the CORE office part-way through a meeting I'd been hoping to Skype into from the chemo chair. It was great to see everyone in person and participate more fully than I would've been able to do. I realized I was doing what my Strozzi somatics training calls "two-stepping." The Two-Step is an exercise drawn from Aikido, and in it you take a couple of steps while reversing direction 180 degrees, and do it a few times, practicing finding your center each time you change direction. It's good practice for a sudden change of plans. We also shifted our staff meeting that had been planned for today to yesterday, and I opened it by beginning to teach Julie and Elizabeth the Two-Step!  It felt good to be able to access this internal flexibility, and to have the staff so able to meet me in kind. [...]

May 29th was the 10th anniversary of our wedding (and marks almost 12 1/2 years since we began courting). I was feeling well enough that we actually got away for a couple of days, to a sweet little AirBnB in the Kickapoo region of WI. The weather was cold and rainy and I was fairly fatigued a lot of the weekend, so we didn't end up attempting a canoe or kayak down the Kickapoo (one of my favorite activities, so Don promised me a raincheck). We did have a lovely 1.4 mile hike up "Mt. Pisgah" (a 365 ft climb to an elevation of 1220 ft above sea level). I felt like I was hiking at 8,000 ft, probably due to lower hemoglobin levels or some other blood count thing. I took it "polay, polay," stopping every few feet near the top, and resting at the overlook for a long time. It was beautiful, with old growth hemlock and lots of fading trillium flowers. It had been raining most of the day and the sun came out while we were at the top! Later we sat (me wrapped in a blanket), on the deck of our cabin which was in a little valley, and watched the sun setting and strange cloud movements (higher white wispy clouds moving northeast, while lower, heavier, dark/gold-lined clouds moving southwest. On the way home yesterday we stopped and I took a short swim in Mirror Lake, despite the air temperature being only 64 deg. F (and the temperature of the concrete floor of the pit-toilet where I changed being what I was guessing to be 40 deg. F!)[...]