Anna's Book of Days

14 down, 4 to go! I'm feeling great. Other than the usual skin troubles, which come and go, I'm not having any side effects. My energy is high too, which is a blessing as I'm extremely busy at work and running around after Ike at home. And I'm so happy that I'll be done with treatment in less than three months! ~ Our neighbor - the one who had to sell his house to pay his medical bills - died on Saturday morning. We knew that it was coming - we had seen a truck parked in front of the house a few weeks ago labeled "Hospice Care", and our landlord, who was close friends with him, told us last week that he only had a few days left. Still, it was upsetting. We could hear his three children playing together that night, too young to really understand what was happening, and somehow the normalcy of their talking and laughing - so innocent and free from sorrow - was almost sadder to me than if they had been crying. I feel heartbroken for his wife - ...

I had lunch the other day with a lovely woman, E., who is also a patient in the Kristine trial. She had just finished her neoadjuvant chemo and was preparing for her double mastectomy - exactly where I was eight months ago (only eight months? it feels like eight years!). We talked about everything, from the supplements I took to what tissue expanders feel like to hormone therapy. What I think was weighing on her most, however, was not knowing how her surgery and recovery would affect her young son. I gave her my perspective, although I know a nine-month-old is very different from a three-year-old. I have felt grateful from the start that Ike was too young to understand what was happening to me. He loves me, of course, but he adjusted easily to my absence. At nine months, a child is still less than halfway to understanding object permanence - he still thinks that when something disappears, it no longer exists. By contrast, a three-year-old has the emotional capacity to miss someone...