Holding

I've been feeling strangely calm about starting chemo again. I've experienced little of the dread I had anticipated. It's been so long since my last chemo that my desire to continue actually fighting this cancer has overwhelmed my apprehension at the side effects. It helps, too, that this week is Holy Week, one of my favorite times of year, and that I can look forward to a visit from a certain someone. The addition of an extra week between surgery and chemo this time around has also left me much more physically prepared to handle treatment. And I'm at least in part simply relieved I'm not starting the transplant treatments right now - that is something for which I am certainly not prepared yet.

Spring has sprung in these parts - I was stunned to see budding leaves on the trees after I was discharged from the hospital - and while my sinuses are unhappy, I am thrilled at the thought of spring flowers and warmer weather. Fresh air (or what counts for it in a city) is often a cure for the nausea and just general feeling of crappiness caused by chemo, but is really only a plausible option when said air is warm. Looking forward to being able to lie out in the backyard on a blanket, ideally while food is cooking on the grill (while I'm daydreaming about the currently unattainable, I'd also like glasses of wine or bottles of beer to be involved).

I have many perhaps entirely overly ambitious plans for the week. I'm determined to make it to choir practice (we are so unprepared for the Triduum it's not even funny - okay, actually it is pretty funny). And of course, I need to actually attend all those Triduum Masses, and by need I mean I'm not sure I could survive not going.   I also need to make my cinnamon apple cake for Easter Sunday. And dye Easter eggs, because I am in fact secretly five years old.

However, it's a very real possibility that I won't feel up to baking, or that the smell of eggs will make my stomach turn, or I might not be able to make it through choir practice after hours of chemo. I'll probably have to sit down through those Masses, even if it means I might not be able to hit those high notes on "Three Days."  But you know what's funny? I'm okay with that. Even if Easter Sunday supper rolls around and I can't stand the taste of anything on the table, I'll be okay. As long as I am able to share in the Passion and Resurrection this week, surrounded by family and friends, I'll be okay. In fact, far more than okay. I so rarely feel certainty lately, but about this I do.