I'm a pisces, but I had cancer!

My dear friends and (remaining) readers, I am so sorry it has been so long since my last post. It has been an incredibly busy month or so, during which I've had two more chemo treatments, received the best visitors (including a surprise one), celebrated multiple birthdays (including my own!) and one big brother's wedding in California, continued working/hanging out, and more recently, tried hard not to catch COVID-19! So consider this your photo bomb of the highlights from the last 40 some-odd days. I continued to be a cancer patient, while also heading to downtown Gotham for interviews for my dissertation research: I received a lovely care package from my lovely HS friend, Roxanne, which included a badass shirt, and forgot to take pictures of other lovely high school friends Kate and Katie visiting me at my second carbo chemo:    I received a copy of the first book with my name on the cover:  I celebrated Austin and Allix's little Milo's firs...

Well, Monday officially marked my fifth immunotherapy treatment, my ninth round of chemo ever, and first of four rounds of this specific chemo, Carboplatin. The good news is that it's not as debilitating as the AC/T drugs. The bad news is that it's still chemo, and is bringing up a lot of old feelings, both emotional and physical. Emotionally, I'm burnt out on this shit. I'm sick of drugs and doctors and medications. I feel like after 10 months, I've done my fair share of gdamn cancer treatment, and all this extra stuff just seems, well, excessive. Physically, I've got the slightest undercurrent of nausea running at most times, paired with that familiar and persistent heartburn I used to get in the days after a chemo treatment. There's no sugarcoating it, it sucks. And I'm feeling down.  But of course, the down is always punctuated with the knowledge that it could be a lot worse, and the good folks in my life are always working to make things better f...

Greetings, friends, long time no type. Hope you all have entered what is objectively the worst period of the year in good spirits! Greg and I had a slow start to the year with our respective colds. After a period of recoup, we eventually left for Miami, which as you can tell from the below collage, involved good weather, good food and drink, catching-up with old friends Shaina and Bjorn (respectively), sitting by a pool for an afternoon, and lots of selfies. It was so fun, but way too short. I hope we can go back/get away again soon! Shortly after getting back from Miami, it was back to reality, at least for me*. And there is no harsher reality than the reality of more cancer treatment! Today, I finally met with my new oncologist, Dr. M. I really liked her- she was friendly, straightforward, and did not make me wait long. What I did not love, but what was somewhat anticipated, was that she recommended that I start an IV chemo regimen, called carboplatin, with m...