Week 21 in Cancer Land, hello there. monday evening involved board games with a subset of andy's coworkers, and tuesday evening i met up with my friend christina in what has become a bit of a monthly-ish texas roadhouse tradition. we met as neighbors many moons ago in my apartment in the plains, then we were sort of east side neighbors in athens, and now we both live on the west side ish of columbus. who would have thought all these years later we would be having regular dinners out in columbus? life is funny that way.

wednesday i picked up a few things at the store after work, and is it just me or does the grandview kroger have the most poorly designed/smallest/worst produce section? not the produce itself, which is fine, but i mean, the layout. it's like no matter where you are, you are always in everyone's way, and everyone is always in your way. or perhaps 5:15p on a weeknight is just not the best time to go shopping if you want to take your time and browse all your vegetable and fruit options? i suppose that's possible.

thursday was a trip to the zoo. just kidding! obviously it was chemo day: taxol, round 10. i checked in at the front desk and they seemed to have gotten the memo from last week's call -- no random out-of-pocket charges, and they sent me on my merry way for my chemo infusion. as i settled in and my nurse for the day began my blood draw, i learned that eric trump was in columbus for some reason, and had been at the starbucks less than a mile away from the oncologist's office that morning. she was not impressed with the extra time spent having to wait due to secret service protocols. just give the woman her coffee!

other than that, it was all the usuals for chemo day, including the little picnic that andy and i have had for most of the taxol infusions. when the weekly treatments began, it was unclear at first when i would be finished for the day. since we were bringing a cooler for my ice packs anyway, we always packed another cooler with sandwiches, chips, and a drink, just in case we got hungry (as it is not recommended to bring hot foods into the infusion area, due to everyone's possible sensitivity to smells). as it turns out, i am usually released just around lunchtime, so we end up eating our packed lunch in the car, which i have recently dubbed Chemo Picnic.


ordinarily, i would be happy to go out and about for lunch on a day "off", but it has been nice to not have to decide where to eat, and immediately begin shoving food into our faces. plus, it is funny to think about, because if anyone is actually watching us, we probably look like two poor squirrels nibbling at food in our own car right outside the oncologist's office. like, wow, these poor souls must have it pretty rough... nope, not really, we're just hungry and lazy.

friday evening, we were invited to our friend christina's house for dinner (different christina than tuesday). we ate and caught up and hung out with her kids and played games, a pretty relaxing night. on saturday morning, we had had plans to go on the old man's cave winter hike in the hocking hills with our friend liz, but the constant rain and possible ice pellets caused us to abandon the plan. unfortunately for me, i was already up with a stomach full of breakfast and coffee by the time we cancelled, so instead of going back to sleep, i decided to be productive. after sort of organizing one of the hall closets and taking down the christmas tree, i took the first nap of the day. later, realizing that we were basically out of all of our usual breakfast food (among many other things), we ventured out grocery shopping in the rain. then andy did some laundry and i napped again, and in the evening we headed off to serena and tyler's for dinner and board games. good times, however, this lasted until well after midnight, which was far past my bedtime.

after a short night of sleep, today was church and then lunch with andy's family. other than that, it has been a quiet afternoon and evening, including blogging and planning a short trip to athens tomorrow. this government worker has the day off, so why not spend it with old friends? looking forward to catching up with people and eating some salsa verde... Week 22, let's do this.