The first haircut!

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are my dialysis days.  I go to DaVita Dialysis Center, and the nurses there hook me up for my usual 3 1/2 hour session.  I sometimes read, watch TV, use my iPad.  This time I slept for about 2 of the hours.  While awake, I watched Star Trek VI and Star Trek VIII on the SyFy channel.

Friday, May 17 was different.  Near the end of the dialysis session, Dr. Moore, my nephrologist came over to talk with me to talk about lab results.  My #s were good!  My hemoglobin #s, potassium #s, creatinine #s, sodium figures were all positive and getting better!  Terms that had no meaning to me 2 months ago meant so much now!  He went so far as to tell me to go ahead and cheat on my Renal Diet!  "If your family is having a pizza, go ahead and have some".  I couldn't believe my ears, green light for eating pizza!  If only he had told me that the day before when John and Laura brought over Lake Harriet Pepperoni Pizza!

2 weeks post ICU, and countless antibiotics later, my strength seems to be coming back.  I can walk for 200 meters.  I can get up stairs more than one step at a time.  I can easily walk to the washroom without assistance.  I can eat pizza (on a limited basis)!  Things I took for granted for so long, then became so difficult, are now becoming doable again.  The process of moving forward is happening.

We celebrated by going out for Chinese food.  Just a quick bite at Leeann Chin.  Then, I went to get a haircut at ProCuts.  My first haircut since March when I left Manila.  It felt great to have a fresh cut and feel normal again.  Again, things I took totally for granted before were now the source of a huge smile at the end of the day.

My cousin Vince called later last night.  Talking to him was great because I could actually talk.  Last time he called I was in the ICU and barely functioning.  What a difference a couple of weeks make.  I'm now on the road to moving ahead.  Cancer isn't controlling me anymore.  I'm not cancer.  I'm taking control of it and moving ahead.

Today, John, Laura, Ruffy, Bernadette and their kids came over to celebrate my birthday.  It's almost May 22 so I got to celebrate being 45 a couple days early.  As I have a green light to cheat a little bit, I got a taste of "Nigel" (fantastic tasting burger) and a Hebrew National Hot Dog.  Absolutely fantastic!  Ria baked me a beautiful cake which was a checkerboard pattern.  The kids had a wonderful time running around in the lawn.  One of my best birthday parties ever considering I was in the ICU just a bit over a week ago.  John, who has been my best friend for 38 years (!!) and I had a blast watching our kids chasing each other around my parents' lawn.  I told him that 25 years ago, we wouldn't have imagined watching our kids running around.  

I still have a long ways to go.  But good days are now outnumbering the bad ones.  I thank everyone for their prayers and thoughts again.  Without them, I wouldn't have the strength to push forward.  I continue to rely on my faith to keep me strong through all of this.  To fret over the situation would be the easiest thing to do.  I won't do that.  I want to improve my life, even with the cancer that I'm totally intent on beating.   I will beat it with all of your support! 

John lighting my birthday cake

Like my compression socks?!?!