a milestone passed

I am half way through the third phase of my treatment. The 30-weeks of hell one, you remember. The crazy part is that there are weeks or days when I have energy and hope and then equal parts when I am crippled and depressed. Well, whether or not it is really hell, I'm glad to say that 15 weeks have passed and I'm looking down the hill on the other side.
The past few days have been especially pleasant, as the weather here cools and my body and I played a trick on my doctors last Wednesday. You see, I made it so my blood counts were pretty low and awful so they couldn't shoot me up with chemo and steroids, BUT the numbers were only a smidgen below what the protocol allows for. In other words, I feel pretty good AND I only had to have the L-aspariganase (sp?) chemo this week. (Alright, the truth is I have no control over my counts whatsoever. Usually, in fact, I feel the exact opposite of what the test results show. I'll be happy and hyper and the nurses will rush in with a blood transfusion wondering how on earth I even walked myself in there. Sometimes I wonder about modern medicine, ya know?)

A lot of people have raised eyebrows at my severe reaction to certain drugs I am on (most likely 6-mercaptopurine), so they ran a test to see if I might have a gene mutation that makes me allergic. Apparently, since ALL is most often a children's disease, they run this test before treating any of those lucky kids. What a good idea! For adults, they wait until symptoms show. Anyway, I hereby declare that I am in fact a mutant. For now, my powers are latent but I'm sure that they will reveal themselves soon. Maybe telekinesis? Extreme speed? Spaghetti out of my fingertips? Who knows. But here's a free tip: now's the time to make amends if you have ever wronged me...

What else is up? Jaci and I have joined our local Brighton YMCA and go every day. (we joined two days ago and have gone twice- yeah!) I am so so so happy to discover that I can swim pretty much as well as ever and I love the refreshing healing feeling of the water. If it weren't for all the screaming children and the cavernous warehouse feeling of the indoor pool, I might even experience some kind of womb-like regression therapy. Does that exist? If it did, I would try it.

I tried reiki the other day. The wonderful woman at the hospital basically put her soothing but firm hands on my head, shoulders, stomach, and legs and used her energy to try and build my own healing energies and alleviate pain. We invited my Mom and sister to be in the room too and they closed their eyes and tried to send me visions and memories of when I was well and happy. I enjoyed the experience very much and hope to learn so much more about the incredible and undeniable mind-body connection.

As for the Murray Inn Registry: Jaci had some QT in Florida with her friend, Anita, Jamie has returned back to LA, Luke flew off to Berlin for the month, Mom spent a lovely weekend with us, Jaci bussed to NYC and fell in love with it, Jaci's back, Jaci and I plan to go to DC on the 19th so we can attend Aaron Resnick's wedding and see some sights. Will anyone who reads this be there that weekend? Lemme know.

That's all for now. Oh! Except my new favorite song is Easy Silence by the Dixie Chicks, who we saw from 4th row seats a few Saturdays ago.
Yeah, who's sick, who?