Updates

Wow - I haven't written in over a week. It seems like so much has happened. I flew without incident to San Diego last Monday night and got underway with the patrol boats all day Tuesday, then flew back home Tuesday night. I worked Wednesday, went to Travis for labs and then biochem class on Thursday, and ...(drumroll please)...flew to South Padre Island to visit my family on Friday. We had an awesome weekend together - it was so good to see them and to enjoy a few hours relaxing on a tropical beach =) It was awesome to swim comfortably in the ocean without a wetsuit again.

Then I flew home last night. Ryan was on duty unexpectedly and I ended up staying at a friend's house and picking him up in the morning to go to Travis for chemo. We stopped on the way to have breakfast in San Fran with a couple of my friends from the Academy that were in town for the Nike Women's marathon - they were actually running it with Team-in-Training, which raises money for leukemia and lymphoma research, which is awesome! Anyway, we had a great time at breakfast and then came back and our car was gone!!!!! San Francisco is runing a major scam - they make the signs that tell you when you can park somewhere really confusing, prowl the streets in the morning looking for victims to tow for no real logical reason other than a stupid sign, than charge you $285 plus a $70 ticket to get your car back!!! And we fell prey to the whole thing - I called the nurses while we were waiting in line with the other 20 people they had managed to victimized before 10:30 in the morning and told them what happened, and they said that by the time we got there it would be too late to do my chemo today (what?), and we could come first thing tomorrow morning. For some reason, I broke out in tears right there in the auto return place and could not stop crying all the way home. It's crazy - I guess I was mentally and emotionally prepared to have it today, and the thought of waiting and having to start all over tomorrow was suddenly overwhelming. So, we got home and it was almost noon so at this point neither of us were planning to go to work so I suggested we rent a movie and visit one of our friends who just had surgery and can't really get off the couch too much. So we did and it was a nice afternoon. We ended up having dinner at another friend's house later on in the evening so today, while completely unplanned, turned out to be a great day of just spending time with awesome people. It's not very often you get to do that all day on a Monday, so I guess I don't really have any complaints - it was a gift from above.

Tomorrow is chemo - please pray for my recovery again. I'm supposed to have a biochem midterm on Thursday, which will now probably be my worst day, so I am trying to reschedule. I think this might count as "exceptional circumstances" ???

Thank you for all your prayers and support. I am truly blessed by the people in my life.