Getting back to life

Last Thursday was a milestone for me.  After taking a sick day on Wednesday due to nausea and cramping, I ate lunch on Thursday.  It was the first time I felt good enough to eat lunch in a few days.  From there, each day has gotten better, although I'm still taking anti-nausea meds.

However, I'm no longer skipping meals (good or bad, I'm not sure), and I'm able to sleep through the night without being awakened by nausea.

I managed to ski both days this weekend, although I didn't cover much terrain on Sunday due to crazy weather.  I left my house early due to icy roads and an air temperature of 30F.  Driving was slow, and I had to use my alternate (longer) route to Sugarbush.  As I got close to the mountain, the air temperature went from 30F to 46F in a matter of minutes.  It started to rain hard and the winds picked up.

Only 2 hours later, the opposite happened, as the temperatures started to plummet again.  By the time I left the mountain, only 3 hours after I arrived, it was 36F and snowing.  On my drive home, the temperature dropped to 31F and it was 0F by this morning.  So, in 48 hours, we went from 0F to 46F to 0F.

Regretfully, the brief warm period and the pouring rain that came with it really destroyed our amazing start to ski season.  Natural snow trails that had been amazing are suddenly a mix of ice and dirt, and they are mostly closed.  The trails that aren't closed and that aren't groomed are now bulletproof ice.

Such is winter in New England (yeah, it's not technically winter yet).

But, the good thing is that I was able to ski 2 days in a row after a very rough week.  Last night, I even felt up to having a little Champagne as we decorated our Christmas tree.  We had waited longer than normal to put up a tree this year, wanting to wait until our daughter was home from Syracuse after her first semester as a freshman.

Tonight, I plan to do CrossFit.  It is a squat night, and after 20 days away from the barbell, I will lift very lightly.  My muscles might be strong enough to lift heavier than I will, but if I do that, I will be too sore to even walk for the rest of the week.  So, I plan to ease back into CF these next 2 weeks.

Lastly, speaking of CrossFit, members of our gym set up a fundraiser for my wife and me, to help us pay our transportation costs for my treatments at Sloan Kettering.  The response has been overwhelming in just one week.  At times, the kindness of others has honestly left me in tears.  I'm not sure what I've ever done to deserve such kindness, and I often say that it's my wife that people are supporting, rather than me.  I know that's not really true, but I have been touched beyond belief by all of the kindness we have received in the past 15 months.

While I would never say that I'm a religious person, the only word I can think of to describe how I feel is blessed.  We've had so much help from friends, ranging from a few great meals in Manhattan, a Broadway show, a night in the Waldorf Astoria with a high school friend (well, truly a lifelong friend), help from my brother, help from my skiing co-workers, and now, help from our gym friends (and others who have contributed so much).

I am reminded of a quote from Edgar Allen Poe's Mesmeric Revelation, and I'll finish with that:

"Never to have suffered would never to have been blessed."