T – 29 and holding. I really didn’t think that with the first day off, sans the Holiday, I would be wishing I had received a treatment instead. In my mind the thirty three days is a long time, but when you start counting the weekends and holidays off, it adds up to fifty days. With my first week behind me and still feeling okay, it made sense that I would feel this way and want to just keep going. I suspect I may think differently down the road, but for now it’s just another day of waiting. And so, it’s Saturday night and I want to keep fighting.

I am for the most part still fighting with the notion that I should be feeling worse. After all I do have cancer. At this point it’s biggest marker has been a scratchy throat and some headaches. There is one new development. They had warned me that as the cancer progressed and the treatments along with it, I would begin to lose my sense of taste. It wouldn’t just end, but rather it would fade. As that happened, my sense of what a favorite food should taste like would confuse my brain when it had no taste. What’s worse is that it would not only trick my brain into not wanting it, but to never want it at all. Ironically, the more flavorful the food, the worse it would be. Eventually, all I will want are foods that were already bland to begin with. Well, as of tonight that effect has begun. I shared a pizza with Deb along with some cottage cheese and to top it off, a piece of pumpkin pie for dessert, with whip cream of course. Three of my favorite things, thank you Doris Day for the melody to accompany my reverie. The result, first bite of each tasted just as I expected, flavorful and enjoyable. Bite number two began a downhill slide to something tasting flat and eventually, to needing to push it aside, unfinished and unenjoyed. As much as that pained me, it had to be hard on Deb who has always been a great cook. Not many can ever rival your mother’s cooking, yet in many recipes, she does just that., sorry mom.

I am ordained to keep fighting. I will fight through days off and I will fight with foods that want to trick me. I will be taking this one bite at a time.