Week four is now behind me and starting tomorrow I will have thirteen sessions of radiation to complete.  Though I am feeling the best I have felt in several days, chemo session number four was rough. My counts are all low now which means I am on house arrest and I am not a happy camper. Missing so many things during the holidays is tough. You can only watch so many Christmas movies before you ache to be with friends during the holidays. With every passing day another party, another get-together, another festivity has to be skipped. I begin to list all the things I am missing. And thus, I present to you my new bucket list:

Lazy Jane’s for breakfast, possibly for days in a row, a steak, medium rare and covered in mushrooms and onions, Culvers North Atlantic Cod dinner, in the restaurant, no mask, a piece of pie, any pie, with whipped cream, lots of whipped cream, a crowded room with people having conversations, going out to a movie, sipping wine on the porch of Wollersheim Winery, trying all of the food samples at Costco and savoring the flavors. Playing with my grandkids, hugging people again, being free. I suspect you understand now that this is not the normal bucket list, but the items are just as inviting as anything on my other bucket list, the one where I stand atop Machu Picchu or maybe the Great Wall of China. If and when my health and taste decide to return, watch out Madison and surrounding areas because I’m coming. I have a lot of catching up to do and I’m hungry, very hungry.