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Things are rolling along. I am coming up on my fifth of six infusions next Friday, and the now I can allow myself the sense of relief in knowing the end is definitely in sight. I let myself start feeling glad about all that meant just this weekend, imagining a 5 o'clock shadow on my head in a mere two months instead of the fuzz halo (about 5% of my hair has curiously hung on and continued to grow, so I have about a cm of soft but extremely porcupine-ish hair) I am currently sporting. It is also with great joy I anticipate the return to more of my normal physical practices, such as hot yoga, which i have missed.

That said, thinking about having hair again is more a symptom of my curiosity and eagerness for the next phase of my cancer journey than of any strong need to have hair again. Honestly, the hair loss has not been terribly emotional for me, though it is the true beacon to the world regarding my condition (and this is a perfect time to say that yes! Eyebrows and eyelashes are still hanging in there! Miraculously.) In a way, its been helpful to be bald, because I have done so well physically that the hair becomes this very palpable reminder to both myself and the world around me that I *should* be taking a bit of extra care, even if I don't appear or feel sick.

Symptoms otherwise have been much as they were in previous infusions: I have a few sucky days with indigestion after the injection, then feel pretty damn normal after about a week. One exception, which seems to be gaining in severity now, is my sore fingernails. And let me tell you, sore fingernails are something to be considered. I have learned alternative methods for such mundane activities as peeling an orange and removing a pill from a blister pack. While annoying, this is certainly an inconvenience easily borne, though thank goodness for teeth!

Apparently, some people lose their fingernails altogether during or after chemo, though it is hard for me to imagine that happening in the coming two infusions based on where things stand currently. Right now, they are most solidly still attached, only barely discolored and range by day from being slightly tender to quite painful, though only if pressure is applied to them in any direction. It's a bit funny, really, that this would end up being the most painful part of chemo.

That, my friends, is the symptoms minutiae. My reporting them always feels a bit like a small-town police blotter, with news so very slight as to seem like I'm being sarcastic. It is awfully repetitive and I'm sorry for my readers about that, but I know my own mind's forgetfulness, and I am not only using this blog as a means to keep y'all informed, but also as a record of what I was feeling, emotionally and physically throughout this experience. Physical sensation is incredibly transitory, and I doubtless will recall little of it in six months, let alone sixteen years. So bear with me on sore fingernails until then.

Another thing I don't want to forget is how kind and awesome you all are. You, meaning the you that are reading this and many others who aren't but continue to reach out to be in healing fellowship in small and large ways.

There is no getting used to this aspect of my condition. I continue to be totally humbled and very very grateful, daily, hourly, for the sweetness and gestures of my friends and community and their steady stream of support. Though I suppose at this point I should not be surprised, it gives me a curious and happy start each time I encounter a package or card in the mail, which has been quite often these three months. The latest round of sweetness included housewares from japan, an indian copper ring with healing properties, an innovative bird call, Fijian tapa cloth and jewelry, a triad of glassbaby votive holders and a jar in which to keep my 2013 appreciations. My first appreciation, likely the foundation onto which 2013's appreciations will all be built, was for all the people who continue to take the time to send me thoughts, love, healing energy, light and, last but not least, COOL LOOT.

A delightful visit from my sister, then a dear friend and her incredibly adorable one-year-old have been the happy occupation of my previous week, which did much to help me forget that we have been having the world's shittiest winter in SLC, with a monthlong stretch of incredible cold and several snows, one of which was huge and left giant, dirty berms of snow in inopportune places which persist nearly three weeks later. As some of you may have heard via the infamy of making national news, we also have been suffering from a particularly long and severe bought of inversion smog - a topogrophy-based phenomenon where cold air is trapped by warm air above it, creating a idling-car-in-a-garage effect, writ large. For the better part of two weeks, our air has been the worst in the country, and considered hazardous not only to the old, young and infirm, but to the general population, who have been warned to not be out in it more than necessary.

This idea that one can escape from bad air inside a house has always seemed ridiculous to me, though giving myself over to the idea of continually and inescapably breathing very unhealthy air is too depressing for words. Sadly, we just got yet another 4 inches of snow this afternoon (I think this is the fifth snow in about six weeks and the novelty to this northwesterner has worn off since the second) but at least we are finally scheduled to have better air in the coming week.

For the past couple of days I've had a little scratchiness in my throat and have gone overboard with taking it easy, knowing between the inversion and the vast cornucopia of germs around me at work, I am certainly a prime candidate for incubating something right now. This evening I feel like I might have been spared what on Friday seemed very likely, though I write that while touching wood and drinking ginger lemon tea in quantity. I've hung on thus far this winter without one of the colds or viruses that seem to proliferate around me, which is something short of miraculous considering my embattled immune system. I can only supposed that the extra steps that are directed towards keeping me healthy, actually are.

It's nice when shit works like it's supposed to. Chemo, did you hear that?