Hair at 20 weeks, home town revival.

, We are living in Seattle as of three weeks ago. We still don't have a place to live: the rental scene is so hot here we thought we might do well to explore buying. As you may know, the buying market is also very hot, with things going way above asking price, multiple bids within the first day of listing, etc.  This, we are finding, is a challenge, because it may take us awhile (recently took good friends 19 months to find a house) and we need to simultaneously find a rental where we would feel comfortable  for two years *if* we end up not buying. 

So for now, we are in my parents' basement. 

The good news is Gus does not want to eat my parents' dog, Toby.

As you can see in the final photo, my hair is officially long enough to be messy now! It has passed the threshold of shortness I called "Women's Studies Professor" into "Russian Orphan Boy".   I like it. 

I've been getting lots of compliments on it from strangers, which is fun. It's nice for it not to be the beacon of recent radical hair revolution in the way that it has been.

In other recent news, I have a contract job here. It's very part time, and it's auction consulting (something I hoped to evolve my skills beyond with the MBA) but I really love the organization and team and I'm lucky to be working as I hit the ground. I need to be working a lot more (especially with real estate on the horizon) soon but I'm allowing myself a couple of months to network and see what the scene is like in Seattle.

I also officially returned to the hot room for my yoga practice. Well, it's not as hot as the yoga I practiced for six years before I was diagnosed, which is typically a 90 minute asana series practiced at around 105 degrees. Several folks I know and trust have cautioned me that extreme heat may not be what the doctor ordered in my case.  However, I have missed it. There is a certain depth and cleansed feeling of the heat and the sweating that I have not been able to replicate with another practice (granted, I haven't tried that many other modalities... and I am completely open to there being something I like better out there if I kept looking)

Anyway, not knowing where we would be living, I noted that there was a hot yoga studio across from the building where I am consulting. In a coup of good timing, this studio was offering an unbeatable groupon for two months of unlimited yoga AND my dear friend and stellar yogini Sarah G. is teaching there. SCORE! 

I've practiced 8 times over two weeks and feel my body beginning to come back into its previous flexibility. The implant feels super weird when I am belly down, and the left side chest is a bit tight, but other than that, I feel like my core strength is there, just waiting to be reconditioned. 

I've not had any side effects since about 6 weeks after my last infusion (or fourteen weeks ago) and have only just needed to get back in shape since then. 

 I think I have a very bouncy constitution, but we'll see about that. Though believing this does count for something, I have my first visit with my new oncologist on Monday (my mom's oncologist, Dr. E.) and an MRI after that. This is the higher-grade imaging that will show if my cancer was indeed eradicated by the treatments.  

Yea, looking forward to that.