Approaching My First "Birthday"

It's been an adventurous few weeks, and I mean that in a good way. I'll get to that in a moment but first some thoughts on where we are.

In just shy of two weeks - 3/16/24 - I'll mark my first "birthday." One year post transplant. It's gone by quickly and crawled by all the same. Going back to the summer of 2022 when my indolent little follicular lymphoma transformed into a nastier not-so little diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, it's also been an adventure. Four rounds of chemotherapy, not counting the conditioning chemotherapy, brand new donor stem cells, four weeks in the hospital, 100 days of relative isolation, and 12 months of gradually lifting restrictions. But as I noted in my last post, I feel as close to normal as I've felt since this all began. And that is a good thing. A very good thing.

This is what I have to focus on. How I feel today and not how I felt or what might happen. That is what living in the present is all about. And really, that's the only place you can live, right? In a week, I'll get the usual bloodwork, plus PET/CT scans and 7 or so immunizations. And I'm understandably a little anxious about what the scans might say, but it will be what it will be. Meanwhile, back in the present, this weekend  I ran about a mile and a half without any issues and that's a marked improvement over where I was a month ago. And this comes after two trips each to New York City and Bethlehem, PA (Lehigh University) filled with a long list of first-in-a-years. The adventure began with a newly discovered need for Noah to visit the Spanish consulate office to submit paperwork in person for his summer study abroad/internship program in Barcelona.  

Because Noah goes to school in PA and his permanent residence in RI, we could go to the consulate in Boston (easy) or New York (less easy), except that Boston didn't have any appointments for more than a month. So a trip to New York was our only option (twice, it turns out, but that's another story).  While the teeming nature of the city can be a lot, it is the undisputed home of the best pizza and bagels, both of which made appearances on my menu in the last two weeks. And since Matt lives only an hour away from Noah, it gave me an excuse to visit him, too. So for the first time since I can remember, I enjoyed a couple of nice dinners at a restaurant indoors, made all the better by the company. (See photos below).

It was a lot of driving to be sure, but I've always loved road trips, and I love driving in Manhattan, and just being in New York City. More to the point, as my brother said, as much effort as this might have taken, it's great that I can do these things now. Not something I could have done even a few months ago. But something that is completely possible today. This too, feels a lot like living in the present.

I have to admit that this return to social activities is both exciting and a little bit jarring. After living in this state of mostly isolation, emerging from the protective cocoon as I've been doing over these past weeks is occasionally unsettling. I'm not quite jumping on mass transportation just yet, but even that too will happen soon enough. After all, someone has to go visit Noah in Barcelona this summer. Might as well be me.  

The boys at Matt's apartment

Noah, pre-dinner, at the
Apollo Grill in Bethlehem, PA

Matt, Noah and at
dinner (and yes a beer!)
 in Ardmore, PA