cancer – day 42
7AM
Interesting realization talking with my old buddy Phil. He basically commented that I look more serene than I did at the Winter Meeting in January and I thought about it a moment and realized that, well, since I can’t travel again for eight or nine months and I’ll be living at Mark’s and my life is pretty much dictated from now until next January/February already. But now that it’s all settled, it’s actually strangely calming to have the stability of knowing that. Weird. I don’t know that I’ve ever really felt like that, I’ve always been ready for things to change, which is a different kind of life than this one of the chemo-girl who can have a controlled life but not a crazy one.
11:30PM
Wow, people continue to amaze me. After skipping half of the afternoon sessions today to nap because I was too tired to keep up all the interactions, I was starting to think I shouldn’t have come to the CSCMP Leadership Forum this year (I could have fairly easily gotten someone else to give the presentation I’m doing tomorrow), but now, tired as I am, I’m glad I suffered through the travel pain and was here. I was starting to question why I come to this, because I was meeting the typical I’m-really-only-here-to-advance-my-career types, which definitely turn me off. (There was one woman in particular that bothered me, I was sitting down trying to eat and she was walking around “networking” and she introduced herself to me and proceeded to tell me why she’s so important to CSCMP and press me to validate that for her, ach, annoying.) But then I had these conversations tonight, and felt like it was worth the effort to travel to Chicago for this. People continue to amaze me. I had a motivational conversation with Kathleen tonight, turns out she’s a 5-year breast cancer survivor, and I’ve always thought she’s a wonderful person, so now we’re talking not just wonderful but generally amazing given what she’s survived with great attitude. And Candice . . . well, suffice to say that I feel a kindred spirit there, which I have always felt, but somehow now it seems more valuable, because there don’t seem to be as many go-getters in “The AC” as there used to be so we have to stick together! I also had a really nice (albeit short) conversation with Richard about his son’s three years of chemo, and an interesting conversation with Rick Blasgen about how this is really a test and happened now for a reason. Last but not least I have to give credit to Phil Marlowe for being a good and true old friend that I couldn’t have gotten through this Forum without (even though he doesn’t have time to read my blog to know he’s being thanked). You know it’s a dull speaker when you’re texting all your buddies in other parts of the room to stay awake. I’m bummed I will probably have to miss the Conference in October this year even though it’s in Denver and darn close to home. That’s during, like, the fifth cycle of my chemo and I’ve been told not to expect to feel well at all by that point, but I have to wonder now, could I maybe be well enough to just go to the roundtable officers events on Sunday, and not necessarily stay for the conference? Maybe I could visit my cousin Dan and his wife Heather on the way, since I’d need to drive or have a ride, since my doctors say not to fly because of the risk of infection from people with colds/etc. cooped up together on an airplane.