I’m back and settled in to my second home.  I have been blessed once again with a single room – an answer to prayer.

I’m already on my second (of five) day of chemo and so far so good.  It’s still early so there is no expectation of any side effects just yet.  Just a little nausea which is unavoidable.  The big stuff will kick in next week.

They have an exercise group which they are selling as a research project.  Transplant patients can go outside and walk and stretch three days a week.  I understand that exercise and motion are important to the recovery, and I’m looking forward to the fresh air (but not the icy sidewalks) – but I don’t believe that it’s really a research project.  I think they call it that so that men will consider joining.  Nobody wants to exercise with a bunch of cancer patients, not even other cancer patients.  But we know it’s important and I guess being part of a research project, doing your part for science is enough of an excuse to get men to join in.  It wasn’t for me, but May “encouraged” me to join and I hate to let her down.

I’m still supposed to eat my way through this.  So far I’m doing OK. I realized last night that the Norwegian dish fiskegrateng tastes a lot like a cheap crabcake with no Old Bay.  Fiskegrateng is basically a crabcake, but with white fish instead of crab meat- cooked in a baking form.  It’s actually not bad and I think if I could add a little old bay and mustard, and close my eyes, I could easily pretend I was eating a grocery store crabcake.  I’ll let you know next week when fiskegrateng day rolls around again.

Besides thinking about eating cheap crabcakes I spend my days reading, studying and watching a few series. Life is pretty for the moment – all things considered.