March 19, 2021

What to write about? What’s on my mind? Well alot of different things. Today is a beautiful day. The sun is shining….but a little cool. But I will take the sunshine. Thank you…thank you…thank you. I am so grateful for that. I was looking at Facebook last night and was struck by a post from a parent of a former student of mine. It was his 20th birthday. He passed away in early March of 2017 from leukemia. As much loss that was felt by his passing I am certain that even more excitement was felt at the gates of heaven when he passed through them. He was such a great young man. I made sure to convey that to his sweet parents last night and they replied with ….”he always said that you were the ‘GREATEST TEACHER’ of all time”. That of course made me proud and sad all in the same blink of an eye. I miss teaching and all the kids that touched my life and having the opportunity to touch their lives in one way or the other. Even though I wasn’t ready for my career to end….I do know that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes those reasons don’t reveal themselves as quick as we would like…but they will reveal themselves when the time is right. Patience…patience…patience. I had my 9th month post chemo checkup with my neuro last week. It was a good visit. I spent quite a bit of time hashing out the upcoming round in May. I will have a long day that day…..but it’s doable. I so enjoy how he takes his time with me and answers every question that I have and even some that I haven’t thought of until the conversation takes me to it. I will have an early MRI, then bloodwork, evaluation, a lumbar puncture and if everything is good I will then have my first dose before heading home. This time I know what to expect. Last time I went into the treatment pretty blind…even though I researched it and read everything I could on Mavenclad. I had hopes that I would fly through the chemo treatment with flying colors….but Mavenclad had other things in mind for me. I think I might have tricked myself into thinking….because it hit me so HARD, then it will really just completely restart my system better than anything else will. I am hopeful that these next two rounds are easy as pie….but I am quite aware of what can happen. So I will attempt to be strong, lean on my family, friends and medical staff, God and pray like the dickens that all goes well. As I am sitting here typing I am watching our senior dog (Wilson) try his hardest to get up on his feet to walk over to me. So after much struggle and grunting and huffing and puffing he has gotten up and walked over to me…all of about 5 feet. He is sitting at my feet and staring up at me with his cloudy little eyes (I think most of his sight is gone) and quite literally smiling at me. So I pet him on the head and gave him a little scratch behind the ears and now he is a happy little guy……now resting at my feet for his one millionth nap today. Another reason to be grateful…..we have another day with him. So even though I babble on and on at times I want to always remind myself and others to always find one thing to be grateful for each day…no matter how small it is. Spring symbolizes new life and growth…I wish that for all. God Bless.