Good Medicine

The skies cleared, and armed with my new handicapped parking permit, John and I headed to Encore Park for the Steve Winwood/Tom Petty concert. It was as good as I had hoped. I stood through most of Petty's set, and never felt overly fatigued. I am not sure that I could have handled this on any other night besides a Wednesday, as it's the farthest day from the chemo treatment. So the timing gods were definitely on my side.

John and I are both long time Winwood fans. He played several Traffic songs, which are my favorite, and he played a couple of songs with Petty. Tom Petty is amazing. He looks funny, he talks funny, but he creates music that rocks my world, and I am clearly not alone in that sentiment. And he doesn't even break a sweat. His only hard work is finding songs that the audience doesn't know every word to. In fact, he went back to his Mud Crutch days to find something that the audience couldn't sing along with. I'm not sure why the music of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is so appealing to so many. Perhaps other avid fans who I know are out there can do a better job of articulating a reason.

There are several other good news items on the agenda. First, today was my third chemo treatment. Three down, four to go. The effects are cumulative, so I am expecting the weekends to be rough, but so far so good. I still have my hair (more about that later), and my good spirits. And, surprisingly, my appetite returned this week. I have been eating like a normal person. Or at least the way I normally eat. Two days this week I had eggs for breakfast, and I have probably eaten an egg for breakfast only one other time since my diagnosis. I have a healthy appetite for lunch and dinner. I am savoring my food now, instead of shoving it in with a grimace. This is a huge improvement.

Now for the hair. I am really not happy about this issue. Nothing screams CANCER PATIENT! like a bald head on a woman. Right now I have the option of revealing my situation, or not. For those of you who have not seen me lately, I look like Elyse at her "fighting" weight, which is not a bad thing. Last night at the concert, a woman struck up a conversation with me in between sets. We had a pleasant chat, which I enjoyed. If I'm bald, I doubt that I will have the option of chatting idly. Which I enjoy. Once I lose my hair, there will be no escaping the diagnosis, wherever I go.

I have one other matter to address. Princesses like good seats at concerts. This Princess loves good, solid rock and roll, but would pass on a lousy seat to Springsteen, and would not even consider lawn seats at Chastain. This is the same Princess who loves to camp out, but does not like shlepping her dry bag from the raft to the camp site. She loves the outdoors, but does not mind guides cooking her dinner. Or even pitching her tent. As you may have guessed, our seats last night were less than stellar, and they were not inexpensive. So please, if you have suggestions for scoring good tickets at prices that won't make me gasp, and you are willing to share this information with your unconnected-in-the-rock-world friend, I will be eternally grateful. (Please, no jokes about the eternal thing).

I'm bracing myself for a rough weekend, but on balance, life, such as it is, is good.

xoxoxoox