I am lying in bed in my sister Laura’s guest room in Austin, Texas. My nephew Eli just awakened me with a cup of coffee (room service!). Then his brother Hale came in to show me a boat that he constructed out of a cereal box—once I haul myself out of bed he wants to launch it in their pool out back.
I can hear my brother-in-law Andy and my nephew Max going over some last minute preparations—in a couple of hours we will be attending Max’s Bar Mitzvah ceremony.
This dose of family is just what my spirit needed. It has been a jam-packed and somewhat crazy few weeks: the trip to San Francisco with my gang of friends from high school–back home for two days and dinner with Peter Duff at Exeter–a weekend in Santa Monica for the first GRACE conference for ALK-ers (those of us with ALK mutations)–two more quick days home and the beginning of treatment (Xalkori) and now, Austin.
Photos and more complete updates are forthcoming, but in the meantime I’ve barely had time to catch my breath. It’s all good though—each inhale and exhale both.
life and breath: outliving lung cancer 