Let us now all exhale a collective sigh of relief that another post has been written.

I would say that I am not sure why I don't update more frequently, but this week I know exactly why. This week I received my second-to-last chemo treatment. No, it was not my last one, but we are almost there. After nearly eight weeks, my blood cells had finally regrown enough for me to be able to kill them all again. It's rather contradictory: just when I am finally starting to feel healthy and full of blood, I get to go and have lethal drugs injected into my system. I say lethal because they kill cells. I am pretty sure the drugs will not actually kill me. There are, however, no guarantees of this.

Wednesday morning I hopped on a bus, and twenty minutes later, I found myself at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute with a lump of dread weighing in my stomach. I was quickly admitted and given a chair. I was then moved to a bed because I needed to have a spinal tap later on in the day. Not only was this my first time getting chemo by myself, now I was in a solitary room. Oh well; it's better than the alternative. After that, my nurse poked a needle into my right arm vein. Unfortunately, this needle wasn't returning any blood, so we had to find another vein. Luckily, I had been saving up my good veins, and there was one on my other arm. Blood was drawn, hydration was given, and then the chemo began. It began with an injection into the IV, which was short and sweet. I was then hooked up to my bag of methotrexate, which was neither short nor sweet. In fact, it went in over three hours, and it was bright yellow. Time dripped away, and I finally found myself with nothing hooked up to me. Then it was the spinal tap's turn. This was to be my seventh spinal tap, a fact I am not necessarily proud of, but it's kind of hardcore. Anyway, so this spinal tap wasn't that bad, hardly any pain. The doctor (nurse? I'm not sure) went right in, drew the fluid, and replaced it with chemo straight away. She was quite speedy. I had to lie flat on my back for thirty minutes, and then I was free to go. So I went.

I went back to my apartment. I took a cab; I had gotten cab vouchers at Dana-Farber. I got back to my apartment, and within fifteen minutes, I was throwing up. I felt kind of bad for my roommate, but not really because I'm not sure he noticed. For about forty-five minutes I tried to vomit out my stomach. And then I ate some chips and slept for an hour. And then I slept twelve more.

That was Wednesday. Today is Sunday. In the meantime, I have been battling a cold, trying to study, and running around probably a bit too much. I feel fine, aside from this beastly cold. My energy isn't quite where it was, but it is pretty darn close. I am fairly sure that this is the best I have handled any chemo since I started. I actually played flag football today. We won. I scored a touchdown. It was awesome. So this is life now, I suppose. Get my drugs, and move on. I don't have time to mope around the apartment feeling ill. I have to get back to business and soon. I am excited for this week; it should be a good week. I hope everyone else has a good week as well. Good luck with life! Oh Also: Shout out to Amy who ran the Chicago Marathon a week ago. She finished, which is more than a lot of people could say last Sunday. She ran with Team in Training, who raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and I guess they raised a Ton of money. Thank you Amy!!! Good luck with your recovery. Anyway, that's all. Peace.